Courtship of the Cake by Jessica Topper

every day.” Eddie blew out a breath, hypnotized. Derek was still clapping and laughing, doing a little jig in the street as it emptied.
    â€œSeriously.” My bow tie was in my hand. “Cover for me?” In some kind of trance of my own, I also shed my penguin coat, tossing both to Eddie and running to catch up with the parade before I even had time to consider what I was doing.
    I had to find out who the girl in the emerald dress was.
    Actually, it was more like an absinthe green; I had been mixing icing colors in my aunt and uncle’s bakery since the tender age ofthirteen and learned there were more hues of color out there in the world than there were moods. I had the feeling that, like the drink, just a taste of that girl would intoxicate me. You could tell her spirit was potent.
    â€œYou got this, my boy!” Derek called after me. “Jump in the line!”

Dani
    MEET AND GREET

    â€œCan you even see the end of the line? I thought the signing was supposed to end by noon.”
    I craned my neck and stood on my tiptoes. People snaked through the music section and around the entire first-floor perimeter of Manhattan’s flagship mega-book and media store. The guys had been at it since ten o’clock, and there was no way they’d get through all those people on time.
    â€œRelax, Dani.” Riggs chomped on the end of a plastic coffee stirrer. “The band’s doing great.”
    Eager fans shuffled forward with CDs in hand as the musicians reached across the table, Sharpies in hand. It was like some weird mating dance, an exchange of commerce and pleasantries. The dreaded in-store meet and greet. Last chance for the band to be promo whores before their weeklong forced hiatus began.
    â€œI’m totally relaxed, Riggs. And it’s not the band I’m worried about.”
    Nash was at the end of the row. The pièce de résistance that everyone clamored toward, the singer they wanted to linger with. It wasn’thappening. Fans got a quick hello from their favorite performer, and a riot act from the tour manager: no pictures with him, please; no touching, one item to sign. Then they were handed off to a store employee, who directed them toward the escalator for a nice latte in the café, or a new book to go along with their beating heart and fleeting fantasies.
    I sighed, wondering how long they’d let the line get before someone had the sense to cut it off. And I wondered how much work I’d have later on, massaging the cramps from Nash’s fingers as he signed his name over and over and over again. He was the only one I was worried about.
    It was my new job to worry about him.
    Go Get Her’s front man slouched in his chair with typical rock star panache, like an exotic creature that didn’t necessarily belong under the harsh fluorescent lighting of corporate chain store America, but like he knew he owned the attention. Yet I could see every once in a while, he’d shift his scapulae, shoulder blades sliding up and down his back. Like a powerful, injured bird in captivity, testing the strength of his wingspan and waiting for the right moment to break free.
    Noon couldn’t come soon enough.
    â€œWe’re in a bookstore, for fuck’s sake.” Riggs turned on me, made impatient by my resulting sigh. “You’re telling me you can’t entertain yourself for another hour?”
    Of course I could. I could take a wander through Fiction and Literature to see if anything held a candle to the stacks of paper sitting unpublished on Jax’s writing desk. Or through the Psychology and Behavior section, to count the number of times my parents’ names appeared on the spines of the tomes there. I’m sure that deep within the indices and tables of contents, my headshrinker parents would have strong opinions about just what the hell I had gotten myself into.
    Engaged within two months of meeting him, Dani?
Seriously?
    My mom would