Page 79 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Carson sets off the smoke alarm when he tries to broil anything. Edgar’s culinary precision is God-tier, but he’s swamped with embalming and eulogies and emotionally intense cremations today. And Jennifer? She chose me to be her whisker accomplice.

“Hey,” she says, eyes glinting as she flicks flour at my chest. “You good?”

I grin, high off sugar and sudden validation. “Yeah. Just thinking this might be the best felony I’ve ever committed.”

“Felony?”

“Cupcake conspiracy. First degree.”

She laughs, full-body and unguarded, and I swear I’d spend a thousand lifetimes preheating ovens if it means I get to hear that sound again.

We’re elbow-deep in flour when it happens. Not a murder. Not a dramatic kiss. Just a look.

Jennifer’s leaning over the counter, brow furrowed in adorable concentration as she tests the frosting texture. Her finger dips in, swirls, and then she brings it to her lips, all slow and thoughtful. I expect her to glance at the mixing bowl or maybe the icing texture.

She doesn’t. She stares straight into my soul like she knows exactly how many times I’ve thought about her licking frosting off my fingers. I malfunction. I become a sentient oven mitt. I forget every word in the English language except ‘Jesus Christ.

“What?” she asks innocently, lip glistening with lemon glaze.

“I, you, you can’t just do that.” I gesture vaguely. “With your face. And your mouth. And your…”

She smirks. “You always this articulate when you’re turned on mid-baking?”

“Apparently, yeah.” I try to redirect my brain to normal human functions like “kneading” and “not pitching a tent in an apron.” But it’s getting hotter in here, and I swear the oven isn’t even on.

Then the flour happens.

She tosses a handful, playfully, wickedly, at my chest when I suggest molasses drizzle instead of lemon glaze.

It sticks. I flail. The bowl of sifted sugar clatters to the floor. I try to clean it up, slip on a rogue lemon peel, and… rip. My shirt gives out. Like some kind of romance novel cliché. Just… gone.

Jennifer goes very, very still. “Okay,” she says after a beat, “first of all, rude. Second, That chest.”

“I do a lot of push-ups when I’m anxious.”

“You must be constantly spiraling.”

“Correct.”

She steps closer, brushing flour off my chest with fingers that linger longer than necessary.

I don’t breathe. I’m not sure I can.

We’re inches apart, the smell of lemon zest and vanilla between us like some kind of pheromone warfare. Her eyes drop to my mouth. Mine drop to her apron, which says Bite Me in blood-red cursive.

I don’t even know who started the garnish debate, but suddenly we’re arguing over lemon peels like it’s life or death.

“It needs a candied lemon twist, simple, classy, elegant,” I say.

“It needs to be perfect,” she snaps, “and you’re distracting me with your stupid strong arms and your stupid kind eyes!”

“Not my fault I was built for domestic porn!”

She throws an icing spoon at me. I dodge, barely, and lunge to grab her wrist before she can weaponize the piping bag. We end up tangled in each other, hands sticky with frosting, faces flushed. There’s icing on her nose. There’s flour in my hair. There’s nothing innocent about how we’re breathing.

And then I laugh. Because this is us.

Not just the heat and chaos. But the fact that even when we’re flinging sugar and passive-aggressively garnishing cupcakes, we fit.

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