Gimme S’more: Hot Cakes Series, page 1
Gimme S’more
Hot Cakes Series
Erin Nicholas
Copyright © 2020 by Erin Nicholas
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-952280-00-9
Editor: Lindsey Faber
Cover design: Angela Waters
Cover Photography: Lindee Robinson
Models: Andrew Wilson, Kayle Berry
Contents
The Hot Cakes Series
About Gimme S’more
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About Erin
The Hot Cakes Series
One small Iowa town.
Two rival baking companies.
A three-generation old family feud.
And five guys who are going to be heating up a lot more than the kitchen.
Books in the series:
Sugar Rush (prequel)
Sugarcoated
Forking Around
Making Whoopie
Semi-Sweet On You
Oh, Fudge
Gimme S'more
About Gimme S’more
A friends-to-lovers romance that will make you melt.
Oliver’s a dreamer who is always ready for the next big adventure.
Piper’s the steady one who keeps his feet on the ground.
He’s wildly successful, thanks to her always being there to catch him when he leaps before he looks. But she wants more. While he’s as clueless as ever.
So she just gave her two weeks notice.
Ollie doesn’t know how he’ll survive without Piper. So for the next two weeks, he’ll be sticking to her like the marshmallows on the s’mores she loves so much.
But does he want her as his assistant... or is there a sweeter spot in his life for the woman who's always had his back--and possibly even his heart?
1
Piper Barry was in love with an amazing, brilliant, funny, good-looking man.
Who, at least twice a day, she wanted to smother with the stuffed dragon that sat on the corner of his desk.
Okay, maybe not smother. That was extreme.
But duct tape over his mouth? Oh yeah, she thought about that often.
“Is spit better than snot?” Oliver Caprinelli, that man—and her boss—asked her as she crossed his office to refill the water pitcher by the window.
“In every single context, yes.” Piper was also aware that in any other workplace with any other boss, that question would be strange. Here though, not so much.
On her way back past his desk, she set the two folders and the manila envelope she carried in front of him. He was just one of her five bosses and the least likely to open those folders or that envelope. She put them down anyway.
“Grant said that a soda flavor called unicorn piss wouldn’t sell well,” Ollie said, almost as if he was thinking out loud.
He did that a lot. Thought out loud.
That never stopped Piper from chiming in though.
“And you think that calling it unicorn snot would make it sell better?”
This wasn’t even the strangest conversation she’d ever had with Ollie.
“Wouldn’t you assume that unicorn piss or snot tasted good?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Uh, piss and snot.”
“But unicorn,” he insisted.
“I have never, not once, thought about the taste of unicorn… anything.”
“Well, think about it now. Yes, good?”
What she thought was that working for Oliver Caprinelli would be a lot better if he didn’t think out loud.
If he just sat there looking cute, things would be great.
“Why are we talking about unicorns?” she asked. “If you’re adding something new to Warriors, you can do better. Unicorns are overdone.”
The chances that this was about Warriors of Easton, the video game that Oliver and his four best friends had turned into the biggest-selling online game of the decade, was very good. It was nearly all Oliver thought about.
Ever.
Even when she wore her sexiest dresses. And the body oil that all of the other guys said smelled like spicy candy and that made them walk extra close by her desk every time they passed just so they could get a whiff. And when she worked late just so it could be only her and Ollie in the office after dark.
“It’s not for Warriors,” Ollie said. He still sounded distracted.
Honestly, he sounded distracted 90 percent of the time he talked about anything.
The man was a genius and his thoughts were always going in a million directions. It was one of the things that fascinated her most about him.
And that made her think about picking up the dragon on his desk and stuffing it in his mouth. Trying to get Oliver’s attention was hard enough. Keeping it was nearly impossible.
“What’s it for, then?” she asked, pausing in front of his desk with the water pitcher.
She was able to study him as she waited for his answer. He was leaning back in his big leather chair, one ankle propped on his opposite knee. He was wearing dark gray slacks that went with the dark gray jacket he had tossed over the armchair that faced his desk. She wasn’t sure where his tie was. She found his ties stuffed in drawers, suit jacket pockets, seat cushions, and file drawers—wherever he happened to be when it started bugging him, and he yanked it off.
