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

Again, the two men had spent quite some time inside the building and were unseen. Minutes ticked by which just about drove me mad. The two men felt to me as if they were in there forever, a lifetime.


Perhaps an hour and forty minutes had passed before they exited the building. I watched both of them find and climb back inside Nolan’s BMW. Thereafter, the pair drove to Nolan’s house in Asbury Hills.


What I found most strange about their time spent together was their goodbyes in Nolan’s asphalt driveway. They didn’t kiss or hug. There wasn’t a single second of intimacy during that delicate time of departure. Instead, the two men simply shook hands, smiled, chatted, and nodded in a polite manner. Following their cordial and tasteful farewell, Nolan returned to his house and Richter headed to Interstate 79 and his return drive to Erie and Snowden.


Chapter 41