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I check my pancakes again, and they’re beautiful, New York’s most handsome breakfast cake. I flip them onto a plate to keep warm and then cut off my burner.
“Done!” I say, whipping my towel in the air. It hits Logan in the head and he growls in feigned anger before ripping it out of my hand and trying to smack my arse with it.
“Hey! Ease up, you! That actually hurts!”
He chases me through the kitchen and I have to duck around the island. He’s much faster than me—good thing our competition doesn’t have an athletic component, because I’d be sorely outmatched.
“Enough! Hey!” I groan when he catches me and hoists me up off the ground. “I’m hungry. Let’s load up our plates and see who the victor is.”
“We know who it’s going to be,” he taunts.
He’s really going to cry once he bites into my perfectly cooked eggs, but I won’t even feel bad.
After our plates are loaded with the food cooked by each of us—separated out so we won’t get confused—we take our seats at his breakfast table facing one another.
It’s all very strict. We’ve concocted real rules and everything. We have to take a bite of the same type of food at the same time, and we have to be totally honest with our opinions. We can’t just vote for ourselves for everything, because where’s the fun in that? I tried to convince him to have one of the doormen come up and plate the food for us so we’d be totally blind as to whose food we were eating, but Logan only laughed. I suppose some of us are taking this more seriously than others.
“My eggs first,” he says, nodding for me to load some onto my fork.
I do as he says, and then we lift the forks to our mouths at the same time, gazes locked. The moment they touch our tongues, our faces contort in disgust. My pepper trick worked handily.
“Sorry bud,” I say, after forcing myself to swallow down the small bite. “Eggs are not your forte, I’m afraid.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, all knowingly. Damn, he must have caught me adding the pepper then. “Let’s try yours.”
I’m already smirking with pride as I lift my bite to my mouth—then I immediately spit them out onto my napkin one second after I’ve tasted them.
“What’d you do to my eggs?!” They’re horrid, frankly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s too much salt? But then that doesn’t explain the bitter aftertaste. “I only added pepper to yours!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, all smooth and unruffled.
The arrogant jerk! He’s not even going to admit to cheating then!
“So my eggs are better?” he asks, already puffed with pride. “Even if you over-peppered them?”
I scowl. “Fine. Whatever. We’ve still got two other categories. I’ll obviously win those.”
I don’t win those. The pancakes and bacon are all inedible thanks to our attempts at sabotage. We’ve really mucked this up. By tainting each other’s food, we’ve made it so we don’t even have a decent breakfast to eat. I nearly gag when I try a bite of my pancakes. He added loads of onion powder to my bowl, and the result is nothing short of disgusting.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I say as I load our plates into the dishwasher. “I’m still starving!”
“ME? C’mon, admit it, we both got a little competitive.”
A little?
He leans in to kiss me but stops short when he’s only a centimeter away. “Admit it.”
I groan. “Fine. Yes.” I kiss him quickly before taking his hand in mine and tugging him toward the door of his flat. “Now let’s go get some proper food before I pass out from hunger.”
He stops me on our way out so we can grab hats and sunglasses. I’d forgotten for a moment that we aren’t just two normal people going out for breakfast. If we’re leaving his flat, we have to be prepared.
Logan adjusts his Yankees ball cap on my head then smiles. It’s quite big, which means it should do the trick.
We ride the lift down as we try to decide where we want to eat. Logan has a favorite spot only a few blocks away, so we plan to head there, turning left on the sidewalk in front of his building and holding hands as we walk.
It’s gorgeous out, brisk but not so cold that I need a coat. The sun is shining and there are loads of people out and about, enjoying their Sunday morning. I stop us at a newsstand so I can buy a paper we can share at breakfast. I like reading the Sunday comics and attempting the crossword, even if I never get very far with it.
When I’m done, I turn to Logan with the newspaper in hand and smile. He nods for me to join him again so we can continue our walk, and it’s then that I notice a group of photographers a few yards ahead of us on the street. Instead of keeping their distance, they’re hurrying toward us with their cameras already firing away.
