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Emily kicked the door closed behind her.

“Hey, boss. How’s the hangover? You disappeared after you sang last night. I figured you might have gone home to crash. Funny thing is, Carter stopped by the table, but he disappeared at the same time . . . did you two run into each other?” She blinked innocently at me, but I saw the mischievous grin she was trying to hide.

Did Emily know about Carter and me? Until last night, we had been so careful. I still wanted to keep everything quiet because of Ethan, but that might be impossible now that Chad had discovered the truth. Still, I didn’t want to go public and risk the team having a problem with us, for either of our sakes.

“I did run into Carter, actually. He drove me home.”

“I bet he did.” Emily snickered and pushed the cart into the cooler.

I ignored her and began measuring out the dry ingredients for the carrot cake. Once I had those cupcakes in the oven, I’d bake the chocolate ones they wanted. I’d finish with a huge batch of vegan lemon cupcakes.

The lemon ones were Brooke’s favourites, so I would make a few extra to bring home for her. She’d been coming home as I left this morning, and I hadn’t had time to tell her about kicking Chad out. She’d be happy about his departure, but I still had to tell Ethan. He and Chad had grown closer over the past few months, so I hoped he would understand why I made Chad leave. I would talk to Ethan after work, before he came home from his baseball trip. I wanted him to hear it from me first.

I prepped baking pans as the mixer continued to work. The wedding this weekend was the biggest we had ever catered, with over two hundred guests. The bride had several friends and family who were vegan, and one of the reasons she had chosen Batter Up! to do the desserts was because I had multiple vegan and allergy-sensitive options. I had developed many of them because of Brooke, Ethan, and their friends who had dietary restrictions.

I slowly mixed the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, ending by adding heaping cups of shredded carrots and toasted walnuts. I was scooping batter into pans when Emily emerged from the cooler.

“Desserts are racked. All we need to do is roll the cart out to the truck and deliver them.” She moved to the sink and washed her hands. “You want me to help you with the cupcakes, or work on cookie inventory for the ballpark?”

“Cookies. We need to replenish our supply of blanks, and we’ll need several hundred more transfers. I suspect this weekend will be another success.”

Emily unwrapped bricks of butter and dropped them into our second mixer. “Got it. So, it was super convenient of Carter to show up and take you home. Not many people are that concerned about their roommates.”

Crap. She wasn’t going to let this go. “We are friends, you know. He was being a good friend.”

“Uh-huh. He sure was.”

“I kicked Chad out last night,” I said, desperate to change the subject. “I finally had enough of him.”

“Good. I can’t believe it took this long. What was the final straw? Didn’t have anything to do with your relationship with Carter, did it?” Emily was smirking.

Double crap. “I told you⁠—”

“I know what you told me, but I’ve known you for years, and I have eyes. Like I told everyone last night, there’s a man in your life. You have no time to meet anyone outside work or the ballpark, and our clientele is ninety percent women, so it almost had to be the ballpark. It had to be either a player, someone associated with the team like a trainer or coach, or the management team.” She paused to add ingredients to the dough before continuing.

“You’ve known most of those guys since you were a kid, so probably not them. Most of the players are babies, so that eliminated a lot of them. But Carter? He’s not that much younger than you. You see him all the time at home. He’s drop-dead gorgeous. And friends to lovers? It’s a walking romance novel waiting to be written.” Emily ticked each point off on her fingers. “Tell me I’m wrong if you want, but I know I’m right.”

Who knew I had an amateur detective working for me? I shook my head and surrendered with a laugh. I trusted Emily to keep my secret, and I would explain it to Carter later.

“Yes, fine, Carter and I are . . . something. We’re keeping it quiet because he can’t afford any questions from the club, and I don’t want Ethan getting attached and thinking Carter is going to stick around. Whatever we have going on, it’s only temporary. Once he gets called up, or when the season ends, he’s gone.”

There was an unwelcome phantom pain in my chest at that thought. I had to get over it, because we had no future together.

“Ha! I knew it. Good for you.” Emily came over and gave me a fist bump. “Sucks that it’s a short-term thing, but at least you’ll have a fun summer.”

She went back to the batch of cookies she was working on. “Now that I’ve confirmed I was right about Carter, tell me what happened with Chad.”

“He found me kissing Carter in the kitchen. Let’s just say he wasn’t thrilled.” I was still annoyed about the scene last night. Chad had no right to judge me. But I was proud of myself for standing up to him and kicking his ass out on the spot.

Emily burst into laughter. “I bet. I wish I had been there to see it. Couldn’t have happened to a bigger jerk. After what he did to you, catching you kissing Carter is nothing.”

She wasn’t wrong. I told her the rest of the story, including Chad trying to turn me against Carter.

“So what now? Chad’s gone. What are you going to tell Ethan? Will he be upset?”

I set another pan of cupcakes into the oven. “I think he’ll be fine. He felt bad enough about being manipulated into allowing Chad to move in. I won’t tell him everything. All he needs to know is Chad broke the rules for the last time, and he isn’t living with us anymore. If Chad wants to tell him more, that’s on him. What he’s too narcissistic to realize is that none of this can be spun to make him look like the victim. Ethan is too smart for that.”

“Truth.” Emily wrapped the finished cookie dough and took it to the cooler to chill. “I’m happy for you. Chad was stressing you out, even driving you away from your own home. You’re divorced. You don’t need to put up with his bad behaviour.”