What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,16

with her announcement, totally missing how rocked Claudia felt about her leaving permanently.

Mona Bradley had been in talks with May about May filling in more and eventually taking over as a partial owner of the shop, but now was not the time to step up the timetable, with the wedding season upon them. Despite wanting to tell their mom to please wait until September or after, Claudia had sent Zoe to talk with their uncle (and lawyer) to see what it would take to allow Mona to retire. Normally, Claudia would have jumped at the chance to see Uncle Al, but her schedule was filled to the limit.

How she thought she was going to fit in a romance—or even some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement—was beyond her. Quite honestly, she told herself, she had waited this long, she could wait a little bit longer.

The grandfather clock in the corner of the cake shop struck three, and Claudia waited expectantly for Justin to come in after getting off the bus.

Cleaning up the counter over the front display case, Claudia hoped it had been a good day. They had a good streak of days coming, as far as she was concerned, to make up for the crappy ones recently. In fact, she planned on running by him the idea of going to the batting cages after dinner on Friday. Maybe it would keep the good mood rolling.

Her son came hustling through the door as the last gong struck. He was full of chatter and actually hugged her before throwing his bag behind the counter.

Claudia struggled for a moment with what to do. He knew he was supposed to put his backpack into the small office so things were not a mess in the shop, but they were having such a good day, with his mouth going a mile a minute. Did she really want to potentially ruin this little piece of bliss they were experiencing? Ten years of mothering by herself kicked in, though, and she just couldn’t let it slide.

“Hey, bud, you need to pick up that bag and put it in the office, okay?” she said with a smile on her face, hoping it would keep the mood light.

A scowl briefly flickered over Justin’s face before he picked up the backpack and trudged into the office.

At least there hadn’t been a blowup or a meltdown. She would have bet her odds were only 50/50 on either outcome.

He came back out just as Nate, dressed in another pair of low-slung jeans and a tight, white T-shirt, came strolling through the door. The outfit was so like yesterday that all the spit dried up in her mouth. Why had she never realized how very sexy her best friend was? How had he been hiding under her nose this whole time? Was she really that blind? Part of her desperately wanted him to notice her in the same way after all these years. The other part of her knew she was so going to hell for lusting after him—astounding abs or not.

“Hey, Claudia.” Nate smiled, and something started to simmer down below. Justin came tearing across the room at that moment, like freezing water on her libido parade.

She still hadn’t justified how she could go after Nate when it might put Justin’s relationship with him in jeopardy. But those dimples were making it not seem to matter so much.

Justin was again talking a mile a minute, so Claudia couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Here was the boy she liked to remember instead of the sullen almost-teenager who had taken over her son’s body.

“So, anyway,” Justin said, all innocent eyes. “When are you going to take me to the batting cages again?”

Claudia sighed. He knew better than to invite himself to stuff, and hadn’t she just thought to take him to the batting cages herself?

She jumped in before Nate could say a word. “Hon, Nate is working on the store and has several other sites going. He probably doesn’t have time right now. But I made time Friday night, and I was going to take you myself.” He might need the distraction if he had to be in the same room with his absentee sperm donor.

She didn’t blame him for the skepticism on his face. She hadn’t been doing much with him lately beyond making dinner and telling him to do his homework. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit it was because he was being a pain in the ass.