He shrugged. "Whatever you want to do."
"I asked you because I don't know."
Javi rubbed his chin and hummed. "Do you like baking?"
"Sure, but I don’t do it very often so I’m not really good at it."
"Me neither," he admitted. "But that doesn’t matter when you’re doing it with someone else."
“Alright, but I’m not sure what we have in there to make.”
"Well, let's see." He stood up and then made his way to the kitchen as I trailed behind him. Javi looked through all of the ingredients and foods thoroughly. He was putting something together in his mind. "...flour, eggs. Yeah, there's everything in here to make sugar cookies. There's also enough ingredients to make homemade frosting."
I was surprised that we even had that many ingredients. "So, you want to bake cookies?"
"Why not?"
We gathered all the ingredients out of the pantry and laid them out on the counter. I had never baked sugar cookies from scratch before. Actually, I had never baked anything from scratch. Ricky and I watched a lot of baking shows together, but everything we had ever made had already been put together into a box so that all we needed to do was add water. I was excited to try baking the harder way. Javi said it was not that hard at all, he had done this recipe a couple of times before.
Bringing Javier to my house was risky, but luckily I had come up with a plan. I had one of the blinds open enough to where I could see outside, but the person outside couldn't see inside at first glance. I would see her car pull up and be able to rush Javier out through my bedroom window. If I missed seeing the car pull into the driveway, then I would hear the jingling of her keys trying to open the door. That would give me less time, but still enough time to sneak him away.
I hadn't expected to be baking cookies, though. Something like watching a movie was a lot easier to turn off and make it look as if I hadn’t been there. Maybe if I saved my aunt some cookies then she would be fine with the fact that I baked some.
"Do you have a mixer?" Javier asked as he searched through the cabinets.
"I have no clue."
He found a bowl and held it up to inspect the size. "Do you know anything?"
"Not really." I pressed the buttons on the oven so that it could begin to preheat.
He continued to search through the cabinets and drawers but ultimately couldn't find an electric mixer. He had one hand on his hip while the other scratched his head. "Okay, that’s fine. We'll just have to mix it the old-fashioned way."
He measured out the dry ingredients and dumped them into one of the two bowls. Javi then reached for the other bowl and put it in front of the both of us.
"You can crack two eggs," Javi said as he grabbed the vanilla extract.
I took one egg out of the carton and held it in my hand. I hit it against the rim of the bowl and tried to crack it at the perfect angle, but I didn’t hit it hard enough because it didn’t split. I took my fingers and tried to pry it open. It didn’t work well, now my hand was covered in egg and there were shells inside the bowl.
Javi found it very amusing while I laughed sheepishly. "I rarely crack eggs."
"Try again. Hit it on the counter first and it should be easier."
So, I grabbed another egg out of the carton and did it again, making sure to hit it on the counter instead of the rim of the bowl. I also hit with more force. I wasn't a total lost cause because the egg did cooperate with me the second time.
"Good job, baby," Javi complimented me softly.
And now I'm blushing.
Javier dumped a bit of the vanilla extract into the bowl with the eggs. He didn't measure it, he insisted that guesstimating how much was needed was the better approach. He dumped the butter into the bowl and then finally added the sugar. Next, he pulled out a spoon I hadn't even seen him grab and handed it to me.
I took the spoon from him and began mixing the ingredients together. It was then that I wished we had a mixer because hand mixing was a workout. Javi found a sheet pan and set it on the counter while beginning to start on the frosting as I worked on the cookie batter.
I kept taking breaks because the constant stirring was hurting my arm. It did not help that I had no idea how much I needed to stir it, I was just swirling the spoon around the bowl. I thought I was doing a decent job at it, but when I felt his body unexpectedly press against mine from behind, I froze. His arms slithered down the sides of my own until his right hand was gripping mine holding the spoon.
I felt his warm breath on the back of my neck as he grumbled in my ear. "I'll help you."
He held my hand firm as he guided it in a circular motion and rested his chin in the crook of my neck. I felt his breath on me as we slowly stirred the batter.
