13. Pretend Nothing Happened

(I don't like her nail, freakin me out for some reason^)

Juno was a manipulative son of a bitch.

For a six, eight, nine something-year-old, he had the mind of a twenty seven year old. A couple more years on him and the kid could probably dominate the entire world without lifting a single finger. That was if his brother didn't try to dominate it first.

"Juno for the love of God stick to the plan!" Logan screeched from the kitchen and Maisie winced, giving the customer in front of her an apologetic smile. When they had left the bakery she gave a glance to Ben who was asleep in a corner and ran to the kitchen doors, shoving them open.

"What's wrong?" she immediately asked then took in the sight in front of her.

Keith, Nick and Andy were on one side of the kitchen, checking over the cakes in the oven and making frosting while Charity was washing up at the sink and Juno was sat on the table in front of Logan, eating the cake batter out of the bowl with his hands.

"Juno," Maisie groaned. "You're not supposed to eat that. You've already had too much, you'll get sick."

"Sick? Sick?" Logan scoffed. "Who cares if he gets sick he just ate all the batter for my fucking cake! The plan was to make the cakes as quickly as possible not eat them before they could even be born!"

Juno shrugged. "Tastes good."

"When Delilah gets back I'm literally gonna throw you face first at her," Logan grumbled, yanking the bowl out of his brothers hands. "Little demon..."

"Don't be such a pušsy, Lo," Juno mumbled and Maisie's mouth smacked open along with Logan's.

His wide eyes looked at his little brother before turning murderous and looking at a now sheepish Nick. He rubbed the back of his head as Logan glared at him.

"Nick? Want to explain why my brother just called me a pušsy?" Logan asked.

"I mean he hears us swear all the time..." Nick winced.

"But he doesn't repeat it!" Logan snapped. "Why did that have to be the first bad word he says?"

"Pušsy, pušsy, pušsy." Juno grinned.

"Cat," Logan said. "Pušsy cat, you animal."

Maisie rolled her eyes and walked over to Charity who knocked the tap off with her elbow and dried her hands on a small towel. Charity smiled when she saw her friend.

"Hey," she said. "Haven't talked to you in a while."

"Yeah, it's weird now that there are actually customers to serve," Maisie laughed.

"Is the number still increasing?" Charity asked.

Maisie nodded. "Slowly but surely. I don't really know what's done it and I'm not one hundred percent sure what else I can do to keep the numbers up but let's hope this birthday cake gets something out of it."

Charity hummed in agreement. "We've never made a birthday cake before. Especially one this big."

"I know," Maisie sighed. "And if we fuck up, we fuck up. But if we succeed..."

"The bakery has a chance. A big chance," Charity finished and Maisie chewed on her bottom lip nervously as she looked over at the guys who were working away as Juno tried to Singlehandedly destroy everything. "What are we going to do when they get their community service hours?"

Maisie shrugged. "Hopefully by then we'll have enough money to hire people again. Maybe ones that won't go running off to Bud."

Charity breathed out a laugh. "Yeah, that would be pretty helpful," she then sighed, "I don't know how the hell you still manage to do your college work. I'm not even in college and I'm struggling trying to balance my Instagram account and this place."

Maisie snorted. "It's not that bad. One bit at a time."

Nick came over with a neck towel over his shoulders and a bottle of water in his hand. He took a long gulp and stopped in front of the two women, hooking a thumb backwards towards the other guys.

"I hate them all," he said.

"No you don't," Maisie said.

"Well I hate Juno, that little bitch is always-"

"Always what?" Juno crossed his arms over his chest as he appeared out of nowhere beside Nick who gritted his teeth.

"Always being a nosy little shit who needs to get out of my face," Nick said, shoving Juno's face out of his way with the palm of his hand. Juno swatted his hand and stuck his tongue out to which the fully grown male reciprocated.

Maisie looked past the two idiots and over to Keith and Andy who were taking out the two cakes that were finally baked. Her eyes slid over to the far end of the kitchen where Logan was standing in front of a bowl and a long line of ingredients she was ninety percent sure he didn't need. Maisie tapped Charity on the shoulder.

"Can you watch the bakery for a bit?" she asked and Charity nodded, sliding her apron back on and walking out the kitchen.

