Page 73 of Now That It's You
“Holy shit,” he said, peering more closely at the cock pop. “What’s the stuff around the nutsack that looks like pubic hair?”
“Toasted coconut,” she said. “I was worried I hadn’t gotten the flesh tone right with the royal icing,” she said, running a finger around the terrifyingly lifelike head. “But I think it’s pretty close, don’t you?”
“If it looked any more real, you could be arrested for holding it in public.”
“Thank you.” Meg beamed and set the cock pop down on the counter. “I just did this one to test out the icing, but I have to do fifty more of them. The cake inside is passionfruit.”
“Of course it is.” Kyle stared at the cock pop and shook his head. “It shames me to realize I kind of want to bite into it.”
Meg laughed. “I made extras so I could practice decorating them. I’ll let you take some of those home at the end of the night.”
“Defective cock pops? Can’t wait to devour one of those.”
Meg grinned and put her hands on the stainless-steel counter. “Actually, I’m thinking I might just have you chop veggies for the penis pasta salad.”
“Of course there’s a penis pasta salad.”
“I made all the little penises by hand, which took forever.”
“I feel like I should be able to come up with a good hand job joke right now, but I’m honestly at a loss.”
“You should have seen me trying to talk the bride out of an alfredo sauce,” she said. “Not the best choice with penis pasta.”
“Good Lord.”
She laughed and brushed a curl off her forehead. “It’s fine now, we’re going with a basil pesto instead.”
“Green dicks? This sounds more appetizing by the minute.”
“You can wash up over there.” She pointed him toward the sink. “All those veggies in the bowl can be chopped, and there’s a big tray of roasted red peppers cooling over there when you get done with those.”
“What are you going to be working on?”
Meg pulled back her hair with an elastic band, then stepped up to the sink to give her hands a quick scrub. “I need to get started on the dickerdoodles.”
“Of course you do.”
She finished washing her hands, then wiped them off on a big white dish towel. Then she stepped aside to give him a turn at the sink, moving toward the large commercial refrigerator in the corner.
Kyle watched her pull out a massive hunk of Saran-wrapped dough, and he felt his mouth water at the memory of Meg’s favorite cinnamon-laced cookies. She set the dough on the counter and pulled open a drawer, drawing out not one, not two, but three cookie cutters in phallic shapes. Something about seeing her hands on those odd metal penises made his mouth water in a different way, and he had to order himself not to stare.
“Really, Kyle,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for your help.”
“It’s not a problem. I wanted to see you.”
He turned and began scrubbing his hands at the big commercial sink, remembering the time she showed him the trick about rubbing his hands on the stainless steel to get rid of the smell of onions. How long ago was that? Three years? Four?
“I wanted to see you, too.” Her voice was so soft behind him that he had to turn to make sure she’d spoken at all. She gave a sheepish shrug and picked up a little paring knife. “I know I’ve kinda been MIA this past week. I just—had some stuff to process.”
“Stuff,” Kyle said, drying his hands on on the white dish towel as he turned so he could see the side of her face. “You mean like the fact that we slept together?”
Meg jumped like he’d just poked her in the ribs. “Well,” she said, turning to face him as her cheeks turned a fetching shade of pink. She didn’t say anything else after that, and there was something utterly charming about seeing her at such a loss for words.
That, and seeing her clutching a tin penis in one hand.
Kyle smiled and leaned back against the sink. “I’m ripping the Band-Aid off, Meg. Might as well put it out there so we can stop letting it be awkward.”
“Because this isn’t awkward?”
