Half Baked Hearts | ✔

23. I Have Layers

My everything was sore the next day. Getting through my shift at my dad's office was painful. Luckily, I wasn't alone. Nessa also moved stiffly and with less enthusiasm than usual.

We still weren't talking. The whole thing started to feel really dumb. Daisy was right, fighting with my best friend was the worst.

I wanted to ask her about what she and Lorenzo did after she drop Nate and I off. I wanted to tell her that Nate and I stayed up well past midnight messaging about baking and skating and random stuff that popped into our heads.

Then I'd remember how she reacted in the car. Would she even be happy for me or would she think I was setting myself to fail? I didn't want her to ruin the high I got from talking to Nate.

So, I didn't speak to her. I just answered the phone a did my filing in silence.

When lunch rolled around my first thought was that I got to see Nate at Cake Me Up. He must've been thinking about me too because he texted as I was about leave the office.

Nate: Want to meet up at our spot?

Me: Our spot?

Apparently, our spot was the tree in the park where we decided to do Bake-A-Palooza together. Nate was already there, lost in his game as always. I sat next to him in the shade of the tree, peeking at the screen. I was surprised to see cute little animals walking across the screen.

"Wow," I said and he looked up at me. "I was expecting gun fire and explosions."

His lips curled into a smile. "I have layers."

"Okay, Shrek, what'd you wanna meet for?"

"I needed a taste tester." He pulled a container from his backpack.

I couldn't make out what I was looking at when he removed the lid. It looked like a smashed up cake and smelled like strawberries. "What is this?"

"A Swiss roll with strawberry filling," he said, confidently.

My gaze shifted from the container to Nate. "Did you drop it? And then dance on it?"

The Swiss roll was one of the three recipes I wanted to teach him if we got into to the competition. The fact that he went ahead and tried it on his own made me happy.

"These aren't easy to make. Especially the rolling part." He laughed, scratching his beard. "Why are you smiling so hard?"

"Because this proves you're a human with flaws," I exclaimed, telling only half the truth. "Honestly, if you came here with a perfect Swiss roll, I would've become very violent."

"Well, now I'm glad I dropped it and danced on it before you got here," he said, pushing the container at me. "You still need to try it though."

I did try it, using my fingers since he neglected to bring any sort of utensil. The cake was a little dry and the consistency of the filling was off, but it wasn't too bad for a first attempt. When I told him as much, I thought he'd be offended, but he simply shrugged and grabbed a piece of the dessert.

"Well, we have time to practice and a whole industrial kitchen to practice in," he said, leaning back on his hands.

"What do you mean?"

"Your aunt said she was closing up the shop for the week," he told me, frowning. "She didn't tell you?"

I shook my head. Why would she close up for the week? One thing flashed into my mind. What if she was taking one of her gambling trips?

"Hey," Nate nudged my shoe with his, catching my attention. "Everything is gonna work out."

He sounded so confident I didn't want to question it. Still, there was a nagging in the back of my mind that wouldn't completely go away. The stuff Lynn said, the missing collection box, that site of inmates. My aunt was in some type of trouble and I had a feeling it wasn't something that could be fixed with positive thinking.