R.W. Clinger

David Miles and Richter Layover are young lovers from West Hollywood who move to Snowden to open a liberal and fun bakery called Cupcakes. What follows is a string of extraordinary men who enter their lives and change their matrimony and the bakery forever. Realtor Anthony Jarr, handsome and alluring, who lives above Cupcakes and considers himself an exceptional lover. When he meets Ryan Glayson, a professional cellist with a relentless urge for sweets, Jarr falls in love for the first time, turning his life into a topsy-turvy spin of surprising romance and selflessness. The magnetic and strange Stefan Pavlov is one of Cupcakes' regulars. Although he comes across as being sweet and charming, he has secrets that are quite damaging, which are exposed during a heated summer along the lake. Erich Misslow, a part-time employee at Cupcakes, becomes enamored with Pavlov, who is almost three times his age. Erich has always enjoyed the company of older men, but does Pavlov have too much peculiar baggage to share? Cupcakes also draws in Ken Eclipse, a charming underwear model with a taste for sweet men and sultry sex. Eclipse searches for Mr. Right like a slice of cinnamon cake for his appetite and personal needs. Can he find the man of his dreams at Cupcakes, or will he forever be single, enjoying the bakery's treats alone? These employees, friends, and lovers combine together with their individual recipes of bliss and loss, and the little bakery called Cupcakes comes to life as the sugary flavor of a gay neighborhood along the lake bursts into life.

Cupcakes

They met at Cupcakes shortly after eight. Timothy carried a tiny box wrapped with a bow and royal blue paper. Upon meeting Erich outside of the bakery Timothy passed the gift to him, and said, “A little something special for you.”


“What is it?” Erich asked, taking the gift from the man and admiring its palm-size and oblong length.


So Erich listened, and did. Inside the box was a leather cookbook with curled edges and water-stained boards. The pages were thick with crust and age, and the gift smelled like molasses. He flipped through it and saw handwritten recipes, some of which were in German, which he had studied in high school and could translate. Other baking recipes were in English. At the front of the cookbook was the name Dagobert Wangler.“I love this,” he said, flipping through its stained pages.


“Someone brought it into the store to swap it out. I set it aside, thinking you might like it.”


Chapter 25