Page 23 of The Pumpkin Spice Proposal
“Stop.” She held up a flour-dusted hand. “Just... stop. Look, I appreciate Ben sending reinforcements, but I don’t need a lecture on food science. I need someone to crack eggs and not judge my technique.”
But I couldn’t help myself. Watching her dump vanilla extract with reckless abandon, estimating spices by sight—it was like watching someone perform surgery with a butter knife.
“At least use the measuring spoons,” I said, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “That’s not asking for the moon.”
“Fine.” She yanked open a drawer, pulled out the measuring spoons with unnecessary force. “Happy now, Iron Chef?”
“It’s a start.”
We worked in tense silence. Every move she made, I wanted to correct. When she cracked the eggs directly into the batter bowl instead of a separate dish first, my jaw clenched. When she dumped in apple chunks without measuring, my eye twitched. When she started the mixer on high speed instead of building up gradually, I couldn’t stay quiet.
“You’re going to overmix?—”
“I’ve got it.”
“But the gluten will?—”
“I said I’ve got it!”
The mixer lurched. Batter flew in a perfect arc, splattering across my shirt in a sticky, cinnamon-scented mess.
The kitchen went deadly silent except for the mechanical whir.
Lily stared at the brown smear across my chest, her face cycling through horror, mortification, and something dangerously close to laughter. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—the mixer just?—”
I looked down at the damage. Looked back at her. “This is what happens when you start on high speed.”
That did it. Her mouth twitched. “Are you seriously giving me a technical critique right now? While wearing my cupcake batter?”
“I’m making an educational observation.”
“You’re being insufferable.” But she was fighting a smile now. “And you have apple chunks in your hair.”
I reached up, pulled a piece of apple from behind my ear. Looked at it. Looked at her. “This is why we measure ingredients.”
She lost it. Full-blown laughter filled the kitchen, the kind that shook her whole body. “You’re hopeless,” she gasped. “Absolutely, completely hopeless.”
Maybe it was the laughter. Maybe it was the way she looked—flour in her hair, apron askew, eyes bright with mirth. Maybe it was how long it had been since anyone had laughed at me instead of walking on eggshells around the washed-up driver.
I scooped a finger through the batter on my shirt and, before my rational brain could stop me, flicked it at her.
It caught her square on the nose.
Her laughter cut off. She touched her nose, looked at the batter on her fingertip, then back at me with an expression of pure shock. “Did you just...?”
“Educational demonstration,” I said. “Equal and opposite reaction.”
“Oh, you did not just start a food fight with me in my mother’s kitchen.”
“I didn’t start anything. You started it with your reckless mixing technique.”
“Reckless mixing—” She huffed, then grabbed a handful of flour from the bag. “I’ll show you reckless!”
The flour cloud caught me full in the face, a white explosion that left me blinking and probably looking like a ghost. For a second, neither of us moved. Then she started giggling again—this bright, infectious sound that made something warm unfurl in my chest.
I wiped flour from my eyes, looked at her through the white haze. “It’s war.”
What followed wasn’t elegant. Or strategic. Or anything resembling the controlled precision I prided myself on. It was pure, chaotic, ridiculous warfare. Flour clouds and batter flicks and the two of us moving around the kitchen like overgrown children, both laughing too hard to aim properly.
