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I stirred slowly, keeping my eyes on the pan.

“My mom used to make these after my games. It didn’t matter if I won or lost. I got them either way.” Vera’s playful expression softened. I could tell she wasn’t pitying me—it was coming from a place of understanding from a woman who’d lost her mother in childhood, too. “She said that sugar fixed everything.”

She laughed softly, pushed off the counter, and reached for the marshmallows. “She wasn’t wrong,” she said, tearing into the bag like a goon. A few puffs plopped onto the floor. “Oops,” she whispered before collecting the fallen marshmallows. “Ten-second rule!”

My mouth gaped in horror. “Absolutely not.”

“What? Y’all don’t do the ten-second rule?”

“Hell no. Throw it in the trash.”

Vera cackled and tossed the marshmallows out. “Relax. I was just joking.”

I shook my head and returned to my task. “Proof you can’t eat outta everybody’s kitchen,” I mumbled.

“Not you sounding like a Black auntie,” she teased.

“For your information, my mom was the one who taught me that. Thank you very much.”

“Uh-huh. And she wouldn’t have happened to pick that up from Ms. Kelly, did she?” Vera challenged.

“Mind your business.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Please continue with your tutorial. It’s 4:00 in the morning, and I’ll be unbearable an hour from now.”

“I hear ya. Toss the marshmallows in.” She did, and the marshmallows started to melt as soon as they met the butter. “Stir,” I instructed, handing her the wooden spoon.

For a few minutes, it was quiet again. Not awkward, just peaceful silence as we moved through the motions.

“My mom used to bake too,” Vera offered out of nowhere. I glanced at her, but she kept her eyes rooted on the pan.

“What did she like to bake?”

“Peanut butter cookies.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

She nodded. “They were terrible.”

I blinked repeatedly, not sure I heard her right the first time. “Terrible?”

“They were aggressively bad,” she said, shaking her head a little at the memory. “They were dry and crumbly. It was like eating sand cookies.”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “They couldn’t have been that bad.”

“They were. Milk couldn’t even save them. We didn’t have the heart to tell her, though,” she confessed, smile tugging at her mouth. “We’d all sit there, trying not to die of dehydration and telling her how much we loved them.”

“She knew,” I said.

Vera huffed a laugh. “She had to know because she started making them when she was pissed at us.”

We laughed until the kitchen filled with the smell of sugar and chocolate.

“Thanks for sharing that story about your mother with me, Vera.”

She nodded, drizzling chocolate over the cereal snack she’d made.

“I’m trying, Hart. It’s… it’s not easy talking about her.”