Pranked Read online

  “Apparently, our friendly neighborhood baker thinks he wants a prank war.” I tossed him the note and he started laughing again and grinning up at me.

  “You have to let me help,” he begged, already pulling out his phone and making a list of pranks, showing me every few minutes. This was going to be amazing.

  Ezra

  I’d been vigilant and waiting for the next week and a half, but Jasper didn’t seem to have any plans of retaliation. I’d be lying if I said I was disappointed, Leo and I had a whole list of pranks to get back at him with and I was really itching to use them. For the hundredth time since I stuck that note to his door, I wondered if I should have signed it.

  After I gave Mrs. Durso and Tinkerbell their morning treats, Leo burst in with an expectant look on his face, frowning when I shook my head. “Seriously? He’s done nothing in the last ten days?!” He sat down with a huff, before realizing what he came for. “I need a box of pastries for the shop.”

  “On it.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment as I packed him a box with extra pastries, making sure to include some of Pops’ favorites. “And at this point, I just don’t think he’s going to.”

  “And why do you sound so sad about it?” he asked, that ridiculous knowing smirk on his face again. Here comes the chemistry talk. “Is it perhaps because he can rock tight jeans like a sexy cowboy?” He dissolved into laughter at the blush coloring my cheeks. Jasper did rock some amazing jeans, his perfectly rounded ass on display every time I saw him, and his lean muscles were barely contained under his tight fitted shirts. Though, that was where the cowboy similarities ended. He had red hair and bright, jade green eyes. He was covered in tattoos and had gauges in his ears. He rocked the whole subtle edgy look, and even in my usual workaholic fog, I noticed him anytime he was around.

  “Why are we friends?”

  “Because I’m irresistible. And you need to stop denying how much you like him,” he fired back.

  “I don’t like him. I don’t even know him, except that he’s inconsiderate.”

  “All right, all right. Come on, I may as well help you lug in your morning deliveries.” I wasn’t about to turn down free labor. I was building muscle from hauling the industrial sized bags of ingredients, but I still had to pace myself throughout the day instead of doing it all at once.

  “Thanks, Leo,” I said, flipping a sign that said ‘Be back in 5!’ before heading out the back door of the bakery, propping it open and approaching the pallet of supplies. The delivery guy came once a week, but I’d started convincing him to unload back here so it didn’t disrupt my morning routine. Not to mention, I didn’t want to look weak in front of him. Though, I had a suspicion he knew exactly why I did it.

  Leo started with the huge jugs of vegetable oil while I went for the giant bags of flour, throwing it over my shoulder in a practiced move. The problem was, as soon as I did, the impact had flour exploding out of the bag that had clearly been cut into. Flourmageddon formed a cloud of white around me, raining down and covering me. Leo lost it, his laughter and my yelling so loud that it was drawing a crowd. I couldn’t see who because my glasses were covered just like the rest of me.

  “What are the chances you can man the front desk so I can take care of this?” I asked in a calm voice.

  “Oh dang, the scary calm is out, this doesn’t bode well. I’ve got it,” he promised, his eyes wide as he slipped inside without further protest. He wasn’t wrong, I was furious. I was trying my hardest and King just cost my bakery money and ingredients. I had this all down to a science. Being down an entire fifty pound bag of flour put a huge cut into what I could produce.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered, brushing myself off. “I didn’t mess with his business.” Though, technically I did put in a noise complaint. But that didn’t negatively impact him at all! I got emotional when I got super angry, so I had to furiously blink back the flour and tears from my eyes as I tried to get myself defloured enough to walk inside.

  Before I could step inside, my eyes drifted to the remaining bags of flour. I wanted to check the others while I was already covered, but the rest were all untampered, thank god. As I counted down the pile, I realized I had my usual shipment here, without the busted bag. My anger drained and a small smile formed in place of the scowl. Well played, King, well played.

