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Aubrey had a plan.
It was a good plan, or at least it had been when she’d first thought of it: bake something cute and homemade, surprise Kim with it after a long day, and maybe- maybe finally get around to saying how she really felt.
Unfortunately, the plan had one critical flaw.
Kim insisted on helping.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to, like, just eat the cookies at the end?” Kim asked cheerfully as she tied her apron in a lopsided bow. “I feel like that’s where my talents really shine.”
Aubrey groaned, cracking an egg into a bowl with perhaps more force than necessary. “Kim, you said you wanted to spend more time together. This is spending time together.”
“Yeah, but-” Kim wrinkled her nose. “Cooking is… like, math but with food. And I hate math.”
“It’s not math,” Aubrey muttered, whisking furiously. “It’s just following instructions. How hard can it be?”
As if on cue, the whisk slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor, splattering egg yolk across the counter. Aubrey froze.
Kim burst out laughing so hard she nearly fell over. “Oh my god, Aubrey! That was, like, perfect comedic timing! Ten outta ten, no notes.”
“Kim!” Aubrey snapped, though her face was bright red. “Stop laughing and get me a towel!”
Kim saluted dramatically. “Aye aye, Chef!” She grabbed a paper towel roll, tore off half of it in a single pull, and handed the entire wad to Aubrey with a grin.
Aubrey muttered something under her breath about regretting everything, then crouched to clean up the mess. By the time she stood, Kim had wandered over to the recipe card and was squinting at it like it was written in an alien language.
“So, uh… it says here we need, like, a cup of flour,” Kim said. “But… how big is a cup? Like, coffee mug size? Or… like… the big slurpee cups from the gas station?”
Aubrey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Kim, please tell me you’ve measured things before.”
“Not since, like, sixth grade science class,” Kim admitted cheerfully. “But hey, I got an A on that baking soda volcano project!”
“That does not make me feel better.” Aubrey snatched the measuring cup from her and held it up like evidence in a crime. “This. This is a cup. We use this, not your slurpee cup.”
Kim peered at it thoughtfully. “Huh. Seems small.”
“It’s supposed to be small!”
Ten minutes later, the kitchen looked like a war zone.
Flour dusted every surface like fresh snow. Sugar had spilled in a glittering trail across the floor. A lone stick of butter sat melting sadly near the edge of the counter.
Aubrey stood in the middle of it all, clutching the mixing bowl like it was the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. Her hair was coming loose from its ponytail, and there was a streak of flour across her cheek.
Kim, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She had somehow managed to get dough on her elbows and was humming loudly to herself as she rolled little balls of cookie dough with questionable technique.
“This is actually kinda fun!” Kim announced, plopping a misshapen lump onto the baking sheet. “Like an art project, but tastier.”
Aubrey stared at the lumpy cookies, then at Kim, then back at the cookies. “…Those are supposed to be round.”
“They are round,” Kim said defensively. “Just… like, abstractly round.”
Aubrey buried her face in her hands. “We are going to burn down my house.”
Kim bumped her shoulder playfully. “Relax, Aubrey. Worst-case scenario, we order pizza and tell everyone we ‘deconstructed’ the cookies. Super trendy, five-star restaurant stuff.”
Despite herself, Aubrey laughed, a small, helpless sound that surprised them both. Kim’s grin widened immediately.
“There it is! Your laugh is the best,” Kim said, beaming. “Seriously, you should laugh more often. You get all, like, serious-face when you’re mad, but when you laugh, it’s, like…” She trailed off, searching for words, then blurted, “Really cute.”
Aubrey froze, heart lurching in her chest. “C-Cute?” she echoed, suddenly very interested in the bowl of dough.
Kim blinked, realizing what she’d said, then shrugged with a nervous laugh. “Uh… yeah. Like… cute-cute. Y’know. Not just… ‘haha you’re funny’ cute.”
Aubrey’s face turned bright red. “Oh.”
The silence that followed was thick and awkward, filled only by the sound of the oven preheating.
Finally, Aubrey cleared her throat, still not meeting Kim’s eyes. “You… um… you’re pretty cute too.”
Kim’s jaw dropped. “Wait. Did you just-”
“Don’t make it a big deal!” Aubrey snapped, but there was no real anger in her voice- just flustered panic. “We have cookies to bake!”
Kim’s grin returned full force. “Right, right. Cookies. Totally more important than my heart exploding right now.”
The cookies came out… surprisingly edible.
Sure, a few were burnt around the edges, and one had somehow fused into a perfect, terrifying square, but most of them looked like actual cookies. Aubrey stared at them with cautious optimism.
“Not bad,” she admitted. “Not great. But not bad.”
Kim snatched one off the tray before it had fully cooled and immediately burned her tongue.
“Kim!” Aubrey yelped. “You have to let them cool!”
“Mmph- worth it,” Kim mumbled around a mouthful of cookie. “These are, like, the best things ever.”
Aubrey rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself. “You’re impossible.”
Kim swallowed, then leaned closer, eyes sparkling. “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and unspoken for too long. Aubrey’s breath caught.
“…Yeah,” she said softly. “I do.”
Kim blinked, stunned for half a second and then she scooped Aubrey into a flour-covered hug, spinning her around despite Aubrey’s startled yelp.
“BEST! DAY! EVER!” Kim shouted, spinning them both until they nearly toppled over.
“Kim! Put me down!” Aubrey laughed, swatting at her shoulder.
“Not a chance!” Kim grinned, kissing her cheek before finally setting her down. “This is the best cookie disaster in history.”
Aubrey shook her head, still smiling. “We really are a mess, huh?”
Kim grinned wider. “Yeah. But we’re our mess.”
The kitchen was still a disaster, but as they sat together on the floor, sharing slightly misshapen cookies and leaning against each other, Aubrey realized she didn’t care.
Flour could be cleaned. Counters could be scrubbed. What mattered was this, the laughter, the warmth, the way Kim’s hand fit perfectly in hers.
A recipe for disaster, maybe. But it was their recipe. And for Aubrey, that was perfect.