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“Oh?”
“Yeah. I have a few personal days I can use. I think I need to decompress after the babies, and I can catch up on my snacking.”
I fucking loved this woman a painful amount. Maybe it was too soon, but I made a mental note to run an errand over lunch tomorrow. “I’ll bring you home a surprise.”
“I love surprises. Maybe I’ll have one for you too.”
I tipped her chin up and kissed her softly. “I can’t wait.”
I dropped a dollop of frosting onto the cake I’d made—chocolate, my favorite. Sidney had made it for me several times already, and I figured it was about time I made an attempt at returning that favor.
I chewed my lip, playing the icing tutorial again, trying to smooth everything out like the baker in the video did. I was…moderately successful. At least it would taste good, if my illicit sampling was anything to go by.
Sidney made this look so easy, and I regretted not making him teach me more about baking in the past. The piping bag was staring at me—a challenge awaiting my unskilled attempts to wrangle the tool to create something beautiful. I’d made an absolute mess trying to get all the icing into the piping bag. Who the hell designed them and why did they hate everyone?
I squeezed the first experimental swirl along the base of the cake, and let out a relieved breath when it didn’t too closely resemble something I’d have to pick up after puppies. Working around the rest of the cake, I held my breath and willed my hands to not shake. It had to be perfect because Sidney was perfect, and this cake was going to ask a very important question for me.
With the ring of swirls around the base completed, I turned to the most daunting portion. The words. I used a chopstick to trace out the letters and picked up a container of red and silver sprinkles.
“Please don’t fuck this up,” I said to myself as I peeled off the safety seal on the sprinkles. I took a small pinch and laid it on the first ‘M’. It didn’t look too horrendous. I worked in painfully slow increments, filling in each of the letters until they stood out against the chocolate frosting. Whenever a few of the disagreeable sprinkles tried to ruin my confectionary masterpiece I smothered them in an extra bit of icing.
I read over the finished cake, double-checking that I hadn’t somehow misspelled it. A spark of excited energy whipped up my spine.
Holy shit.
It was real.
I beamed at the cake, marveling at the simple question that could change my life.
M-A-R-R-Y M-E-?
I added the ring I’d bought this morning—a sleek gold band with a flat, rectangular ruby embellishment at the top—to the small space between the words.
An accidental bonding was definitely not the same as a marriage proposal or bonding on purpose, and we deserved the opportunity to do things with intention. Even if Sidney hadn’t thought to ask me himself quite yet. I knew he was letting me settle in, wanted me to be sure, but dammit, I had no idea I could be as happy with anyone as I was with him, and I’d made up my mind yesterday that I was ready to make it official on every level.
The alarm on my phone buzzed—my ten-minute warning for the end of Sidney’s shift, which meant he’d be home sometime in the next twenty minutes or so. We had a date planned at a fancy restaurant, which would make the cake all the more surprising when he got home.
I jumped into the shower for a quick rinse, tucking my dark curls under a shower cap to save time, to make sure I didn’t have any chocolate smears or lingering flour stuck to me. I toweled myself down with the speed of an Olympic sprinter and pulled on the knee-length red dress I’d set out for the evening along with the outrageously expensive shoes he’d bought me. Next was waterproof mascara because no matter what his answer was, I was going to cry. I topped off the look with the bold red lipstick we both loved and set off to nervously pace the kitchen until he got home.
The door swung open before I could wear a path into the linoleum.
Giddiness filled me. Sidney looked me in the eye first, his gaze full of sweet warmth and affection, and then when he looked down at my dress and the curves of my body, blazing heat replacing that warmth. He tossed aside his bag, crossing the short distance to me so he could catch me as I jumped up into his arms. He held the undersides of my thighs and grinned up at me.
“You’re trying to give me a heart attack, looking like that when I come in the door.”
“No dying,” I murmured, dipping down to steal a kiss. I lingered with soft presses and teasing nips until he shuddered. “I made you a cake.”
“My little baker. New hobby? I thought you were resting today.” He caught one more peck on my lips. “Is it chocolate?”
“Is there any other flavor?” I laughed.
“Plenty, but none of the others make you do your happy dance when you eat them, so none of them are my favorite.” Sidney nuzzled my throat, breathing deep. “Smells like cocoa and honeysuckle in here. Might have to delay dinner so I can take advantage of you first.”
I giggled and wiped off some of the red smudge I’d left on his mouth after he lowered my feet to the floor. He turned to the cake sitting on the table, his eyes flaring wide before he let out a delighted laugh.
That wasn’t quite the reaction I’d anticipated, but he sounded happy so I tried to roll with it.
“You can’t laugh at my cake. I worked really hard on it.” I pushed my bottom lip into an exaggerated pout. “I learned how to pipe and everything.”
