He clenched his fists against the rough leather of the gloves so he wouldn’t rip the long metal spoon out of her hand. She gave the mixture a few slow stirs before she glanced up to meet his gaze.
“Are you okay?”
He could see the puzzled crease in the center of her forehead and knew she was trying to work out what he’d been thinking. There was no way he was telling her. Not a chance.
“Lye is dangerous,” he said, restating the obvious but unable to say what he meant or to move on without acknowledging it.
“I know,” she said, looking like she was trying to decide whether to be pissed at him or not.
Perfect.
“You know, I’ve done this before,” she said, her tone softening a fraction.
“I’ve seen what it can do.” He motioned to the sealed container that held the lye.
She swallowed hard and he hated himself for bringing that evil into her place.
“I’ll be careful.”
He nodded, feeling like an idiot and not trusting himself to say anything else without making things worse. Forgetting for a moment about the paper mask, he blew out a breath and fogged up his goggles.
“Would you like to stir?” asked Andy, clearly taking pity on him.
He didn’t bother taking the time to answer. He simply reached for the spoon handle. His pulse kicked down a couple of notches when she took a step away from the pot.
“Go slow so it doesn’t splash, but keep it moving so the milk melts and there aren’t any clumps of lye. I’ll go melt the fats.”
She left him stirring the pale-yellow mixture. The lye reacting with the milk made it change color and the heat from the reaction was melting the icy chunks. While he kept the mixture moving around in the pot, he watched her pull a jug of green oil out of the metal cabinet, along with a big white tub. She twisted the handle of the tank of gas and lit the burner with one of those strikers he remembered from chemistry class. Measuring the oil into a pot smaller than the one he was using, she set it on the burner and then added heaping spoonfuls of a thick white paste that looked like shortening and smelled like coconuts.
It didn’t take long for the two things to melt together and in a few minutes, she was holding the pan of melted fat over the milk and lye mixture.
“Ready?” she asked and he nodded, eager to see how she was going to turn all the disparate liquids into a solid bar of soap.
“Keep stirring.” She slowly emptied the contents of her pot into his while he mixed them together.
Nothing happened. The mixture turned a deeper color from the olive oil, but it still didn’t look anything like soap.
Andy plugged in a big metal industrial-looking immersion blender before nudging him with her hip to get out of the way. He was tempted to hold his ground so she’d do it again, but he wasn’t about to screw around next to the lye mixture.
Not sure what he expected to see, he watched as she blended the mixture. After what seemed like forever but was probably closer to ten minutes, she started to pull the blender across the surface of the mixture, dropping it down again between passes. After four or five times across, he started to see what looked like a trail following the blender across the surface.
“There,” she said, motioning toward the mixture with her head. “We have saponification.”
“Is it contagious?”
She laughed, a clear sound that made him want to come up with ways to get her to do it again. Stripping off her protective gear, she set it and the blender to the side while he followed suit. The metal tab on the mask had left a red mark across the bridge of her nose, and before he thought better of it, he reached out to rub his finger over it. She froze, her eyes going wide, but she didn’t step back or pull away. With his thumb, he followed the mark made by her goggles, not stopping until his palm cupped her cheek.
He should pull his hand away. It was the sensible thing to do. Drop his hand and pretend none of this happened. He’d get right on that. Except she tipped her head ever so slightly, leaning into his touch, and he pretty much lost his ability to think. For a moment, they stood, facing each other, barely a step between them while she rested her soft cheek against his palm and he tried to work out in his head what the hell he thought he was doing. His attention drifted to her lips and he started to lean in, pulled by an irresistible urge to find out what she tasted like.
But then she blinked, breaking the spell. “We need to get the soap into the molds before it starts to set.”
He pinned her with his gaze as he lowered his hand. “We’re going to revisit this.” He had no idea whatthiswas or what he was hoping it turned into. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to ignore it, to pretend there was nothing between them.
He saw her swallow, the barest hint of a smile curving her lips, and then she nodded and the vise wrapped around his chest loosened, and he could breathe again. She turned away from him and he managed to resist the temptation to reach for her, settling for following her to the large metal cabinet. She reached inside and pulled out a stack of clear plastic trays, each with a half dozen square impressions complete with an indented sprig of sourwood flowers set in the center of a small circle. He recognized the shape as the inverse of the soap he’d found in his small bath. He took the stack of molds from her and carried them to the counter while she grabbed two big plastic pitchers.
“Here,” she said, holding a pitcher and a terry cloth hand towel out to him. “Fill the molds right to the top. Be careful not to drip or pour too fast and make bubbles.”
While he watched, she dipped her pitcher into the soap mixture, dragging it against the side of the pot to knock off the excess. With speed born of repetition, she filled one of the trays without spilling a drop. Certain he was on the verge of making a colossal mess, he mimicked her movements, filling his pitcher and starting on an empty tray of molds. He made it to the second impression before he dripped all over the tray, but by the time he got to the end he’d at least started to get the hang of it and he hadn’t spilled more.