  After showering quickly, I hurriedly dressed and rushed down the stairs to get back to the bakery and found Leo manning the counter with quite a few people standing around, though no one seemed interested in buying anything. Knitting my brow I pulled on my spare apron and joined Leo who was talking to Mr. Jefferson who works down the street.

  “Ezra! It’s so good to see you’re doing okay. We all came down to see what the racket was about earlier. What happened?”

  I glanced at Leo who gave me a wide-eyed innocent look that I didn’t believe for a second. “There was an issue with one of the flour bags in the shipment, but luckily it seems to have been an extra, otherwise I would have sold out by midday tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I can see how that would be surprising, dear.” Mrs. Anderson came up beside Mr. Jefferson and patted my arm softly. “I’m glad everyone is okay. If you need anything please let us know. We’ve been here forever, so we can help or we know who can.”

  I gave them both a smile and said thank you, handing them a cookie before they meandered out the door. As soon as the door shut behind them Leo was chuckling and I turned to him with hands on my hips and a scowl.

  “It’s not that funny.”

  “Babe. It is that fucking funny. You just aren’t seeing that because it happened to you.” Leo tried to get himself under control but whenever he saw my unamused face he lost it all over again.

  “Oh come on, Ez! The man bought an extra 50 pound bag to make the prank and not mess up your business. King finally retaliated, which we’ve been waiting for.”

  Dropping my scowl I walked over and sat on the counter beside Leo and sighed. “Yeah, I guess he outdid our ‘poppin music’ prank.”

  “That just means we have to go bigger this time around.”

  “And how the heck are we going to do that?!”

  “Ez, we’ve got this. I need to run these pastries back to Pops and I’ll see if he will let me come back and help for a bit since you still have all the flour in the back to clean up.”

  He leaned over and gave me a brief kiss on the cheek while grabbing the box of pastries from earlier. Then he waltzed out of the shop toward the antique store. Hopefully Pops lets him off because cleaning up that flour is going to be a pain in the ass.

  Not ten minutes later Leo ran back into the bakery with a grin on his face. “I’ve got the perfect idea. A bachelor auction at the bar. And Jasper King is going to be the star bachelor.”

  I just stared at him in shock. “Leo… that’s brilliant. But how—”

  Leo held up a hand to cut me off. “I’ll get the details all sorted, so don’t you worry about that. Here is what I’m going to get you to do. I want you to make snacks for the event. Doesn’t have to be a lot, just finger foods that people can enjoy that goes well with the alcohol. I’ll place the ad on craigslist and social media for the event and get everything started from there. But moving on for now, let’s get the flour out back sorted, because Pops needs me back in an hour to help him rearrange some of the furniture display to get ready for Christmas.”

  I nodded slowly and let him usher me toward the back, while he flipped the sign saying I was on my lunch break. I figured most people in town knew what had happened, so they shouldn’t be surprised about another break today.

  This bachelor auction idea of Leo’s was crazy and for some unknown reason, I couldn’t wait to see Jasper’s face when he gets called up to be auctioned off. Maybe Leo will let me write his bio?

  “I have an idea for the auction. How about we donate the proceeds to Second Chance shelter? That way Jasper can’t refuse to go through with it and more people will show up?”

  Leo stopped m
e quickly and yanked me around to face him with delighted shock on his face. “Ezra. You’re a genius! That’s absolute gold and the perfect way to get others to help me pull this off.”

  “Others?” I hesitantly asked, almost afraid of how far he’d take this one.

  Leo waved off my question and dragged me outside. “Details, details. Now how are we going to clean up this massive amount of flour that is all over the place? Hose it down?”

  Sighing I shook my head. “Sadly we are going to have to sweep it up and try to get it into the dumpster. Water will just make a slurry and it will be harder to clean up. Might as well get started.”

  I grabbed the large industrial brooms I had to clean up messes and handed one to Leo. “Alright let’s work together and move everything slowly into a pile by the dumpster. That way it’s all together and then we can figure out how to get it out of this alleyway.”

