Beyond Love

Shortcake

[Xander]

"Conference?" I scanned the fancy, digitalized invitation. "Sounds more like a tea party to me."

"U-um, you're not wrong," Chip laughed sheepishly. "It's an annual thing. They select and invite thirteen bakers to bring a batch of their one best product to the event. Like a buffet! Everyone gets to try the best-sellers from bakeries across the state."

I frowned. "Really? Wow, that's...why the hell didn't they invite you sooner?" Giselle laughed over the breakfast table and Chip pouted, looking away sheepishly.

"Their standards are really high, Xan." He handed over the second serving of pancakes I'd wanted. "W-we, well, we've got a long way to go. I'm just glad Mr. Dempsey gave us the opportunity!"

I reached over to poke his cheek. "I'm sure they'll love anything you make. It's just...I've got a bad feeling. As usual."

"You mean the review that Mr. Dempsey wrote?" Chip's shoulders fell, and he looked a little upset himself. "Can't be helped. It was his honest opinion...m-maybe he does have very high standards of taste. Besides, he complimented our hot cross buns!" He cheered up all of a sudden, showing me the digital copy that he'd received from Shea.

He pointed at the last sentence and began to read it aloud. "They...at the very least, know how to make good hot cross buns!" My husband peered up at me. "See? It's...it's not all that bad."

"Hm," I was surprised by this. If Dempsey was hired by competitors to write bad reviews of Chip's bakery, it would be strange to include compliments as well. "I guess you have a point. Sorry Angel, I'm probably overthinking but the invitation sounded suspicious."

"Th-that's okay," he reached up to touch my hair (or pat my head, it was hard to differentiate), only able to do so because we were sitting down. "I was surprised as well! After all, why would he extend the invitation to a bakery that he didn't particularly like? But, well...maybe he was feeling grateful about the other day. You know, when we took care of Vanilla."

I shrugged.

"Well, there are a ton of ideas I have going around in my head on how things could take a bad turn but I'll try not to think of them."

Chip handed Giselle a napkin to wipe her mouth before sliding a glass of homemade strawberry smoothie in front of her plate. "You do that. It's actually exciting—a tea party! I've never been invited to tea parties. O-or...parties, in general," he finished quietly, playing with his fingers.

"Good. You know what people do at parties? They gobble up people like you," I went over to his side of the dining table and peered over his head at the screen of his laptop. "When is it anyway?"

He scrolled down to display the date and venue. "Oh, it's on a Saturday."

"Yeah, and I have guard duty," I lowered my gaze to meet his, ruffling his hair.

Chip was confused. "Wait, since when did you have another job? You didn't tell me!"

"Sorry Angel, I thought you knew about the oath I'd taken to protect a bunny named Chip Honeycutt," I leaned down to kiss his forehead and watch him get the joke.

My husband let out a high-pitched 'ugh'—like he would always do whenever I said something of similar calibre—before using his hands to cover his cheeks that were blushing. "Th-that was! Go awaaay..."