Red Velvet Revenge (31 page)

“Listen, old man,” Olivia said.

“Who are you calling old, gray beard?” Marty interrupted.

“Ah!” Olivia took one hand off the tray of cupcakes she was still holding to feel her chin for errant whiskers.

Feeling none, she snarled at Marty, grabbed a vivid pink cupcake off of her tray, and lobbed it at him.

Marty ducked and it landed in Angie’s hair and got wedged there like a bird in a nest. Angie wobbled on her feet; obviously the weight of the cupcake in her already heavy hair had knocked her off balance.

“Ha! How’d you like that, Princess?” Olivia cackled. “I’ve got one with your name on it, too.”

“Stop calling me Princess!” Mel snapped, trying to steady Angie as she listed to one side.

“No?” Olivia asked. “How about I call you b—?”

A white cactus flower cupcake landed with smack dab precision right in Olivia’s pie hole. Mel whipped her head around and saw Marty looking at her with an innocent expression.

“What?” he asked. “I slipped.”

“Nice,” Oz said, and the two exchanged a knuckle bump. “Pitcher?”

“All-American,” Marty said. “You know, back in the day.”

Mel propped Angie against the table. Angie gave Marty an impressed thumbs-up, but Mel knew retaliation—

Smack! A cupcake slammed into the side of her head. The cupcake thudded to the ground, but she could feel the frosting ooze down her face as it slid out of her short blond hair and landed on her shoulder.

Now she was mad. Mel forgot about Ian Hannigan the owner of the magazine. She forgot that they were supposed to be here to showcase their shop with a happy, peppy photo shoot. Without thinking of the consequences of her actions, Mel snatched the spotlighted extra large cupcake in the center of the table and charged at Olivia with a roar reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s character in
Braveheart
.