Page 55 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

I just… I love how in he is. Not just in like, his body pressed against mine or his tongue memorizing my pulse, though he’s very good at both, but in. Bought-in. Invested. Willing to help me move bodies or win a bake-off. Whatever I need. “They all are,” I say to myself like a lunatic.

“All what?” he asks.

I ignore it.

“What do you think of Edgar?” I ask.

“Oh, good plan,” Blake says instantly. “We ask him. He knows food. Have you ever heard him order? You don’t want to be behind him in line if you’re hungry. Took him, like, an hour to get his pizza order in. I thought I was gonna die of old age.”

“Never took him for the pizza type,” I say. “But yes. He’s my date tonight. And Officer Carson. I’m sort of seeing him, though not tonight because you know orgasm limits.”

I leave out the part where I practically came from a kiss because we’re being appropriate right now.

Blake sips his milk utterly unfazed by my spiraling. “Officer Carson’s cool. He let me off with a warning when I did a rolling stop. Said something about ‘not enough witnesses to matter’ and waved me off. I like his vibe.”

I’m trying really hard not to remember what that mouth felt like on my clit. I’m also failing.

“And Edgar?” I ask, chewing on a too-hot corner of toast.

He shrugs. “Kind of a local legend. Not scary though. You’d have to be a real dipshit to piss off the guy who controls the crematorium, right? He was always nice to me. We went to high school together. Not friends or anything, but we didn’t shit talk each other. Cookie was a bitch to him back then too.”

Of course she was. Probably gave him saltless scones and acted like it was a flex.

I swallow and stare into my milk like it might offer guidance.

Three men. An ex to murder. A bake-off. No orgasms before dinner.

Just a normal Tuesday.

Blake takes another sip of his milk like we’re discussing weather patterns instead of my ethically questionable vagina itinerary.

“So what are we baking?” he asks again, like the only thing that matters is defeating Cookie in the town’s passive-aggressive Hunger Games of frosting and sexual tension.

I pull out my phone and unlock the sacred scrolls: my Pinterest boards. One’s titled Bake It Till You Make It, another Revenge Is Best Served With Buttercream, and then there’s Cakes That Could Conceal a Weapon, because multitasking.

“What about this?” I swipe to a triple-tiered lemon tart.

Blake squints. “That looks like it costs seventeen dollars a slice and tastes like sour sadness.”

“What about a lavender lemon scone tower?”

“Okay, what if we do something fun? Like chocolate-covered bacon. Men love meat, right?”

“It’s lemon themed,” I say. “Besides, that’s not a dessert, that’s a crime against pigs and God.”

“Okay but hear me out, what if we make cookies shaped like little dicks and write ‘choke on this’ in royal icing?” he suggests. “Lemon icing.”

The feral part of me slow claps. “That’s… actually inspired.”

Twenty minutes later there is flour on the ceiling, Blake is covered in powdered sugar and regret, and I have three pans of what may be legally classified as hate crimes cooling on the counter, and an army of mangled fondant penises on a baking sheet like some sugary battlefield of broken dreams.

“Why does this one look like it’s melting in fear?” I hold up a limp, misshapen sugar shaft.

“He had a hard life,” Blake says solemnly.

“Hard isn’t the word I’d use.” I bite into one of the cookies and immediately spit it into the sink. “Oh yeah,” I declare, pointing at it like it started the plague and blamed a woman. “That’s unfuckable.”

Blake tries one and winces. “Tastes like regret and wet cardboard.”

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