  It took us almost the entire hour that Leo had off, to get rid of most of the flour since it kept exploding everywhere and covering us both with a fine layer of white. Luckily, the rest of my day ran much smoother and once I finally got the shop closed up, cleaned, and prepped for tomorrow morning, I dragged myself upstairs for my third shower of the day. The hot water hitting the sore muscles of my back had me groaning in relief.

  I’ll give it to Jasper, that was a great prank and I appreciated the thought that went into it so he didn’t mess with the order for my business. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that extra care since the only people who usually cared that much about me used to be my mom and now Leo, but that’s it. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to Jasper King than I thought.

  Jasper

  “Wow, it’s busy tonight,” I mumbled to Talon, sliding his beer across the bar to him before turning to help Jax. He got overwhelmed by the first hour we opened, but the crowd was nearly doubled in size to our usual one. It wasn’t even a special occasion so I had no clue why it was so busy.

  “Have you heard anyone talking? Is there some kind of high school reunion or event that just ended?” Jax practically whined, his eyes wide and sweat pouring down his face as he skirted around me to pick up a bottle of wine.

  “Dude, you want me back there?” Talon asked, cringing as a woman in a low cut dress practically pushed her boobs in his face. Sorry girl, wrong team. “Let me help.”

  “All right,” I conceded, realizing I’d have to look into hiring some more help if this kept up. Jax was new and getting more confident each shift, but this would have been hell even for an experienced bartender.

  The noise level in the room dropped suddenly, Talon, Jax and I all freezing in place and looking over at the door. My mouth fell open in shock as a group came in with party supplies, sound equipment, and what looked like pieces of a stage.

  “Are you the owner?” a man asked, coming up with a wide grin, holding out a hand. I nodded and shook it, too confused to form words. “This was a brilliant way to drum up business, and Second Chance can’t thank you enough! Even offering yourself up as the star bachelor? Genius!”

  “Introductions, Brooks. We talked about this,” a cute brunette came up next to him, rolling her eyes and smiling before sliding a packet of papers my way. “I’m Kat and this is Brooks, we run Second Chance. Your donations tonight will help us immensely. Nobody should go hungry! This is the legal side of things, I filed the charity event paperwork with the city so I just need a few signatures so that the proceeds go to the right place. The contact we had said that fifty percent of the bids would go to us, is that still on the table?”

  “I’m sorry, bids for what now?” I asked, still reeling. She’d barely even taken a breath the entire speech, but I felt no more enlightened. I didn’t plan any kind of charity event.

  “The bachelor auction. Cornelius should be here soon and it looks like they’re almost done setting up!” she explained cheerfully, waving behind her. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I took in the red and black decor and a faux red carpet lined runway. What the fuck?

  “What’s going on?” Talon hissed at me, stepping up to take a look at the paperwork. “You planned this?” He almost looked hurt that I didn’t tell him. I didn’t plan this, but I had a distinct feeling of who did plan it. The fact that it was charity definitely meant I couldn’t back out now. I was more and more impressed with each flip of the page. They’d planned this out perfectly and had all of the right legalities figured out. I finished signing it and finally slid it back to Kat, who cheered, shoved it in a manilla envelope, then sprinted through the crowd to lend a hand. I felt like I was in the eye of a hurricane, helpless to stop the chaos that was about to ensue.

  A moment later Cornelius bustled in like a celebrity. He was wearing a pale blue suit that contrasted perfectly with his dark features. Of course, he didn’t stop there. His suit was covered in a subtle sparkle, so when he walked, the dim lights of the bar caught it and illuminated the shimmery fabric. His toothy grin was in full force as he waved at the crowd, clearly in his element.

  When I finally saw who walked in behind him, realization settled in, confirming my suspicions. Ezra and his blond friend walked in, arms linked and matching smug smiles. Before I could even process everything, Cornelius was on stage looking like a game show host and bringing attention to the impromptu event.

