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As content as Allison is, all bundled up and enjoying having the comforter to herself while she waits for Jason to come back to bed, the rich smell of chocolate wafting in from the kitchen is unexpected and appealing enough to finally lure her out from her peaceful, cozy nest. She throws back the covers with a sigh, tugs on her pajama pants and one of Jason's hoodies, and follows her nose out into the restaurant. “Whatever that is, it smells amazing,” she says with a yawn as she shakes out her sleep-rumpled hair and peers over the counter at Jason, who smirks and goes back to what he's doing, which turns out to be . . . icing a pan of brownies?
“Huh,” Allison says.
“What?” Jason asks, wiping icing off the the spatula with his finger and sticking it in his mouth.
“You make brownies?”
“Sometimes.” He glances up at her, blue eyes wide and innocent beneath his lashes. “You look surprised.”
“I'm just not sure I've ever seen you bake before, or thought about it. It seems a little—”
“Girly?” Jason sets down the icing bowl and grabs a rag to mop up the spills on the counter.
“Not girly.” Allison frowns. “Scripted. Your style in the kitchen tends to be a bit more . . . improvisational.”
“Well, now and then I like to shake things up.”
“Hmm, I've noticed.” She smiles fondly and climbs onto one of the vinyl-covered stools. “Is this from a mix?”
Jason rolls his eyes. “No, it's not from a mix. It's from a recipe someone clipped out of a magazine, that I found folded up inside an old library book I never returned.” He shrugs and drops his rag in the laundry bucket. “Of course I've made some improvements over the years, trying to make them a bit more interesting.”
“Of course.”
“Here,” Jason says, grabbing an unnecessarily large knife from the magnetic strip on the wall and slicing the pan of 9x13 pan into twelfths. He draws the sticky blade around the edge of the pan, then uses it to pry up one of the corner pieces. “Try one.”
Allison looks at the dark, dense block of still-warm brownie in Jason's hand, at the melting icing dripping over the sides onto his palm and at the moist crumbs clinging to his fingers. The smell is divine and it looks delicious, but still Allison hesitates.
“There aren't any pickles in this, are there?” She looks at him through narrowed eyes.
“What?” Jason frowns.
“Because you really like pickles.”
Jason scoffs. “Well, yeah, I like pickles, but I'm not going to go baking them into brownies, that's just weird.” He sighs at Allison looking skeptically at his handiwork and shakes the brownie at her face. “Look, I promise that there is nothing weird about this brownie, not really. It is a perfectly ordinary baked good, without any traces of brine.”
“Pinkie swear?” Allison grins and reaches for the brownie, but Jason yanks it back out of her reach.
“Not like that,” he says. “Put your hands in your lap.”
Allison grins wider and does as he says, folding her hands primly on top of her thighs and straightening her back. She swivels her stool to follow Jason's movement as he comes around the end of the counter to stand in front of her.
“Open your mouth,” he commands.
She does, moistening her lips with her tongue and then waiting patiently, her head tipped slightly back, her mouth ajar and ready to receive.
Her eyelids flutter expectantly as Jason guides the corner of the brownie towards her and she opens her mouth wider in anticipation, but her teeth close on air as he jerks the brownie away at the last second.
“Yeaaaah . . . I'm not sure I really want to share with you, now. Not after you insulted my cooking and called me a pickle maniac.”
Allison laughs. “I never called you—” She breaks off to open her mouth again as Jason moves the brownie quickly back towards her, then stops, holding it just in front of her lips.
“I don't know. I'm thinking maybe I should put this piece back and save the whole pan for someone else. Casey, maybe, or Alvarez. Maybe Sergeant Brown. Someone who'll appreciate a nice gesture like this.”
“Oh, I appreciate the gesture,” Allison says, leaning incrementally towards the hovering chocolate, but Jason pulls it back by the same degree. “I'm just really picky about desserts.”
“Bullshit,” Jason scoffs. “You don't like my cooking.”
Allison grins. “I actually do like your cooking, as strange as that sounds, but like I said I've never seen you bake before. I'd like to give it a chance, if you'll let me.”
