—Should've Been My Win—

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JENNIE

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The next morning I'm still sort of floating on the high of last night's win. I have to say, I'm feeling pretty damn awesome right now. I continue riding that same fabulous wave all the way in to work. Everything is awesome. Nothing can ruin my fantastic mood, not even the fact that I haven't slept much.

I find a box sitting on the front step and carry it inside with me. I don't recognize the name of the company, but maybe Rosé ordered something for our next event as a surprise.

I pluck a pair of scissors from the jar next to the cash register, sliding it carefully along the seam.

Before I have a chance to open it, the back doors swing open and Yoshi wheels a cart of boxes down the hall. "Hey! You're here early!" He's smiling, but he looks tired.

The scissors clatter to the floor, narrowly missing my foot. "Geez! You scared the crap out of me. I expected you to be long gone by now."

"I had to shift around some deliveries because of the holiday." Yoshi has had to do that a lot more recently. Either dropping off cupcakes in the evening, or coming in extra early so he can get specialty ones done for me. A few times it's been down to the wire.

Yoshi agreed to help me through Thanksgiving, but after that he'll be done paying me back for the truck, and I'll have to either hire another baker or take on the job myself. Based on finances, it looks like it's probably going to be me taking on the extra workload, so my already limited sleep is going to suffer even more.

He maneuvers the cart of cupcakes behind the register so I can check them out. I flip the box on top open. They smell delicious—like pumpkin pie spice—and will be even more amazing once I add the cream cheese center filling and vanilla buttercream icing, topped with an adorable pumpkin candy. "These smell like heaven."

"Well, it's your recipe, so you can take the credit for that." He's still grinning. "You feeling like a rock star this morning?"

"Uh, not particularly, no." I lean against the counter, legs still shaky from the scare.

His smile fades and his face scrunches up. "I take it you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" I drag my attention away from the cupcakes, imagining how perfect they're going to look when I'm done with them.

"There's a video of you."

"What kind of video?" A shot of panic hits me. I'm not sure why. It's not like I've ever made one of those kinds of video. And honestly, there are loads of videos of me posted on YouTube since I have a channel and I upload there all the time.

He arches a brow. "Wow, your face right now makes me want to ask a lot of questions, many of which I don't necessarily think I want the answer to."

I wave the comment away. "Stop being dramatic and cryptic and tell me what's going on."

"Someone posted your performance from last night." He tips his chin toward the wall connecting us to The Manoban Cap.

"Oh, that. It wasn't a big deal." I pull a tray of cupcakes from the cart and begin arranging them carefully in the display case.

"Well, maybe not to you, but it's sure getting lots of attention."

"What kind of attention?"

Yoshi fishes his phone out of his pocket and opens YouTube. It appears the video was uploaded by Lisa's bartender Chan—apparently his name isn't Chad. Yoshi hands me the device.

"This can't be right. It's been viewed more than a million times?"

"She tagged that YouTuber Tori in the video and she shared it." He taps the screen right under the video, where Chan has captioned it "Best Bar in the Pacific Northwest Challenge" #toritaylorbestof #TheManobanCap #BestBarPNW and about seven hundred more hashtags. The video has tons of likes.

"Damn it!" I grouse, scrolling through the comments. "I can't believe this."

"You sound great. I mean I always knew you could sing, but you really nailed that performance."

"I know I can sing."

Yoshi's eyebrows lift. "Humble much?"

I give him a look. "It's not ego talking. I was always in theater. I can sing. It's a fact, and now Lisa is getting the accolades for it." I hit Play on the video for additional self-torture.

Lisa and I appear on the screen, although only half of me because the focus is on Lisa, at least at the beginning since she's singing and the center of attention. She doesn't have a terrible voice, and she's annoyingly nice to look at. The camera really loves her and all her pretty angles.

When it's my turn I nab the microphone from her and start singing. "Damn!" Chan turns the camera around and there's a closeup of his face and wide eyes. Like Lisa, he's also nice to look at. "Listen to that voice." He flips the camera around again, turns it sideways and pans back to me.

"How the hell am I going to beat her now?" I pass Yoshi his phone back before I do something like throw it against a wall. I don't have the funds to replace it. "She didn't even tag me or BB in the comments! What a jerk."

"If Tori ends up coming to Seattle, you'll have a chance to prove you're the better bar." Yoshi gives my shoulder a squeeze. I hate that his expression holds guilt as well. "I can try to help out for a little longer if you need me."

I wave the offer away. "We both know that won't work. Especially not with you moving an hour away. I can totally handle this." I motion to the naked cupcakes. I can definitely do all the baking, but I'm worried about how it's going to impact everything else. Running a business is a lot of work. Especially with all the paperwork and keeping track of inventory and ingredients. It's been nice to have the help while it lasted. "Anyway, let's check this out." The box is unusually light, so maybe it's sample napkins or something. The company we bought ours from routinely does that.

I fold back the flaps and a balloon with the word BOOM! floats out, heading for the ceiling. Yoshi and I give each other a quizzical look as a second balloon rises out of the box. Both of them pop at the same time and suddenly I find myself covered in a shower of hot pink glitter.

"Oh my God! The cupcakes!" I shriek and try to push Yoshi out of the way so I can save the open box from the glitter bomb, but it's too late. The cakes are already sparkling. I shout a bunch of nonsense profanity, because Yoshi's hard work and two dozen of my income source are now trash.

"What the hell is this stuff?" Yoshi raises his hand, about to run his fingers through his hair.

"That was a glitter bomb! You can't do that in here! You'll make it worse!" I guide him to the back door, hoping to minimize the damage.

