I hold a poetry slam night and despite the initial lack of excitement, it turns out to be a totally popular event, especially with the drama students at the college.

Unfortunately, Ronan plans another one of his loud events—all his events are loud—on the same night, so we’re forced to wrap it up early. I should really know better by now.

On the upside, every new, fun event I host does better than the last. We hold a Halloween cookie-decorating contest and sell a ridiculous number of gory cupcakes and fun, horrifying drinks. Orders for cupcakes for the local businesses continue to pour in, which means I’m endlessly busy and still managing not to dig too far into my line of credit. It also means I’m light on sleep, but I can deal with being tired as long as B&B is staying afloat.

Tonight I have a bachelorette cupcake and cookie-decorating party. It’s actually one of Daphne’s engagement photo shoot clients who came back looking to secure her for additional dates—including the wedding. When Daphne suggested the bachelorette party I absolutely ran with it, with her input, of course. It gives her another opportunity to take some fun candid photos to add to their engagement and wedding albums and I have the opportunity to do something new and different.

Daphne came in earlier to snap some shots of the setup, and then popped back in before the bride and her wedding party were scheduled to arrive.

The bride’s sister arranged the event and rented out the entire café. Customers can still come in and purchase cupcakes to go, but there’s a warning on the door and the entire place is full of women decorating treats.

We decided the cupcakes are fun, but you can’t make interesting shapes the way you can with a cookie. We start with a cupcake-decorating tutorial—Daphne records that part—but that’s quickly devolved into turning cupcakes into vaginas. And the cookies…well, those are just as entertaining. Once the debauched decorating begins, Daphne takes off back to her studio, half apologizing for not being able to stay. I wave her off; honestly, this is the most fun I’ve had with a decorating class.

At eight Ronan pops by—he still makes a daily stop for a cupcake—and gets a gander at the penis cookies the ladies are working on.

The entire wedding party stops to watch him cross the café.

“Ooooh! Hey there, cutie, you can come sit with me!” The bride’s sister—Stephanie—is on her third martini and lost her filter an hour ago. The drinks aren’t even that strong. Every time she decorates a cookie, she ends up taking a picture of her biting into it and then she forces her friends to send her the picture. She then promptly posts it to all her social media accounts. She’s also tagged the café in every single post. I should probably mention that the cookies she’s most fond of posting are the penis ones.

I consider untagging the café, but decide that based on the number of likes the posts are getting it doesn’t hurt to let it ride. Who knows, it could become another new revenue stream.

“What’re you ladies up to?” He shoots a smile and wink in my direction—the wink is probably unconscious—and veers toward the women.

“We’re decorating cookies. See!” Stephanie holds up her most recent work of art. A very orange penis, complete with pubic hair. It looks like it was decorated by a six-year-old. Or a drunk woman, the latter of which is accurate.

Ronan’s eyes go wide and he coughs into his fist. “That’s very convincing.”

“I even gave it pubes! They’re made out of licorice.”

“I manscaped mine,” one of the other bridesmaids declares and holds up her less orange, much more aesthetically appealing bald-balled cookie.

Stephanie’s eyes rake over Ronan, pausing at his crotch. “Do you manscape?”

“Uhhh—”

“Ladies, this is Ronan, owner of the bar next door. When you’re done here, you should drop by. You must have some kind of special drink promotion you can offer these lovely ladies, right, Ronan? And don’t you have some kind of event going on? Is it a live band?” I know it’s not because I stalk his IG profile. I don’t follow him, because I don’t want him to know I’m watching him, but after the loud, live entertainment started I needed to know ahead of time what I was facing every week.

His gaze moves from the penis cookie two inches from his face to me. He looks like he’s plotting my murder. I can completely understand why. These ladies are already halfway to rowdy drunk. They’re all on some ridiculous pre-wedding keto diet—which died a sad, necessary death once I told them the cookie calories don’t count tonight—and they’ve been sipping martinis for the past two hours. They’ll fit in perfectly next door.

“Ooooh! You own The Knight Cap?” Stephanie puts her hand on his forearm, leaving icing smears on his tattooed skin. She’s definitely on the prowl based on the way she’s eyeing Ronan’s crotch the same way he eyes my cupcakes.

Ronan either chooses to ignore her or maybe he’s too busy giving me the death glare and missed her simpering question. She strokes his forearm, rubbing in the icing. I’m sure it’s sticking to his arm hair.

“He does, don’t you, Ronan?”

“I don’t actually own it, I just run it. It’s my grandfather’s—”

“Oh, wow, isn’t that sweet? You work with your grandpa? I love guys who are close to their families. I’m close to my family, too.” Stephanie is still petting his arm. Still holding her penis cookie up in the air, as if she’s waiting for Ronan to praise her efforts.

The rest of the women are watching the one-sided exchange with something between fascination and mortification. Mostly it’s fascination, though.

The woman on Stephanie’s right snorts. “You haven’t talked to your mom in three years.”

“I’m close with the rest of my family, though,” she snaps, sending a rage glare at the other woman. I think her name might be Laura or Laurie. Stephanie returns her attention to Ronan. “I’m close with everyone else. Even my stepmother.”

“Well that’s…nice.” He takes a deliberate step back, away from her petting and the phallic cookie. “You ladies enjoy the cookie decorating.” He makes a move toward the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I call out.

“Huh?” His gaze shifts to me.