Red Velvet Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

reached over and smacked Marty’s hand.
    “No peeking,” he said.
    Marty gave him a sour look but went and stood with the others.
    “Are you ready?” Sal asked.
    “Yes,” Angie and Mel said together, but then Angie added, “No, wait!” Sal’s face fell like a meringue on a humid day.
    “Why?” he asked.
    “Shouldn’t Tate be here?” Angie asked. “He’s our partner and he’d want to see this.”
    “Oh, he’s already seen it,” Sal said. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth.
    “Explain.” Angie frowned at him.
    Sal spread his hands wide in his attempt at sincere. “Well, business being what it is, and costs—”
    “You did not!” Angie snapped and stomped her foot.
    “Did not what?” Mel asked. “I’m not following.”
    “Have Tate pay for the renovations,” Angie said. Then she whirled on Oz. “Did you know about this?”
    All six foot three of him squirmed under Angie’s glare, and he said, “Kind of.”
    “Kind of?” Angie asked. “Like, I’m
kind of
going to kick all of your butts?”
    “Calm down, baby sis,” Sal began. “Tate came around to the shop and saw what we were dealing with—seriously, a dropped transmission and a bad stink that made even my nose hair curl—and he agreed that if this was really going to be a part of your business venture, then some capital had to be channeled into it.”
    “How much?” Angie asked.
    “I’m not sure,” Sal said. “I’m a little fuzzy on the numbers.”
    “Oh, please. You can sniff out the change in a person’s pocket at twenty paces,” Angie said. “How much?”
    “You may as well tell her, Sal,” Mel said. “You know we’ll get it out of Tate anyway.”
    “Twenty K,” he said.
    Angie staggered. Mel would have caught her, but she got dizzy as the sidewalk tipped a bit.
    “Whoa, we’re going to have to sell over eight thousand cupcakes to pay him back,” Mel said, doing some quick mental math.
    “Pay who back?” a voice asked from behind them.
    Mel and Angie turned to see Tate standing there.
    “Thanks for the text, Oz,” he said, and they exchanged some complicated handshake thing that to Mel looked like two birds humping. “I didn’t want to miss the big reveal.”
    Angie took a swing at him, but Tate hadn’t been Angie’s BFF for more than twenty years for nothing. He ducked andcaught her around the middle, hoisting her up over his shoulder.
    “Angie, it’s too hot for this much exertion,” he said. “What are you thinking?”
    “I’m thinking I’m going to stomp on you!”
    Tate turned to Mel and said, “Well, that’s gratitude.”

Five

    “Tate, we can’t borrow any more money for the business,” Mel said. “I thought we were pretty clear on that.”
    Tate shrugged. “It was an opportunity.”
    Mel gave him a hard stare while Angie grumbled behind them, “Hey, I think all of the blood has run to my head.”
    “Good. Then you won’t be able to do any damage,” Tate said, and he slowly lowered her to her feet.
    Sal looked at the three of them. “Are we good now? Because I am sweating like a hairy monkey in a polyester suit and I need to get back to work.”
    “We’re good,” Mel said as she steadied Angie with a hand on her elbow. Then she glanced at Tate. “We’ll discuss this later.”
    He gave a put-upon sigh but didn’t argue.
    “All right, then,” Sal said. “Lou, if you don’t mind.”
    He gestured for the other man to grab a corner of the gray car cover, and together they lifted it like a preschool parachute up and over the van.
    Mel felt her eyes get wide as she tried to take it in.
    The faded ice cream stickers were gone, and in their place was the coolest thing on four wheels Mel had ever seen.
    Its big rectangular shape had a fresh coat of white paint.
Fairy Tale Cupcakes
was spelled out in their signature cursive font, and Sal and Lou had put an enormous atomic cupcake symbol, the one Mel and Angie used for all of their packaging, which featured an aqua and pink