Chapter Text
It started with the bakery.
Emma had worked a lot of restaurant stings for Isaac in the past three years-he usually brought her on for her waitressing experience. Don some hidden camera glasses and an earpiece, wait tables at the place for a couple days, help the owners see all the crazy crap that their employees were getting into. She had seen food being sold out the back door, theft and embezzlement, she had even accidentally walked in on two employees going hot and heavy in a bathroom cubicle. She’d taken a shower-several showers, in fact-after that one.
But today, when she sat down with Isaac to go over the files, it was something entirely different. “A bakery? I’m not really sure how I can help. I don’t know the first thing about baking.”
“It’s pretty straightforward,” Isaac shrugged. “Regina took over her mother’s bakery after a couple years living abroad, and she’s had some strange complaints about one of the bakers her mom hired a few years back. It’s costing her some revenue. She’s questioned Zelena about the canceled orders, and Zelena insists that it’s just a string of bad customers.”
“So what,” Emma looked over the file again. “You want me to order a cake and see if she delivers on what I asked for?”
“Something like that,” Isaac smirked. “I’m also hoping you can break in the new guy.”
Emma cocked an eyebrow. “What new guy?”
“You’ve got a lunch meeting with Killian tomorrow,” Isaac handed her a sticky note with an address scribbled down. “You two need to pose as an engaged couple looking to order a wedding cake.”
“WHAT?” Emma sat bolt upright, locking eyes with Isaac, searching his face for any trace of a joke. There wasn’t one. “Come on, Isaac, that’s why you called me in? There’s no one else you could do this with? Isn’t Ruby free or something?”
“Ruby actually knows something about baking, which you - as you already mentioned - don’t,” Isaac suppressed a smile. “She’ll be in the kitchen. Besides-I’ve got a feeling you guys will sell this really well.”
Emma let her forehead descend to the table with a gentle thump. There was no arguing with him. And she hated to admit it, but Isaac usually had a pretty good sense of how people fit together.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “But the ring had better be awesome.”
---
“So you have to be engaged to this guy? For how long?” Elsa leaned across the arm of her chair with interest, her hot cocoa almost forgotten on the end table beside her.
“Just like two months or so. It’s the off-season for weddings, so we didn’t have to book a meeting too far in advance.” Emma cupped her own mug of cocoa with both hands, descending immediately into a cross-legged heap on the sofa. “And anyway, it’s only when we meet with her. The sting will be in February. I meet with the guy - Killian, I guess - tomorrow afternoon. Then the first consultation will be later in the week, as soon as we can schedule something with her. That’s the tasting. Then I guess we have to take a week or so to look like we’re ‘shopping around.’ Then we do the actual planning of the cake, when we give her our weird request. I call a couple times to follow up, and then we go in on the day of the sting to see the finished product.”
Elsa giggled. “You know, I could give you a few pointers on what to ask. I did help my sister plan her wedding.”
“Oh shut up,” Emma rolled her eyes, but Elsa’s giggles were relentless. “It’s not like a real wedding is going to happen. We’re just going to go eat free cake and tell her we want brown chocolate icing on the outside and see if she flips a lid. That’s it.”
Elsa finally stopped laughing, but only after Emma glared at her for a good minute. “Fine. You might as well have fun with it, though. What do you know about this Killian guy?”
“His name is Killian Jones, he did some hidden camera stuff when he got out of the British Navy, Isaac found him in casting after he moved to America. That’s all.” Emma shrugged. “I guess I’ll know more tomorrow afternoon. It’s really not a big deal, though.”
“Some would think getting paid to wear an engagement ring and pretend to be engaged to a stranger was a very big deal,” Elsa observed. “Some would think it was an even BIGGER deal if they were already attached.”
Emma’s eyes suddenly widened to the size of dinner plates. Elsa paused, and then returned with her own wide-eyed stare.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t told Walsh yet.”
Emma set her cocoa down on the coffee table, and then quietly slid down to lay on the sofa, hoping that the soft suede would swallow her whole.
“Crap.”