Page 18 of Firecracker

To his surprise, a smile broke out on her face. “Ha. I knew he wasn’t that useful.”

“He’s learning.”

“Well, I could learn too. I can paint. Seriously. How hard can that be?”

“Well, that’ll be about the last thing we do in the bathroom.”

She glanced around the living room. “This room needs painting.”

“Yeah, it does, but I have a lot of repairs to do to the walls. And I have to clean the brick of the fireplace and refinish the mantel before we paint. Also, we’re replacing all the baseboard and casings around the doors and windows.”

He became aware of the scent of coffee and something baking in the apartment. His nose tipped up and he sniffed the air. “Is that…coffee?”

“Um, yeah. Would you like some?”

“Love some.” He’d made a Starbucks stop on his way to Home Depot, but that had been hours ago. “And what are you baking?”

“Muffins.”

“They smell fantastic.” He followed her to the kitchen.

She opened the oven door and peeked in. “Two more minutes.” She pulled a bright red mug out of a cupboard and filled it with coffee. “Do you need milk or sugar?”

“Nope. Black, black, black.”

She nodded. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” He took a sip of the hot elixir. “What kind of muffins are they?”

“Blueberry lemon.”

“Damn.”

“It’s National Blueberry Muffin Day.”

“What?”

“It’s a thing. Really. So I made blueberry muffins. Um, are you hungry?”

He grinned. “Always. Especially for baked goods.”

Her lips twitched. “I see.”

“I’m a pretty good cook, but I can’t bake shit.”

“Well, baked shit would be pretty awful.”

He barked out a surprised laugh at her joke.

“Oh, come on.” She made a face. “That was a terrible joke.”

“No, it was funny.”

“Hopefully my muffins don’t taste like baked shit.” The timer on the oven beeped and she grabbed a yellow oven mitt.

“I’m sure they don’t. I’m salivating at the smell of them.”

“They’ll need to cool for a few minutes.” She set the big muffin tin on top of the stove, then moved to the fridge and pulled out a container of margarine.

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