His white linen button-down shirt was unbuttoned at the top, revealing tan skin and a hint of dark hair. The hair on top of his head was sticking up a bit in the back where he had a cowlick, and she made a note to schedule a haircut for him as she resisted the urge to brush that hair down. He also hadn’t shaved this morning. He never grew a full beard or even let it get too scruffy, but once in a while there would be a day or two of growth. It made him look older and more intense. When he shaved, he looked easily five years younger than his twenty-eight years.
He was looking at the dragon on his desk, but Piper knew he wasn’t seeing Spark. The plush dragon was one of the toys from the Warriors of Easton merchandise line. Spark was the one dragon in the game that couldn’t breathe fire no matter how hard he tried.
Piper didn’t know anything more about Spark than that. She didn’t play the game and her awareness of it was limited to the things she’d handled as Oliver’s personal assistant. That consisted mostly of keeping his appearances organized, answering emails, and dealing with the paperwork he had to do as one of the company’s owners.
He had never cared about the business side of things much. He was the creative director. Still was, even though he and his four best friends who had owned Warriors under the umbrella of their company Fluke Inc. had sold Warriors to a larger gaming company last year.
Oliver continued to write story lines and develop characters for the game world.
But it was obvious that since they’d sold Warriors Oliver had been a little lost. His job hadn’t changed a lot, but his friends were not involved with Warriors on the same level they had been and Piper suspected Ollie missed that intensely.
Warriors had always been a passion project for the five friends. It had taken off unexpectedly and they’d become accidental millionaires from it. But at its most basic level, it had always been something they did together and just had a good time with.
“Oliver?” she asked. “What’s the unicorn spit about if it’s not Warriors?”
He looked up at her and she could have sworn for a second that he’d forgotten she was there.
Even after working for the man for five years, that was still a little insulting. Especially when she was wearing one of her favorite pin-up dresses. It was bright pink, hugged her hips and breasts, and gave a little peek of cleavage without being inappropriate. She wore a wide black belt with it, black pumps with a big pink bow, black fishnets, and a black hair scarf.
She looked great. Sexy even.
And she would bet that if she had him close his eyes and asked him what color her dress was, he wouldn’t know.
“Trying to come up with names for the sodas,” he said.
She froze. Then straightened and narrowed her eyes. “What sodas?”
But she knew.
He frowned as if confused by her question. “The new sodas we’re going to launch when I buy the soda company in Wisconsin.”
“But you haven’t bought it yet?” she asked. She’d thought he was over that idea. After she had told him it was a bad idea.
“We’re meeting at the end of the week,” he said. “It’s basically done.”
“I thought we talked about how this was a bad move,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I thought we agreed that you’re bored now that Hot Cakes is doing well, and the other guys have all been spending more time
Honestly, Oliver had only gone along with the purchase of Hot Cakes because one of his best friends, Aiden, had been determined to buy it and wanted all the guys in on it. And because Ollie loved Hot Cakes’ Fudgie Fritters.
He actually liked most of the cakes. Sometimes, he was essentially a fourteen-year-old boy in a twenty-eight-year-old man’s body. He loved video games and snack cakes. And he loved hanging out with his friends.
He didn’t, however, like soda. Interestingly. He didn’t drink it. Claimed to not like it. But after they’d bought Hot Cakes and gotten it running well under their new management and had very successfully launched a new product and rebranded themselves, things had slowed down a little and now Ollie was feeling restless.
In part, because very few of the things they’d done with Hot Cakes had been his doing anyway.
Aiden had taken the lead, since the company was based in his hometown and buying it meant not only saving the town from losing its major employer, but also giving him a great reason to come home and be with the woman he was crazy in love with.
Dax had come along because Dax was always up for an adventure and was great with people. All people. In all situations. They’d needed Dax to help smooth things over with the disgruntled employees.
Grant had come along because he was the money guy. He’d never intended it to be a permanent move to the tiny Iowa town but, then he’d fallen in love with a hometown girl and now he wasn’t going anywhere.
Cam was also from Appleby and had rekindled his relationship with his ex. Who just happened to be the granddaughter of the founders of Hot Cakes. The two of them had been the force behind the new product launch and its huge success, and everyone knew that their next new product, which was already in the works, would be just as big.
So that left Ollie just… being here. Being here with his best friends because he truly didn’t have roots anywhere else and he could do his creative work for Warriors anywhere.
Which meant Piper was here too. She ran Oliver’s life. She definitely helped all the guys and Fluke at large, but she’d been hired to be Oliver’s assistant and he definitely needed the most… caretaking.
