“You call the plays, Queenie.”
Queenie?
“Iwill notbe going by Queenie,” I declare. Ice Queen is fine. It evokes small amounts of fear. Queenie feels like I’m on a throne doing story time with the kingdom’s four-year-olds.
Though if the smirk pulling across Kane’s face has anything to say about it, he seems to think otherwise.
I’m forced back to this ridiculous competition when the interns run by giggling.
Splitting up the work is our best bet, so I announce, “Okay, I’ll get the cupcake ingredients, you get the frosting.”
We make our way toward the shelves in the back, both spending more time searching for one ingredient than Li and Larsen spent getting all of theirs.
“Not that one,” I hiss as Beckett grabs the bag of sugar. “Yours calls for powdered sugar.”
Beckett raises one eyebrow, looking down at his armload of ingredients. “Yeah, which is why I have it right here.” He lifts his right elbow, where there is a plastic bag full of white powder tucked. “This sugar is for you.”
I look down at my arms and then again at the recipe. Fuck. How did I miss that?
“I figured we’d make healthy cupcakes,” I say.
Beckett walks away, headed back to our station. “No one wants that, Coach,” he calls over his shoulder. “No one.”
We get to work on the cupcakes, measuring ingredients and dumping them in.
“It says to slowly pour in the dry ingredients. How slow do you think is slow?” Kane asks.
I eye the mixer in front of us. This thing is intimidating. My mom passed away when I was three, and it has been Dad and me ever since, which means I’ve used a mixer exactly zero times in my life.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I have no idea.”
“Okay, well, I definitely have some vague memories of going too fast with my mom and ending up with flour all over the kitchen. So, I think we need to go pretty slow. Though I’m worried we aren’t going to have enough time.”
“They only have to cook for twenty-four minutes.” I read the instructions for what feels like the millionth time.
“Yeah, but then they have to cool before we can decorate them.”
I look at where his finger is tapping, ignoring the way the muscles in his hand flex. “Can’t we just stick them in the freezer, or something, to get them to cool?” I ask.
“I mean, maybe?” he replies, working the silver machine with much more confidence than I feel.
Silently, we scoop the cupcakes into their liners, and Beckett shoves them into the oven as I set the Yeti-branded egg timer on the counter.
“Frosting?” I ask.
“Frosting,” Kane agrees, a look of resignation on his face.
As Kane combines our ingredients, I scope out the competition. Sutton is meticulously adding their powdered sugar to the mixer. She angles her wrist again and again, pouring slightly more of the white powder into the bowl each time until, clearly fed up, Lefevre grabs the silver cup from her hand and unceremoniously dumps the whole thing into the silver bowl at once.
Her entire demeanor screams outrage until a puff of white dust shoots up and covers Lefevre’s face.
I laugh loudly and gently bump my arm against Kane’s to make sure he doesn’t miss out on the hilarity. The hairs on my arms tingle as a static shock passes between us at the contact.
Kane pulls his arm away abruptly as Sutton shouts, “Culture of accountability, Lefevre!”
Following the noise, he chuckles. “At least we’ve got them beat.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sutton seems like the type of person who might secretly be crafty and will crush the decorating portion of the competition.”
