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Pulling faces at the acrid stench, James waved a mitt-covered hand over the smoking hunks of cookie sitting on the baking tray. His nose wrinkled. Calling it a cookie was being generous. Disaster was a better word. Blowing out a sigh, he removed the oven mitt and tossed it onto the counter. A plume of flour shot up and hit him in the face, making him slam his eyes shut and press his lips into a straight line.
Great. Just great. Now there was no point to the apron; his nice, pressed shirt was ruined and the flour in his hair had to be sucking up any bit of moisture left. He couldn’t have dull, dry locks. Any bit of shine less than the surface of, well, a diamond was completely unacceptable!
Wrestling the looping neck hole over his head, James tossed it aside, casting a forlorn glance at the flour and dried cookie dough clinging to the once pristine fibers of his shirt. Now he was two for two. Thankfully his dark denim and sneakers were left unscathed but now he had to change his outfit; he could make anything look amazing but even he had to draw the line at oil stains and sticky residue. They weren’t exactly his idea of a good accessory.
Whirling around, his eyes landed on the glowing neon green numbers on the oven clock. 1:07. Okay, that gave him a little bit of time. Not enough to fix everything but maybe he could get a new shirt on and at least add some fresh spritzes of Cuda Man Spray to his neck. It would do in a pinch and had to be much better than the smoldering ashes left on the baking sheet, reminding him of his failure. As if he needed their physical presence to do that.
“Knock knock!” Drat, too late! Why did she have to finally get over her habit of not walking right into the apartment? And why did she have to be so punctual? A few extra moments to himself and he’d at least be an eight on the James Diamond Presentation Scale rather than sitting at a mediocre seven.
It was an odd combination, the swooping flutter in his chest colliding with a spiking throb of dread at the sight of Mickey coming in through the door, eyes shining, bounce in her step as always. He’d never felt so torn between wanting to dive right into the pure shot of joy at seeing her or succumbing to the aversion of her seeing him like this: unkempt, messy, disheveled. Elation won over, lifting his mouth to a cresting smile, spreading a pleasant buzz right beneath his skin when she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug, burying her face in his chest.
“Mmm,” she hummed, tilting her head back, resting her chin against him to look up at him, “you smell good.”
“Thanks, I make it a point not to smell bad.”
“Well, yeah, that,” she said with a laugh, “but I meant something else. Something sweet. Like icing or sugar or…” Taking a step back, he relished in the drag of her fingers against this sides, lightly pulling at his clothes. “This.” Her finger jabbed at the spot on his shirt; he looked down as well, as if seeing it for the first time. “What’s that?”
He brushed his hand against his shirt, batting the dough away, mentally groaning at the darkened stain left on him. Maybe Mama Knight could find a way to get rid of the stain; she was good with all that laundry stuff. The first and only time James tried he ruined a good shirt. All Mama Knight said was to scrub to pre-treat a stain. Who knew you weren’t supposed to use steel wool? “Nothing.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “So…you make it a habit to walk around looking like you got beaten up by the Pillsbury Doughboy?” The backslap of her hand to his sleeve cast another puff of flour off him.
James snorted. “Okay, for one, if I actually got into a fight with the Doughboy I’d win.” At the amused expression on her face he added an emphatic, “easily” which made her laugh. “And, no, I don’t. I just…I wanted…” His mouth pressed into a line and his fingers twitched by his sides.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want Mickey to know he was baking. Or, rather, that he tried. She could sniff out the smell of vanilla or browned butter from a mile away. He didn’t want her to know he failed. He was James Diamond. He achieved every dream he put into place, he won every competition he entered, he and his buds played on a winning high school hockey team. Failure wasn’t a word that existed in his world. His parents made sure of it; his pride doubled down on it. Sure, he may have suffered a few setbacks, but he didn’t fail. He couldn’t fail. Not like this, not now.
Heaving a sigh, James rubbed his forehead. Maybe he could still salvage this somehow. People always said honesty was the best policy; someone had to be right about that at some point or else people wouldn’t keep saying it. But that usually ended up with the guys being mad at him over stating their inadequacies during rehearsal (compared to him anyway.) But Mickey had only two things she wanted when they started dating: respect and communication. Something told him honesty fell in there somewhere. “Don’t laugh, okay?” James took Mickey’s shoulders and spun her around. He counted the seconds ticking by looking at the back of her head, waiting for her to notice the chunks of cement arranged on the pan. It took seven seconds; the same amount of time it took her to fail at restraining a laugh at a good joke.
“Hey! Hockey pucks!” Tilting her head back, she smiled up at him. “That’s cute.”
“They aren’t hockey pucks. They’re cookies.”
She blinked, smile fading. “Oh.”
“I made them.”
“Oh.”
“For you.”
“…Oh!”
James grumbled. “Stop saying that.”
“Sorry! I just…don’t know what to say.” She paused. “You don’t bake.”
