Manipulator, yes. Incompetent…no.
Mirabelle
“I thought four ovens was superfluous,” Damion murmurs from where he’s lingering by the kitchen table as I sweep from one side of the kitchen to the other. “I was wrong.”
“Are you going to make yourself useful, or are you going to keep staring at my ovens?”
His lips quirk. “Yourovens.” Pushing off the kitchen table, he unfolds his arms and says, “What do you need me to do?”
I shove a recipe card into his hands. “Make this.”
“Mac and cheese?”
“It’s Thanksgiving. You have to have mac and cheese. Specifically,thismac and cheese.”
He nods, scanning the front of the card, then the back. “Understood.”
Blowing out a breath, I pause in my frantic mixing together five different kinds of dessert breads to make sure Damion isn’t inept in the kitchen and about to become the bane of my existence via weaponized incompetence. After all, the only thing I’ve known him to make thus far has been box pancakes.
I find him at the fridge, with the dairy drawer open.
Right. I should tell him.
“You need—”
He lifts the block, not the shreds, of cheddar out and looks at me.
I blink.
He blinks.
His head tilts. “The anti-caking agents in shredded create a less recipe-friendly experience. This melts and tastes better. Which I am going to assume is why you’ve gotten it.”
Breath escapes me. Voice reedy, I say, “Um. Yeah. I was just… Yeah.”
Eyeing me once he’s gathered the ingredients he needs for the recipe, he nudges the fridge closed with his hip and heads to the other side of the island, where he systematically sets everything up.
I reach into my apron pocket for my notebook and am frantically scribbling aproin it when his hand falls against my waist. My back hitting his chest, I squeak and look up.
His thumb moves against me as he focuses on retrieving a casserole dish from a cabinet above my head. “’Scuse me, precious,” he murmurs, attention snapping down and finding my open pro and con book. A smile toys with his lips. “Whatcha writing there?”
“N-none of your business.”
“Hm.” He curls his body down, lips hovering in front of mine as his eyes bore into me. Before I have a chance to protest, he taps a kiss to my nose and returns to his spot at the island.
Feeling as though the heat from all four ovens has combined within me, I get back to work. Until I can’t take the silence anymore.
I blurt, “What is your friend Forrest like?”
“Annoying.”
As I pop my breads into an oven, I say, “What?”
“Forrest is incurably annoying.” Brow furrowed, Damion shreds the block of cheese. “He’s…obnoxious. Seems outgoing; isn’t.”
“Oh. That’s…oddly similar to Fawn.”
“They’re either going to fall in love, or hate each other.”
