SOUL TIES (The Sánchez Brothers Series, Book 1)

CHAPTER 25 : DEBBIE

It was officially my worst day in the whole year.

Sure, I'd had bad days but the one I was currently in, was by a landslide the fucking worst. The fact that Mikayla was involved didn't even make it an inch better. I was already ready to give up, since like the previous day. The next day was the Bake Sales day in my daughter's school and I was already tired, even without doing any actual baking yet. No wonder her grade teacher thought I wouldn't be able to make it. 

Since the school had requested that I bake away my life savings, I definitely had a lot of shit to buy. I sent Nelly to the grocery store for me before I left for work that morning but just like every other thing Nelly does, it was filled with mistakes. 

"Nelly, I said 10 crates of eggs!"

I was talking to her over the phone as I drove home that evening. One of the perks of being friends with Andre was that I could leave work super early without having to get an official permit from Amber. He was the CEO after all. 

"Ohhhhhh, I didn't read it right. I bought just 10 eggs."

I grunted in frustration into the receiver. "You didn't read nothing right, Nelly. Not one fucking thing. Now you're compounding my work cos I have to go to the store right now instead of just coming straight home to bake." 

"So you're going to the store right now, yeah? Get me a pack of gummy bears there." I cursed her in Spanish and she did that right back until it turned into a cross-fire of Spanish swear words. 

I ignored the probing eyes that stared at me as I ran into the grocery store barefoot. Carrying tons and tons of baking ingredients and pans would be impractical with my 5 inches stiletto heels. After taking a quick shower, I got to work in the kitchen while Nelly and Kayla yapped my ears off till I sent them packing. I always loved their company but today was not the day. 

Two hours later, the kitchen was messy and the baker in it was messier. Cocoa powder was in my hair and I didn't even know how it got there. The only thing I cared about was baking the goodies and making sure they looked as scrumptious as possible. My chocolate chip cookies looked like they were baked by Jesus himself, they were divine. While I was pouring the batter for my brownies into the baking pan, my phone chimed and Nelly's voice followed right after. 

"It's your Prince charming." Yes, she still called him that. Twat! Kayla handed me the phone and ran out. I didn't blame her though, the whole place looked like Jurassic Park after the dinosaurs ran wild. 

"Hey." His voice wafted into my ears and instinctively, my lips stretched to a small smile. Andre had what some people called a "Euphonious" voice, it was simply pleasing to the ears. If he ever got tired to being CEO of WeCare Inc, he could pursue voice acting as a career and make major money out of it. He spoke with the right cadence, at the right volume, with the right accent. "How's it going?"

I pressed my shoulders against the phone on my ear so that I could multitask. Time was ticking and I couldn't afford to dally away any minute. "Quite terribly. I've only done the chocolate chips, cinnamon rolls and scones. Currently, I'm about to put the brownies in the oven. I still have to make cupcakes, waffles, more cookies, pies, maybe some ice cream and my signature chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache and mocha filling. So yeah, it's going quite terribly."

"Isn't that a little too much for a school bake?"

I put the baking pan into the preheated oven and started working on the lemons for my lemon meringue pie. "I thought so too but boy, I gotta win."

"You need any help?"

The lemon I was peeling fell out of my hand and made a ruckus in the steel bowl. "Huh?"