Chapter Text
The bakery had given them a private tasting room, which Dani took as a sign of respect and Gabby took as a sign that this was already too much.
There were six cake stands arranged at varying heights like a dessert skyline. Each one had a small printed card describing flavor notes in a font Dani had already critiqued under her breath. Kourtney and Carlos stood in front of the display with the posture of generals surveying a battlefield. Hanna had a legal pad. Connor was quietly asking the coordinator about delivery windows. Luke lingered near the window, hands in his pockets, curious but quiet. Jai was leaning back in his chair like he’d accidentally wandered into a board meeting for frosting executives. Gabe had arrived late and immediately positioned himself next to Gabby, arms folded, expression neutral in the way that meant he was evaluating everything.
Dani clapped once. “Okay. We’re not here to play. We’re here to discover.”
“We’re here to eat cake,” Gabby said mildly.
“Same thing.”
The coordinator began slicing the first sample — vanilla bean with raspberry filling — and Dani leaned forward like she was about to receive life-altering news. Gabby accepted her plate and fork and waited for the sugar rush to hit before the opinions did.
Kourtney closed her eyes on the first bite. “It’s clean. It’s classic. It photographs well.”
Carlos nodded. “But it doesn’t tell a story.”
“It tells the story of cake,” Jai muttered.
Luke glanced at him. “What story would cake tell?”
“Stability. Commitment. Lowered expectations.”
Gabby huffed a quiet laugh and took another bite. It was good. Sweet without being aggressive. Familiar. She imagined cutting into it, imagined Dani’s hand steady in hers.
Dani swallowed thoughtfully. “It’s safe.”
“That’s not bad,” Gabby said.
“It’s not memorable.”
“Do we need memorable? Or edible?” Gabe asked.
Dani turned to him with a tight smile. “Both.”
The second sample was chocolate espresso with salted caramel. Dani’s eyes lit up immediately.
“This,” she said, before even finishing the bite. “This is layered.”
“Because it’s cake,” Jai said.
“No, because it’s dynamic.”
Gabby watched Dani come alive in that way she did when something felt theatrical. Dani wasn’t just tasting it; she was staging it in her head. The lighting. The reveal. The gasp.
“It’s rich,” Gabby said carefully. “Maybe too rich?”
Carlos perked up. “Rich is luxurious.”
“It’s heavy,” Gabby clarified.
“Marriage is heavy,” Jai offered solemnly.
“Thank you, Jai,” Hanna said without looking up from her notes.
They moved through lemon elderflower, pistachio honey, red velvet with mascarpone. Opinions overlapped. Forks clinked. Someone asked about structural integrity in outdoor humidity. Connor requested clarification on refrigeration logistics. The coordinator maintained a fixed, professional smile.
When they reached the last sample — brown butter with cinnamon and a thin layer of maple cream — Gabby paused before taking a bite.
Dani noticed. “What?”
“This was the flavor from that bakery near our first apartment,” Gabby said. “The one we used to go to after your late rehearsals.”
Dani blinked. “Oh.”
“It tastes like that,” Gabby said softly after trying it. “Like when we didn’t know what we were doing yet.”
There was a brief, almost fragile quiet.
Luke looked up. Jai stopped leaning back.
Dani tasted it again. Slower this time.
“It’s… subtle,” she said.
“I like subtle.”
Carlos tilted his head. “Subtle disappears in photographs.”
Gabby’s mouth curved faintly. “We’re not marrying the photographs.”
Kourtney tapped her fork against the plate. “But we are preserving the aesthetic.”
“It’s cinnamon,” Gabe said. “Not beige.”
Dani exhaled and turned back to the coordinator. “Could we do that flavor as a base but elevate the finish? Maybe a glaze that catches light better. Or a textured buttercream. Something more dimensional.”
Gabby’s fork paused midair.
“It’s already good,” she said.
“I know, I just think it could be more,” Dani replied, already picturing adjustments.
More.
The word hung there.
Jai watched the exchange with open interest. Luke glanced at Gabby, curious, like he was trying to understand something he didn’t have language for yet.
Hanna scribbled something down and then finally looked up. “Do you want the cake to taste like you two,” she asked evenly, “or look like a Pinterest board?”
“It can do both,” Dani said immediately.
Gabby swallowed the rest of her bite. It did taste like that tiny apartment kitchen. Like folding chairs and takeout containers and Dani falling asleep mid-sentence on the couch. It didn’t need glaze. It didn’t need texture. It didn’t need to be elevated.
It had already meant something.
Dani was still talking about structural tiers when Gabby set her fork down.
“Can we just pick one?” Gabby asked, gentle but firm. “And be done?”
Dani stopped mid-sentence. “We are picking one.”
“No, we’re redesigning one.”
There it was — small, but sharp enough to feel.
Kourtney shifted slightly. Carlos looked between them.
“I just don’t want to overthink it,” Gabby continued. “It’s cake.”
“It’s our wedding cake,” Dani said.
“I know.”
There was no anger in her voice. Just something steadier. Something that didn’t want to be smoothed over.
Dani looked at her, really looked at her, like she was trying to calculate whether this was about frosting or something else.
Gabe stepped forward, breaking the tension with deliberate casualness. “The cinnamon one tastes like you two. That’s my vote.”
Jai raised his fork. “I vote for anything that doesn’t require architectural blueprints.”
Luke nodded quietly. “I liked that one too.”
Carlos hesitated. Kourtney pursed her lips.
Dani stood there in the middle of it, holding a fork like a conductor’s baton.
Finally, she exhaled. “We’ll put a pin in it.”
Gabby almost smiled.
Of course they would.
As the coordinator began boxing leftovers and Connor discussed delivery routes, the room shifted back into noise. Plans. Logistics. Laughter.
But Luke lingered near Gabby as everyone else drifted.
“Are you excited?” he asked softly, not prying. Just curious.
Gabby considered the question.
“Yeah,” she said.
It wasn’t a lie.
It just wasn’t the whole answer.
Across the room, Dani was already discussing lighting with Carlos.
And Gabby watched her — brilliant, driven, so certain — and wondered, just for a flicker of a second, whether she was planning a marriage…
or producing an event.