Maisie headed over to Logan, stopping on the other side of the countertop where he was working. She stared at the seven ingredients he had out and shook her head. Logan noticed her look of disapproval and frowned.

"What?" he asked.

"You're trying to make frosting, right?" she questioned and Logan nodded. "If we're keeping it simple, which we are, then frosting only really needs four ingredients."

Logan's frown deepened. "This is what Keith said I needed."

Well that's worrying, Maisie thought as she moved away the baking soda and pack of rice. She swept everything away until there was only powdered sugar, butter, milk and some vanilla. Maisie also reached into the cupboard to the side and brought out a tray of food colouring.

"This is all I need?" Logan asked incredulously.

"Yep," Maisie said. "Get the butter first."

Maisie directed Logan through the process of getting the right amount of butter in the bowl and then the right amount of sugar on top. When he picked up the wooden spoon, Maisie shook her head and grabbed the electric mixer from the side. She passed it on to Logan and he grabbed the handle, easily switching it on and mixing the two components together.

Maisie walked around the counter until she was beside Logan and took the vanilla as he mixed the frosting together at a low speed. She told him to stop and added in the vanilla before passing him a wooden spoon to stir it all in. While he stirred, Maisie added a tablespoon of milk and then splashed a little more in when the mixture got to clogged up and thick.

"Now you just have to beat it," she said and Logan nodded.

After a couple weeks at the bakery, he was now good at the physical stuff like beating the ingredients together and lifting all the supplies into the bakery. Maisie, Charity and a little part of Nick were really the only ones that could actually make something edible. The other three guys just attempted to make frosting and Keith apparently made it with rice.

When the frosting was the right consistency, Maisie told Logan to stop and smiled. "There you go," she said. "All done."

Logan looked at it in surprise. "You sure?"

"Try it if you're so hesitant," Maisie said.

Logan grabbed a spoon and dipped the end in the frosting, licking it off. He blinked then coughed in disbelief.

"It really only takes four ingredients?" he asked and Maisie laughed.

"Yes. Surprisingly not everything has to be complicated. Baking is more about perfecting and adding onto simple basics rather than doing something that takes a million tries to master."

"Is that why you like it?" Logan asked. "Because it's simple."

"There's a bunch of reasons why I like baking...but yeah, I like the simplicity. I like that there are a couple basic rules and after that you can pretty much do whatever you want. Makes it fun."

Logan nodded and gave her a little smile.

"We should get this cake done though," Maisie cleared her throat. "Not long before it's needed."

Logan nodded silently again.

Two hours later all seven of them stood in front of a four tiered cake, each one covered in a different coloured frosting. Inside was supposed to be a red velvet but Andy accidentally dropped half the food colourings in the batter so they decided to go with a rainbow cake.

Juno looked up at the giant cake and grinned. "Awesome."

Logan rolled his eyes and ruffled his little brother's hair.

Charity smiled. "For our first birthday cake, it doesn't look too bad."

The rest nodded and Maisie tilted her head, smiling. "Not bad at all."

***

Maisie got home late that night and her mom was immediately on her the second she opened the front door. She could see Tony's leg sticking out from his place on the couch as she kicked off her shoes and realized he probably fell asleep as he promptly does every time the work day gets too long.

"There was some mail for you," Cindy told her daughter, "and this very lovely boy called Ocean came round earlier. You were at the bakery so I said you would call him."

Maisie frowned a little, wondering why Ocean didn't text her first before coming round. He could have come round to the bakery instead.

"What was the mail?" she asked.

Cindy brought it out from her other hand. "One from your Aunt Dawn three times removed, probably asking to be added again and the others from your college."

Maisie's frown deepened and she grabbed the letters. "Thanks. I'm pretty tired so I'll probably just..."

"Oh yes, of course!" Cindy smiled and kissed Maisie on the cheek. "Have a good sleep."

"You too," Maisie said as she fingered the opening of the envelope and walked up the stairs to her room.

She flicked the light on when she got there and threw her Aunt's letter to the side and grabbed the one from her university. She thumbed it open and unfolded the single piece of paper that was inside.

Super cool cover by synergism!

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- Ellie x