Brooke nodded.“I like that our friends get along so well. And that they would even come to do this so late on a Friday in the first place.”
“Oy, lovebirds,” Nick said from the other end of the table.
Brooke and Anna turned their attention to him in unison.“May we help you?” Brooke asked. A few months into officially dating Anna, and she was fully accustomed to Nick and his antics. She loved the support system he had been for Anna for so long. It was a space she was fully happy to share with him.
“Don’t make me tell you to go get a room.” He looked around at all their friends.“These two, I swear. Insufferable.”
Christine beamed at them.“I don’t know, they’re pretty cute though.”
Vivienne nodded in agreement.“I have to agree, they were worse before they started dating.” She shuddered dramatically, punctuating her point.“The longing.”
“The bad attempts at flirting,” Christine added. She pointedly looked between them.“And yes, I am dragging both of you.”
“Okay, I never witnessed them interact pre-dating, but I do know that on more than one occasion, Anna asked how many buttons she could leave undone before her shirt became technically indecent,” Nick tacked on.
Brooke felt the tips of her ears heat. She had spent almost a whole year thinking her crush was unrequited. Any insight into Anna’s feelings before their trip to London always left her speechless, and perhaps a little dizzy.
“The unnecessary recaps,” Maddie chimed in.“God, the amount of phone calls I got on Tuesday mornings with just completely ridiculous run downs of everything Brooke Kent had or hadn’t done the night before.”
Anna let out the most delightful, charming, bubbly laugh. She was far better at taking their friends' teasing.“But look at us now.” She leaned into Brooke, all but climbing in her lap.“It was worth all the pining.”
“As Anna’s roommate, I can confirm that”—
—“Nicholas Soloman, I swear to god if you finish that sentence in front of all our friends, I will hurt you later,” Anna cut him off.
Nick seemed thrilled by the reaction he had gotten out of Anna and held his hands up in mock surrender.“Fine, fine. Just stay at Brooke’s place tonight. Yeah?”
Brooke couldn’t argue with that. Other than not having all of Anna’s bakeware and her spice rack on hand, Brooke did prefer staying at her own place. Not that Anna’s place wasn’t more comfortable and homey, it absolutely was, but they had more privacy at Brooke’s place. So much so, that she was beginning to wonder how soon was too soon to ask Anna to move in.
Her leg started to bounce under the table just thinking about it. She had already started to do things around her apartment to make Anna feel more at home. She had cleared out a drawer in her kitchen for Anna, and had done her best to find every spice that Anna had in her own apartment. She was working off of hastily taken, slightly blurry phone camera photos, but Anna’s eyes had watered when Brooke had revealed the drawer.
She had also given Anna free range on throw pillows and couch blankets for Brooke’s living room. And tonight, if Anna was truly up for coming back to Brooke’s place, Brooke would show her another emptied drawer—this one in her bedroom. Not that she wanted to put any pressure on Anna, she didn’t. Brooke knew just how serious of a part Nick had played in Anna’s recovery, her whole life, really. She wasn’t trying to whisk Anna away, she just… Well, truth be told Brooke knew that for her, this was it. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Anna Fourchette. And as a result, she was having a very difficult time not being a stereotype. The U-Haul logo flashed through her mind.
Anna let go of Brooke’s hand and slid her palm up and down Brooke’s leg in a slow, soothing manner. Brooke hadn’t realized that her leg was still bouncing, but it stilled under Anna’s sure touch. Without saying anything, Anna leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to the underside of Brooke’s jaw, nothing that would earn them any more ribbing from their friends, just gentle, physical reassurance.
It didn’t take long for the oven timers to go off, signaling the brownies would be fully baked. Anna untangled herself from Brooke with practiced ease and grabbed a rag to use to pull the trays out.“Okay, so what I didn’t tell everyone is that your recipes were all slightly varied.” She left two of the trays in to bake a little longer.
Anna set the other trays down one at a time on their large, adjoined table. Maddie got up to help, extracting herself from her wife with a kiss. Maddie passed out plates and forks while Anna added serving utensils to each of the pans.
When the finished brownies were all set out Anna grinned, a stunning mix of pleased and mischievous.“I also got us ice cream.”
While all of their friends applauded her for her absolute genius, she produced a few pints of ice cream, each with their own brand new scoopers, before settling back down in her chair next to Brooke.
As was to be expected, each of the brownies was heavenly, and to Anna’s point, slightly different. Brooke had been so nervous that she might mess something up, she hadn’t noticed that some of the brownies had chocolate chips, while others had walnuts. Vivienne’s was apparently supposed to have icing. Anna had gone ahead and baked her concoction anyway, convinced there was no such thing as a bad brownie. It hadn’t been awful, but it had been the worst of the bunch.
As everyone was slowly entering into a brownie induced sugar-coma, Anna cleared her throat.“Alright everyone, I need your vote for which was the best. I’d like to add a brownie to the summer menu.”
Brooke quickly pointed at the pan that had contained her favorite. It had both chocolate chips and walnuts in it, and based on how much of the pan was eaten would likely be the whole group's favorite.
“Alright, two points to this one from Honey-B,” Anna said, her smile radiant.
“Two points?” Vivienne asked, narrowing her eyes.
Anna nodded without hesitation.“Yep, girlfriend privileges.”
Vivienne rolled her eyes.“Disgusting,” she added.“However, I won’t fight it in this instance because that was my favorite as well.”
Allegra shook her head.“Nope, I’m a no nuts in my desserts type of girl.” She pointed at a different pan.“This one gets my vote.”
