Then I looked at Brock and asked, “What’re you guys doing here?”

I asked this because our plans for the day were set. Considering my schedule and the fact it was girls’ night in and Brock had the boys, I was working all day then hoofing it to Martha’s. Depending on my level of inebriation and the lateness of the festivities, I was either going to go to Brock’s later, call him to get me if I was hammered, or crashing at Martha’s.

A visit to the bakery wasn’t on the agenda thus a surprise though a good one.

“You got a minute?” Brock asked in return and that was when I wondered if this surprise was a good one.

I looked down at the cake, which was almost done. I’d baked them all the day before and only had to decorate them. This was the last birthday cake and next up was the anniversary cake. My appointments weren’t until after three. Therefore, I had time.

So I nodded, put down the pastry bag, and muttered, “Let’s go to my office.”

We went and when I closed the door behind me and saw Brock looking around with unconcealed surprise, I realized he’d never been back here. Not when we were seeing each other when he was Jake and not when we got back together when he was mine.

He looked at the chaos then at me and said simply, “Babe.”

“I know where everything is,” I defended myself.

He looked around again, then back at me. “That’s impossible.”

“No, really.”

He grinned.

Then he tipped his head toward the door, crossed his arms on his chest, and remarked, “Madhouse.”

I nodded. “I need to consider more hires, decorators for the back, staff for the front. It isn’t lightening up even on weekdays and special orders are getting out of hand, so I don’t have time to help the girls keep the front stocked.”

“You need to consider opening new locations,” Brock returned and I blinked at him. “It’s a madhouse out there ’cause this is the only place in Denver they can get your stuff so they descend en masse here. You open shops in LoDo, Park Meadows, considering additional foot traffic and convenience to locals, you’ll clean up.”

I had, of course, thought of this after I’d learned Brock was not Jake, we were apart for those three months, and I was hell-bent on doing anything that might take my mind off being played but mostly losing him (an effort that, incidentally, failed).

I’d even looked at locations for expanding, including one in LoDo or what lower downtown Denver was known as. However, these activities clashed with my half-baked plans to sell my house and move to Kentucky so I didn’t fully investigate them.