“Say 'please'.”
“Please.”
“Say 'I'm sorry for teasing you, Jason'.”
“I'm sorry for teasing you, Jason. And seriously, that smells incredible and I really want to taste it.”
Jason smirks. “It does, doesn't it? You know, maybe I ought to try . . .” He turns the brownie around and takes an enormous bite out of the corner, struggling to close his lips around it as he chews. “Oh my god, that is so good,” he says with his mouth full. “So moist and chewy.”
Allison rolls her eyes and waits for him to swallow.
“I think it's even better than usual.”
“My turn now?” Allison asks demurely.
“Nope.” Jason takes another, smaller bite. “It's too good. I'm going to finish the whole piece by myself. But if you want you're welcome to go get me a glass of milk.”
“Alright, I'm sorry for looking a gift brownie in the mouth,” Allison says. “But I've learned my lesson now, so can I please have a taste?”
“Nope, all mine.”
“But how am I ever going to know if it's as good as you say it is if you won't give me just a little bite?” She pokes her tongue out between her teeth, and Jason smirks at her as he chews.
“You want a bite?” he asks, and before Allison even has the chance to nod he grabs her by the wrist, pulling her arm up to bite down hard on the flesh below her inner elbow, sucking to raise a mark while he holds the brownie out of her reach with his other hand. “There,” he says, and releases her.
“Ow!” Allison complains and rubs at the bruise, sticky with smudges of icing. She struggles to keep a straight face. “You know that's not what I meant.”
Jason quirks an eyebrow and wipes the corners of his mouth with thumb and forefinger, then relents with a tilt of his head.
“Okay, fine. You can taste the icing.” He strokes a finger across the top of the brownie, drawing up a glob of chocolatey goo, and holds it out towards Allison. She opens her mouth to suck his finger but he once again pulls back out of her reach. “Hold still,” he instructs, then smears the icing in a crooked arc across her upper lip.
“Jason!” Allison says, exasperated, and Jason laughs.
“Oh, that's no good. You look like Delahoy.” He chuckles and leans in towards her. “That's not attractive at all.” Allison extends her tongue, trying to lick up the smear, but Jason gets there first, mashing their faces together and slurping off most of the icing moustache, before he ducks lower to kiss her properly on the mouth. Their tongues slide together messily before Allison draws back, licking her lips and raising her fingers to touch them.
“Oh, that is yummy! What is that, it's kind of tingly . . .”
“Cayenne pepper,” Jason says, planting another quick peck on her mouth. “Cinnamon. A couple of other things.”
“It's delicious!”
“You want another bite?”
Allison narrows her eyes.
“I mean for real, a bite of brownie.” He waggles the half-eaten treat in front of her face.
“Okay.”
“Open your mouth again.”
Allison does, watching warily as Jason takes another small bite of brownie and then holds it in his mouth as he leans in. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Sharing,” he mumbles around the lump of brownie, and Allison pulls away from him.
“I am not a baby bird.”
Jason tries to speak, then rolls his eyes and spits the lump out into his palm. “You just licked chewed-up food out of my mouth like five seconds ago, is this really any different?”
She thinks about it. “ . . . No.”
“Then open your mouth and hold still.” He shoves the morsel back in his mouth and moves in on Allison, who cringes but allows him to push the brownie into her mouth with his tongue. They kiss around it, Allison struggling to chew without crushing either of their tongues with her teeth, until she swallows and Jason draws back to smile at her.
“Oops,” he says, pointing down at the half-unzipped front of her borrowed sweater. “Crumbs.”
Jason stoops to suck up the speckles of fallen chocolate trapped in Allison's cleavage, while she sneaks a hand towards the mixing bowl still sitting on the counter, scraping up the dregs of the icing.
“Oops,” she echoes, smooshing the palmful of icing into Jason's face when he straightens and rubbing it around his mouth.
Jason laughs and pulls her off the stool, throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and hauling her back towards the bedroom. Allison just manages to grab the pan of brownies on the way.