  “Hello ladies and gentlemen! Thanks for coming out to our Echo Bay Bachelor Auction! I’m Cornelius and I’ll be your host this evening! Here’s how it works folks. I announce our bachelors and read off a little bio, including sexual orientation. Then you can start your bids at five bucks, moving up from there. Half of the profits go to Second Chance, our local food pantry and soup kitchen, the other half to our amazing host for having us tonight!” He paused as the crowd went wild, cheering and clapping. He waited patiently for it to quiet down before continuing. “A winning bid earns you a date with your bachelor, but keep in mind this is just a date! Keep it classy, people! Now, bachelors, go sign up by the front door, we begin in fifteen minutes!” Cornelius stepped off the stage as a group of men lined up to sign their names on the paper by the front door.

  “Holy shit,” Jax mumbled, looking up at me like a deer in headlights. “You better go sign up, he mentioned you were the star bachelor, didn’t he?”

  “Fuck. He definitely did. I’m going to kill them.” I let out a heavy sigh and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind me, downing two shots before heading out.

  “Wait, who?”

  “Our friendly neighborhood baker. This is retaliation after the flour incident,” I explained, stepping through the bar flap and chuckling to myself. I’d watched the entire thing happen from my apartment window. It gave me a perfect view of the back of his building and the aftermath of the flour explosion. It was even better than I imagined it.

  The line took a long time to get through, but I made sure to sign up anyway. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and I’d never back down in front of Ezra. He wanted to keep this prank war going, then I was going to give him a run for his money. Though, he was a much more worthy competitor than I gave him credit for. It had been over a week since the flour incident and he managed to pull off something this elaborate. I was impressed and more than a little turned on.

  “All right, who’s ready to get this started?” Cornelius yelled into the mic, getting the crowd riled up. Everyone had moved away from the tables and surrounded the portable runway, looking up at their host expectantly. “For our first bachelor, we have John Flynn!” Cheers erupted before he even read the bio, speaking over the crowd eventually and getting the bidding started.

  I did some quick math after the fourth bachelor, realizing we’d already raised over a thousand dollars. Leave it to Ezra to be selfless with his prank. I didn’t know him that well yet, but it fit what I did know already. I stayed behind the bar helping Jax and Talon keep up with the large crowd of men and women who were bidding and drinking the night away for the auction. As Corny called out for the eighth bachelor to come on stage I realized
that I was next up.

  “Hey, Mr. Bachelor! Are we taking bets about who is going to win a date with you?”

  Turning I took in Hudson and Micah, grinning at me beside my dad at the bar, all with equally amused expressions on their faces. Assholes.

  I pointed a finger at my friends. “Don’t you dare bid on me unless one of those crazy cougars enters the ring. I don’t want to know what either of you do on a date.”

  Ignoring the mock offended faces, I turned to my father to find him not watching me at all anymore, but Jax who was trying to serve people on the other side of the bar. It looked like they were getting a bit grabby with him from the uncomfortable set of his shoulders.

  “Shit, I need to go help Jax. Dad, no commentary from the peanut gallery.”

  “Oh I wouldn’t dream of it, Son.”

  I threw a glare over my shoulder at his dry tone but I could see his smile that he tried to cover with his bottle of beer. I walk over to stand beside Jax and maneuver my body between him and the customers, “Jax, we’re out of Pabst, can you go in the back and grab another keg?” Turning toward the customers I give them a fake grin. “I’m sure they won’t mind being served by the star bachelor of the night instead.”

  The looks on their faces told me that they did indeed mind, but Jax had already taken the opening I had given him. After the door swung closed behind him, I leaned close to the two men who had been giving him trouble and dropped the smile. “This is your only warning, you do anything at all to make Jaxtyn uncomfortable again you will be banned from this bar. I don’t care if the only thing you do is turn your beady eyes on him; he tells me he is uncomfortable I’ll have the sheriff escort you out himself.”

  The two men were obviously hammered, but while one took my quiet threat seriously the other guy was too far gone to realize how pissed I was at their harassment.