Page 109 of Delicious

“Letting you take charge. You’re the expert.”

I snort. “Hardly.”

“You know more than me. Honestly, I’d just add a bit of water to some icing sugar and dollop it on with a spoon.”

“Uh-uh. We’re making buttercream icing. Oh, except you don’t have a stand mixer, do you?”

Euan shakes his head.

“Maybe I should have bought one.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You’re taking this pretty seriously.”

“Making cupcakes?”

“Looking after Elliott.”

“Well, yeah. Dad’s relying on me. I don’t want him worrying while he’s away. I don’t want to let Elliott down either.”

Euan smiles. “You won’t. You’re a great big brother.”

My cheeks get warm. “I try.” I clear my throat and find a buttercream recipe on my phone.

Next, I weigh out the butter and icing sugar—even spooning it into a bowl creates clouds of fine white powder—and beat the butter with a fork.

“This would be much easier with a stand mixer,” I say once my arm is getting tired.

“Let me take over.”

“Gladly.” I resist the urge to comment on how good at beating he is, even though that’s exactly what I fantasise about. His hand on my cock, beating furiously until I come all over him. I tug my T-shirt away from my chest and fan my too-hot skin.

His cheeks flush red. Can he guess what I’m thinking about?

Once the butter is fully whipped and almost white, I take over mixing while Euan slowly adds the icing sugar. Sweet dust gets everywhere despite his best efforts. Pretty soon, everything within a foot radius is covered in a fine sheen of white powder, including us. It makes me want to kiss him more. The taste of him, plus the sweetness of the icing sugar, would be a divine combination.

“I’m buying a stand mixer if I ever make cupcakes again.” I flex my aching arm.

Euan chuckles. “Let’s hope this is the last time we have to. They’ll be in secondary school soon.”

“True.”

We have a batch of buttercream that’s hopefully big enough to ice twenty-four cupcakes. I split it into six bowls, which is messier than I thought it would be, and then mix a few drops of icing colour into each one, so we have a rainbow of colours.

“Do you have any cling film?”

Euan frowns. “Cling film?”

“Yeah. It’s a trick I saw on?—”

“YouTube,” we say in unison.

I crack up laughing. “Yes! It’s less messy, and you can combine the colours more easily to make multicoloured swirls.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

I arrange sausage-shaped dollops of the icing side by side on a sheet of cling film and roll them into a larger sausage. After snipping the end of a piping bag, I slip one of the fancy nozzles I bought inside. It falls out the bottom through the hole I cut.

Euan arches an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

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