“It’s like watching a ballet,” Lyra whispers. “They move together like they’ve always done it.”
Roman’s head ducks down to pipe the border of a small cake as Mars reaches over him to get orange food coloring from a cabinet. They miss each other by centimeters.
“So what,” Jove grunts, “Mars and I do this all the time.”
My brows rise. Is he…
Oh my gosh.
He is.
He’s pouting.
The big, scary man ispouting.
Lyra and I share an amused look, then tune back in to the show.
“Need orange in five,” Roman mutters.
“Orange incoming,” Mars returns, setting the dye next to a small batch of cream frosting.
Roman finishes his border and sets aside the used-up icingbag, swiftly switching to the bowl and mixing injustenough orange dye for his carrots to give an air of pastel spring goodness and not neon bright kids’ TV show. A small sauce dish of icing to the side is given the same treatment, but with green.
Once his frosting is ready, he sets up two new piping bags, choosing tips from the assortment Mars has laid out to test him.At leastthirty decorating tips wait in a line for Roman to mess up. They find themselves disappointed when he picks two quickly and Mars claps his approval.
“You’re doing so well,” he purrs. “A worthy protégé.”
Roman’s shoulders wiggle, and his ears turn red.
Heh. Somebody’s uncomfortable with praise.
Jove sniffs.
Lyra chokes on a laugh, and I snicker.
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “You’re still number one in his heart.”
Jove crosses his arms and glares at Roman.
“You can’t slash his tires. If you slash his tires, he’ll have to stay longer.”
Jove’s bottom lip pushes out further, and I reach past Lyra to pat him on the back. “I know, big man. I know.”
He harrumphs, and Lyra scoots her barstool closer to him, the better to distract him from his pain, I assume.
“We’re nearly done,” Roman mutters, bending over the cake. “I just need to add the carrot greens.”
“The best part of the carrot,” I spout automatically.
He pauses his work to squint at me.
I smile, all innocence. Hi, hello, angel Elodie here. I would not be poking fun at your many, many lectures about carrot greens. No, sir. No way.
He returns to his piping with a grumbled, “They’re rich in Vitamin C.”
Of course they are. Very important.
“We cut ours up for salads and share with Gingerbread, our hamster,” Mars says. “Much like the buffalo, the carrot has usefulness in all its parts.”
