Bond (Klein Brothers 1)

There, spoken like a true professional.

Then an idea hit me. “What about doing a tiered one every Monday for us to display and serve from, but doing two layered cakes every two days? Our bookings are almost full for the next two months, and we’re taking calls for the ones following those. If we reassess it every two weeks, we’ll be able to make sure we have enough available for the customers.”

Did that even make sense? It sounded like it had to me, but given that Canon and Heidi were both frowning at me now, maybe not?

And then she said something that changed it all completely.

“I make things other than cakes.”

Two hours later, and after a lot of discussion about cakes without the benefit of eating any, we were finally wrapping up. I don’t think any of us had expected the meeting to go on for as long as it had, but it seemed like we’d achieved something during it.

Heidi was a master at desserts—that’s what it boiled down to. We’d struggled to find a dessert chef for Kleins and had concluded we might have to wait to be put some on the menu, which would affect our marketability.

Mom had a friend who’d agreed to help us for a few months, on the proviso we found someone to do it full-time as soon as possible. That’s why Katy had suggested us trying one of Heidi’s cakes when she had, and now it looked like we might well have what we’d always dreamed of having—a business that brought people together in a relaxed atmosphere with the best food from start to finish.

Yes, we’d come up with the plan when we were kids and were thinking more along the lines of a trampoline park, which had then morphed into a sports bar when we were teenagers, but we’d achieved it anyway.

Kleins was also a mixture of our Jamaican and German roots and American nationality, but it’d just turned into something so much more with the agreement we’d struck with Heidi. We had different specials from around the world on the menu, some staples from home, and now we had ‘artisan cakes and pastries.’

We’d just finished dissecting the ingredients of each cake Heidi made when I remembered what I’d wanted to ask at the meeting.

“Hey, do you think you’d be able to make some that are specifically for Kleins?”

Heidi sat back and rubbed her lips together as she thought about it. “As in, they’re a signature for the restaurant, and I don’t sell them anywhere else?” When I nodded, she shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t see why not. I had the same in my contract with some of the high-profile clients on my resume.”

“We have someone who creates specialty cocktails for us every month, all of which are made for Kleins and suit the menu for the month. Would that be something you could do?” I pressed.

“Absolutely. Now that I know how often you’ll need them to be delivered, I can work my schedule around it. Creating a unique flavor or decoration each month isn’t an issue. I have two whole notebooks of cakes I’ve thought up and never made.”

And that’s where a beautiful business relationship began. Not only would we have something being served in the restaurant that nowhere else in the region had, but we’d also have our own signature desserts.

And I’d be getting to see more of Heidi because of it.

Chapter Three

Heidi

After collecting Nemi from my parents’ house, I decided it’d be fun to go and see my sister to tell her the news.

I hadn’t gone to culinary school or taken a course on baking in my life, it’d always been a sort of hobby thanks to my friend in South Africa’s mom, who’d been the queen of artisan cakes.

When we’d moved back here, I’d kept in touch with her and continued learning from her via emails and video chats until she’d died of cancer when I was nineteen. I missed her to this day, and I knew she’d be proud of me for creating what I had out of something we’d both loved.

When I hit twenty, word of mouth had started to get around about them, and the hobby had become a business. After that, I’d still been a small fish in a large pond, but then I’d made a cake for the sister of the CEO of a large leather goods manufacturer, and since then, I’d been sought out by big stores, sports teams, and companies to create for them.

In all fairness, I’d done enough business that baking them had paid for my studies in New York. I wouldn’t say I’d excelled at my business major, but I’d passed, and now had enough knowledge to help me with my own business.

Initially, it’d been an ego stroke and a blast, but after a while, the fun had been sucked out of it, and the pressure to produce and perform to such a large degree had gotten too much, so I’d scaled down the business. Ironically, companies then offered to pay more, so I’d gained financially instead of taking a hit.