Page 67 of Pucking the Single Dad
Even when the music was terrible.
Especially then.
Chapter 23: Serena
I surveyed my battlefield—formerly known as Brad's pristine kitchen—with growing horror. Flour dusted every surface like crime scene evidence. Something that was supposed to be béarnaise sauce had achieved sentience and was actively trying to escape the saucepan. The smoke alarm shrieked its judgment while whatever was in the oven (Beef Wellington? Beef Disaster?) filled the air with the distinct aroma of culinary failure.
"You have a master's degree," I muttered, frantically fanning smoke away from the detector with a dish towel. "You've talked down violent seven-year-olds. You've administered emergency medication in moving vehicles. You can make ONE. FANCY. DINNER."
The cookbook mocked me from its stand, its once-pristine pages now decorated with various splatters that looked like abstract art. The renowned cookbook author had made Beef Wellington look like something you could whip up during a commercial break. Video tutorials had promised me success in "just forty-five easy minutes!" The food blogger who'd started this whole disaster had used words like "foolproof" and "beginner-friendly"—words I now recognized as outright lies.
The front door opened.
"Serena, why does it smell like someone cremated a—holy mother of God."
Brad stood frozen in the doorway, gym bag sliding off his shoulder as he took in the destruction. His eyes tracked from the flour-bombed counters to the smoking oven to me—covered in ingredients I couldn't even identify anymore, clutching afire extinguisher I'd grabbed in panic but had no idea how to operate.
"Not. A. Word," I threatened, my voice wobbling dangerously. "Not one word, Wilder."
His mouth twitched, fighting back a smile. "Serena—"
"I SAID NO WORDS."
"The oven's actually on fire though."
I spun around to see flames flickering behind the glass door. "Oh my God!"
Brad moved like he was breaking toward the goal, smooth and automatic—shutting off the gas, grabbing the correct extinguisher (apparently there were different kinds, who knew?), and murdering the flames with practiced efficiency. Meanwhile, I stood frozen, a flour-covered statue of failure, watching my Beef Wellington transform into Beef Armageddon.
The kitchen fell silent except for the accusatory beep of the dying smoke alarm and the sauce's continued attempts at evolution.
"So," he said carefully, "what exactly were we attempting here?"
"Beef Wellington," I admitted miserably. "With roasted vegetables and béarnaise sauce and homemade pasta because apparently I'm delusional. I wanted to do something nice. Something special. You cook for me all the time, and I thought..." I gestured helplessly. "I watched seventeen cooking videos."
"Seventeen?"
"I took notes." I showed him my flour-covered notebook, filled with meticulous observations that had proven utterly useless in practice.
That's when he started laughing. Not mean laughter, but deep, genuine, delighted laughter that transformed his whole face. He laughed until he had to lean against the counter, until tears streamed down his cheeks, until I couldn't help but join in.
"I'm sorry," he gasped. "It's just—seventeen videos. Notes. You approached cooking like a PhD dissertation."
"It's not funny! I almost burned down your house!"
"Our house," he corrected automatically, then we both froze at the slip.
"I mean—"
"Did you mean it?"
He stepped closer, eyes serious despite the laughter lingering there. "Yeah. I did."
The words hung there, massive and fragile, until the béarnaise chose violence and erupted like Mount Vesuvius.
"Right." Brad shifted into the same mode he used for critical game plays. "Triage first. The vegetables just need cosmetic surgery. This sauce needs an exorcism. But the meat..." He examined my Wellington's corpse with disturbing optimism. "We can Frankenstein this."
"Brad, nothing is salvageable. I've created culinary Chernobyl."
