Sweet Jesus.
Lucy: The butter and the sugar. Sorry, my hand slipped.
It’s official. Texting with Lucy is going to be the death of me. I pull up the contacts on my phone and put her on video chat. Soon, her face fills the screen. Then her hand slips again, and I’m staring right at her boobs. Good Lord, they’re perfect. Not quite a handful, but perky and sweet and holy hell, I’d give my vinyl collection for another taste.
“Sorry, my hands are all sticky. Hold on, I’m going to prop the phone up.”
As she gets everything situated, I stroll into our kitchen and start grabbing items from the pantry. Ty follows me in and grabs the last of the pepperoni dip. “Knox and Booker are heading to Ian’s to get the girls. Are you making more food?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, and he nods, instinctively understanding that sometimes my hands just need to be busy. “I’m coaching Lucy through my cookie recipe, so I thought I’d make some cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning. Since Willa and Rose are moving in, and we’ll all be pitching in, I figure sustenance will be necessary.”
Lucy’s face fills my screen once again. She smiles at me, and I’m not kidding—my heart skips a beat. It’s stupid, I know. She has no time for love, and even if she did, I’d be on the Do Not Touch list.
“All creamed!” she calls out, and Ty nearly chokes.
I clear my throat. “Ok, now scrape down the side of the bowl, and then add your eggs. But crack them in a separate dish instead of cracking them right into the batter.”
“Do you not trust me not to get shell in the bowl?”
“When it comes to the kitchen, I trust no one.”
“Wow. Did I just stumble onto something that Caleb Whitman is serious about?”
I should let the jab roll right off me, I always do. But this one hits a little too close for comfort.
“I’m serious about plenty, Luce.”
“You? Caleb Whitman, serious? Since when?”
“I’m serious when the situation calls for it,” I tell her, my shoulders tensing. “Like when I’m cooking or spinning tunes or…doing something that requires my full attention… I focus every ounce of energy into that task. But I think you already know that.”
She blushes furiously, and I can see her hand shake on the screen.
Taking pity on the girl who has my heart and doesn’t know it, I switch to a safer topic. “Add your vanilla next. Then, and trust me on this—sift your flour—you’ll thank me later.”
She follows my directions, and in my own kitchen, I’m mixing up an easy dough. When I was a kid, I was like a magnet for trouble, so my mom enrolled me in every class she could find. I took ballroom dancing, gymnastics, played hockey with Book. I even took a painting class, though I totally sucked at it. But when I was about twelve, Ma signed me up for cooking lessons after I accidentally reheated a plate covered in aluminum foil in the microwave.
Immediately, I was hooked. Cooking calms me in a way only music and fucking can. My mind and my hands have something to do, and it’s like I’m totally plugged in, fully engaged. And though there’s enough tension in my body that I want to throttle this dough, I knead gently, careful not to over-process it. I’m putzing around the kitchen while answering Lucy’s questions, and you’d think that with my concentration issues I wouldn’t be able to handle doing two things at once. But actually, the more I have to focus on, the better off I am.
“How finely should I chop the nuts?”
Not gonna lie, but the word nuts coming from Lucy’s mouth does things to me. And yes, I’m still a thirteen-year-old boy sometimes.
“Chop them well, but not too fine. You want them to be similar in size to your white chocolate chips.”
“Got it... Ok, why does it say to dust the chocolate chips in flour?”
I shrug. “That one could be bakery lore, but I follow it anyway. It’s supposed to keep the chips from sinking to the bottom of the batter. I’m not sure it does, but I’m not taking any chances.”
I watch as she folds everything in with painstaking precision. “Ok, now I scoop?”
“Yep. And while you do that, I’m gonna roll out my dough.”
“Wait—what are you making?”
“Cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning. Knox’s girlfriend and their kid are moving in tomorrow. And nothing says ‘Welcome Home’ like cinnamon rolls, right?”
A look I’m unfamiliar with passes Lucy’s face before she breaks into a smile. “That’s really sweet. You’re a lot like your mom that way. She filled my bathroom with all my favorite lotions and bath stuff. And I told her I’m trying to lay off coffee, so she bought three tins of tea.”
