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Blair’s brows tick upward, and I bite down on my lip to keep the laughter at bay.
“Have you done this before?”
“Nope.” Extra pop on the ‘p’. “But I’ve watched tons of videos.”
His laugh reverberates through his chest and my back, and if I brush the back of my hand on his and he doesn’t pull away… maybe my heart kicks up a little.
“This is going to be a disaster,” he says with a dazzling smile and only the slightest bit of apprehension.
I can’t help it; my fingers drift to his temple where I push away a few strands of runaway hair. It’s a mess as it is, half in the ponytail, half flying around his face. It makes me feel soft. Cozy.
Like I’m home.
“Let’s be disasters together.”
We have a food coloring fight almost right off the bat. First, we can’t agree on a color, so we both lunge for them and fight to get the caps off. Then, Blair shoots red and I shoot green all over the counter—Christmas is coming early in the Novak household, it seems.
We finally settle on making the candy blue, and set the stove to start caramelizing the sugar. While I stir, Blair looks over the rest of the items on the counter.
“You really like baking, don’t you?” I don’t have to see it to hear the smile in his voice.
“Baking. Cooking. I enjoy them both.”
When I was little, Rue used to make me pancakes in the morning, and after school I’d often find him in the kitchen. I don’t think Mom realized how often she forgot to pack lunches, and Rue always picked up the slack. Watching him became a favorite pastime of mine.
After he left, I naturally took over. I cooked for the twins and even Ryder on occasion if he was home long enough between bouts of hanging with some local MC club.
We stand in silence, me stirring and Blair watching from the other side of the counter. The distance is barely arms length, but I don’t question his need for space. There’s nothing awkward about it. It’s relaxing, comforting–comfortable.
Once the sugar is fully caramelized, I pass Blair the bowl and mixer. “Ready to spin it?”
He smiles at me like I’ve just given him something precious, and I swear for a split second I see a flash of heat in his eyes, but then he looks away and it’s gone.
I grab a spoon from the drawer and dip it into the honey-like mixture. When Blair turns the mixer on, there’s a childish joy that runs between us.
I spoon some of the sugar and hold it over the mixer.
“Ready?”
He nods and I tip the spoon, watching as the thick liquid drips down and slowly spins into little spider-like webs. Some of it does anyway.
The more we pour, the more I’m noticing the sugar flinging back at us, so much so that we both start laughing and turning our faces away to avoid the half-liquid, half-string-like mess flinging around.
In the end, we do get a cute, thin mass of cotton candy-like fluff that looks nothing like what you get at a carnival, but we’re able to twirl some on these little kabob sticks and eat them like that. It’s too bad we’re both smeared with liquid sugar and food coloring.
“Ooh, it’s in your hair.” Blair leans over and smears his fingers through a few sticky lines of candy coating the hair falling near my eyes.
I have to push my lips together to hold back my shit eating grin because Blair has stripes of the sugar across his nose and cheeks; it’s in his own hair so he has no room to complain, and it’s splattered all across his tank and arms.
“I think you might need that shower,” I say, looking down at my own mess, which Blair obviously notices. “I’ll scrub down at the sink. You care if I lose the shirt?”
Blair’s lips part and his tongue shoots out to swipe across them. His hands twitch at his side before he folds them over his chest, and a warm hue travels up his neck and cheeks.
“Feel free.”
I grab the collar of my tee and lift it over my head, holding out my hand for the washcloth Blair passes me. “Do you need help?”
His lips twitch at the corners. “I think I can manage, but thank you.”