“I know.” Well, that wasn’t exactly how he expected it, though he was glad the guys weren’t there. They’d never let him hear the end of it.
Mickey approached the cookies, poking at the side of one. It crumbled into a pile of ash, and she pulled her lips into a line. Pulling a face, James rested his arms against the side of the counter. All that work for nothing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cook anything either,” she commented.
“I make chicken nuggets all the time.”
“That doesn’t count. All you do is heat them up.”
“Yeah, but I have to push a button to do it.” In one fell swoop her eyelids drooped to half-mast and her weight switched to one side. “You push a button to turn on the oven, it’s the same thing!” he said.
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Yeah, well, it takes a lot of effort to pull off the plastic wrap for the nuggets.”
“All that hard work at the gym has finally paid off.”
James pouted. “Stop being mean.” Her mouth turned up in a half smile and she picked up a cookie, one of the few that didn’t look too terrible. It wasn’t until it was halfway to her face realization thundered in him and he jerked upwards. “Wait, you don’t have to eat it!”
She gave him a look. “You made them for me. I should at least try one.”
“You really don’t!” His words had no effect on her as she took a bite. Muscles in her face twitched, her chewing slowed, and he swore at one point she went cross-eyed. She placed a hand on her chest and let out an audible swallow. Groaning, James shoved his face in his hands. “I told you.” His muffled words slipped out between his fingers.
“It’s not…entirely…terrible.” Peeking through his fingers he watched her stick her tongue out a few times, touching the edge of her bite mark. “I just have a question,” she said, turning the cookie one way and the other, “did you use root beer in this?”
“Yeah.”
“Follow-up question: why?”
James shrugged. “Because we didn’t have baking soda.” Her head whipped up and the alarmed expression on her face made him take a step back. “What? They’re both soda. Says so on the box.”
“Not…not that kind of soda.” She brought the cookie to her mouth again only to toss it down on the tray. It made a loud and heavy clang. “…Why is it…weirdly sweet? Is that dairy creamer?”
He nodded. “We didn’t have butter.” She let out a whooping laugh and slapped her hand across her mouth. His lips vibrated as he blew a raspberry and dragged a hand through his hair. “I messed up, I get it.”
“Well, I mean, baking’s a science.” His nose wrinkled. Ugh! What did science have anything to do with love gestures? No wonder it all went south. Science ruins everything. “Hey.” She approached him and lifted her head. On instinct, James leaned down, turning his head for her. A pleasant buzz in his stomach at the touch of her lips to his cheek. “Thank you. No one’s ever made cookies for me before.”
He shrugged. “Well, I mean, you make things for everyone else all the time and take care of us. I wanted to try to take care of you too.”
Gratitude lit up her dark eyes and she kissed his cheek again. “You know you don’t have to be perfect at it. The effort’s all I care about. Though I have to say I’m kind of relieved you messed this up.”
“Why?”
“Because now I know you’re bad at something. You were starting to freak me out. Plus! I can show off.” With a flourish, she whipped the apron off the counter and adorned it with a few quick twists of her wrist. As she went to the refrigerator, James rounded the counter and hoisted himself onto the orange bar stool. Grabbing the abandoned bag of chocolate chips, he turned it over.
“What are you doing?” Mickey closed the refrigerator with her hip, clutching a carton of eggs in one hand and a bowl holding the bag of flour and sugar in the other.
“Looking for the recipe.”
Her chin tilted forward and focused look came to her eye, making James sit up straight. “You think I need a recipe?” she asked, a smirk slowly forming on her lips. “You’re cute.” She set the bowl and the carton on the counter. “You just sit there and look pretty.”
“Is that all I am to you?” Not that he minded. Some people were born to look pretty, and everyone else were born to entertain. Lucky for him, he could do both.
“Every artist needs a muse. Lucky for me, you’re very a-muse-ing.” She laughed to herself, cackled really. James’ smile reached halfway, fading when his eyes slid past her to the tray of wrecked cookies nearby. His mouth twisted to the side and he pushed a breath out his nose. Mickey glanced at him at the sound, then her eyes followed his gaze to the pan, and then back to him. He did his best to rearrange his face but it was no use; as she once, said he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, he wore it on his face. And yet, even then, his mother still found a way to ignore it.
“Just so you know, you’re not messing up.” He scoffed. What kind of boyfriend couldn’t even manage to make something as simple as cookies? “I mean this”—she motioned to the pan behind her—"yeah, this is a lost cause. But for the boyfriend part, you’re doin’ a pretty good job.”
“Just pretty good?”
“I have nothing to compare you to so, no matter what, you’re always the best in my book.” And he knew she was being honest; she tended to avoid eye contact, finding it a little too close and too intimate and too vulnerable. But now her gaze held strong and steady; the earnest look in her eyes pierced through him and dropped down to his toes. He held out his hand and she placed hers in his, letting out a soft giggle when he kissed the back of her hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
She pulled his hand forward, kissing the back of his in return. “You’re welcome.”