"A glitter bomb?" Yoshi asks as I help him shake the glitter out of his hair and brush it off his shoulders.

I give my own head a shake. My palms are sparkling. "Glitter is the herpes of crafting. It'll be everywhere for weeks! I'll never get rid of it."

"Who would send you one of those?"

"How the hell—" I stop mid-sentence and glance next door. "That sonofabitch. First she steals all the goddamn glory last night and now this?" There's only one person I can think of who would do something like this. Freaking Lisa.

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I spend the rest of the day trying to clean up glitter between customers, but it's literally everywhere and anyone who comes into the shop is an immediate victim of a glitter attack. Thankfully I have a couple of short breaks between the lunch and afternoon rush, so I have time to de-glitter my café. Apart from a mangled pumpkin spice one and the glitter-covered ones that weren't for sale I manage to sell out of cupcakes.

I'll be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving and will have a skeleton staff the day before and through the weekend so Callie can spend the holiday with her family. I would try to get out of my own family obligations, but I haven't been home to visit since I opened Buttercream and Booze, and my dad would be disappointed if I didn't come for dinner. As much as I don't love their interfering ways, or their general bossiness and insanity, I do love them.

Lisa stops in as I'm shutting down for the day, grinning like a fool. "Hey, super star! You get my awesome present this morning?"

I don't return the smile. "I sure did." I spin around and grab the box of ruined cupcakes from the shelf behind me and set it on the counter in front of her.

She tips her head to the side, and lifts her hand as if she's about to touch my face. I jerk back. "What're you doing?"

"You have some glitter on your cheek."

I throw my hands in the air. "I have glitter literally everywhere. It's even in my damn underwear!"

Lisa's smile turns into a grimace at my unnecessary overshare, and her face falls even further as I flip the box of cupcakes open. "Oh shit."

"Oh shit is right. Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful gift."

"I figured you would've opened it in your office."

"Well I guess you figured wrong."

She chews on the corner of her plush bottom lip. "I'm so sorry, Jennie. I thought it would be funny."

I cross my arms. "Do you have any idea how impossible it is to clean up glitter? I'm going to be finding sparkly crap where the sun doesn't shine for weeks."

She fishes her wallet out of her back pocket and glances at the menu board where the price list is posted. She peels off four twenties.

"What are you doing?"

"Well you couldn't sell those today, could you?"

"Not covered in glitter, no."

"So I'm paying for them because even though they're bathed in glitter they smell fantastic and I bet you would've sold them if they hadn't been ruined."

"You really don't have to do that." But I could use the eighty bucks right now, which is sort of depressing. She obviously feels bad if she's willing to fork over the money I lost as a result of her prank.

"Yes I do. I honestly didn't mean to make such a mess of your day, or cost you potential revenue." She pushes the money toward me and picks up one of the glitter-covered cakes. She proceeds to shake it off, and then she tries to brush off the rest of the glitter, which means she ends up getting it all over her hands.

"You're not going to eat that, are you?"

She gives me a look. "And let it go to waste?"

"It's not even decorated." Wow, she must really feel bad.

"Sure it is, with glitter."

"Glitter isn't really digestible, or particularly safe to eat. Might be advisable to leave the top if you're going to give that a whirl."

She reluctantly pries the top off, then takes a huge bite and chews exaggeratedly. Her expression is priceless and she makes a lot of noises, some of delight and some of surprise. "It's a little—"

"Gritty?"

She nods and raises her hand in front of her mouth. "But still delicious."

It's hard not to laugh. "I do have one left over that's mangled but isn't covered in glitter."

"Really?"

"You can have it on one condition."

"Sure. Anything."

"You help me de-glitter my counter space." It's clear that she really didn't mean to cause me problems today, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to make her suffer at least a little for it.

I hand her a damp cloth and she goes to work wiping down all the surfaces that still hold traces of glitter. The best part is that no matter how careful she tries to be, sparkles get stuck to her face. I guarantee she'll be glittering all night long, like a disco ball.

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On Wednesday morning I've just arrived at BB when Lisa comes busting out the back door. She looks frazzled and exhausted. Her hair is also an unusual mess. It's actually quite sexy, to be honest. Like she rolled out of bed and came straight here. Her clothes are even rumpled. "Hey. Hi. I'm so glad you're here."

This is a new greeting. "Um, it's nice to see you, too?"

"Can I ask you a huge favor? Please?"

"Ahhh. Now the friendliness makes more sense. What do you need?"

"I'm supposed to get a whole load of Thanksgiving supplies delivered this morning, but the guy is running late and I have to take my grandfather up to my brother's. I'm supposed to leave"—she checks her watch—"ten minutes ago. And Gramps hates being late for stuff and I have to drive four hours there and back. I tried to call Chan, but I doubt he'll get the message until it's way too late."

I hold up a hand. "I can sign for the order."

"It all needs to go in the fridge."

"I can make sure that happens."

"Really?"

"Really."

She drops a key to The Manoban Cap in my hand and pulls me in for a shockingly tight hug. "Thank you so much, Jennie. I really owe you big time. I always enjoy seeing you, even when you're tearing me a new one. I gotta run. Thank you. A million times over." And she's off.

"You're welcome," I mutter and head back to BB to start on the icing for today's cupcakes.

Forty-five minutes later the delivery truck shows up. I'm in the middle of a particularly tricky caramel filling and Yoshi is on his way out so he accepts the delivery—which I ask him to sign for—and makes sure it's safely in the fridge before he takes off.

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