But now Ollie was bored. He’d been a little bored along the way since he’d had less direct investment, other than money, in Hot Cakes. But he’d enjoyed supporting his friends and brainstorming things like new snack cake ideas and names and the big launch event.
Now that was all over and he was looking for a new project.
Why? Why wasn’t Warriors enough? He was the imagination behind that entire world. Everything that existed in Warriors, even now under new ownership, was because of Oliver. Why wasn’t that enough?
And if he did have free time and had room in his brain for more, why couldn’t he do something more meaningful than soda?
Ugh.
“I think soda lines up well with my brand,” Ollie said. “Video games, snack cakes, soda.” He nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Your brand? What brand is that?”
“Oliver Caprinelli… let’s have a good time.” He paused and looked at her. “I’m working on a tag line.”
Piper took a deep breath. “You need a tag line? Like you individually need a tag line?”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “The guys are done with Warriors for the most part. And I’m more than Hot Cakes.”
Piper wished she wasn’t holding the water pitcher because she really needed to rub her forehead where a headache was starting. She had two types of headaches. The one right between her eyes, which came on quickly and she assumed had to with eye-rolling and frowning. She called those the Ollies. The ones that started in her neck and crept more slowly up the back of her head were the Olivers. They were tension headaches that came from stress and holding in all the are you fucking kidding me? that threatened throughout her days.
And she said some of them. She didn’t have, or need, a lot of filter around her bosses. Which was great. They were more like brothers than bosses. They respected her, they needed her—and knew it—and they listened to her.
Except for Ollie.
“You’re more than Hot Cakes?” she repeated. She agreed. But she’d never heard him say it and she was curious what he meant.
He swiveled his chair back and forth.
He was a big guy. Six-three, two-hundred-ten-ish pounds. He was wide and solid. He ran to keep in shape. In part because of that love of snack cakes and the amount of time he spent sitting and creating behind the computer.
He was wearing a custom-tailored suit that cost more than a lot of people’s house payments in Appleby.
But he was pouting. And Piper wanted to put him in time out.
“I mean, I need something more to do,” he said. “Aiden was the one who branched out into Hot Cakes. Grant’s got his consulting business. Dax is running the nursing home. Cam has turned into a house-husband. What’s my thing?”
The guys did all have pursuits outside of Fluke that they were enthusiastic about now. Projects and people that took up a lot of their time and energy. Additionally, the guys were all-in with their new relationships and the families and time that went along with those.
They were happy. Happier than Piper had ever seen them. And they were all still a unit. But Aiden, Dax, Grant, and Cam definitely shared a bond in being boyfriends and fiancés that left Oliver out.
Ollie was the only one who was still involved with Warriors. And he didn’t seem to have another passion.
“So you’re bored and your idea to branch out is soda?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
Clearly he was very passionate about this new company. Piper rolled her eyes, making the jab of pain in her forehead worse.
“Oliver, you need to find something to care about,” she said.
Like me, a voice said in the back of her mind.
She told that voice to shut the hell up. She and that voice had been over this before. She couldn’t explain why she loved Oliver, but she did. However, Oliver would make her crazy.
Oh, and he wasn’t interested. Clearly.
“I care about growing my brand.”
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “Your brand? You want your brand to be video games and crap food? You can do better than that, Ollie!”
He lifted a brow. “Like what?”
He wasn’t challenging her. He actually wanted her to tell him what he should do.
Oliver Caprinelli was a handsome, intelligent, charming-when-he-wanted-to-be, funny-usually-accidentally-but-sometimes-on-purpose, crazy successful creative genius.
Who drove her insane.
It was all Aiden’s and Grant’s and Dax’s and Cam’s fault.
They’d all been enabling this man since they’d met him. They treated him like he was delicate. Like if they pushed him too hard or told him no, he’d lose his spark and wouldn’t be able to create any longer.
They treated him like he was a spoiled royal prince.
Oliver had never had an idea that Dax hadn’t said, “Hell yes!” to. He’d never made a mistake that Grant hadn’t bailed him out of. He’d never created something Aiden hadn’t been able to sell for big bucks.
Oliver had also never booked a hotel room or a plane ticket on his own and had no idea how to even use the Instant Pot in his hotel suite. Because Piper did those things.
But that had been her job. She hadn’t enabled him the way the guys had.
It was really their fault he was the way he was.
But as she studied the good-looking guy who looked like a very successful functioning adult, she admitted that a lot of this was her fault too.
Ollie was bored because he truly had very little to do or take care of.
