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The scream I let out is horror-level loud as he flicks the mixture onto my face. That turns into a giggle, however, and I take some of mine and flick some into his hair. In a matter of seconds, we’re like two children going back and forth, seeing how dirty we can get the other.
“Excuse me!”
Both of us stop and snap our heads up. The instructor stands right in front of our station, and she isnotpleased. Neither are the old ladies beside us who cast us judgmental looks. I shrink into myself at their stares. I open my mouth to apologize because I was so stupid. Always stupid. I humiliated myself and Cassius and?—
“We’re just having some fun,” Cassius says smoothly, not a hint of shame on his face as he regards the instructor. “Testing out the mixture.”
“You can’t start food fights in class, young man,” she says, wagging her finger. “Do I have to ask you to leave?”
To this, he shrugs. “If you want.”
He and the instructor lock themselves in a battle of wills, which is a big mistake, because Cassius never loses. After a few seconds, the instructor backs down and huffs. “Fine. But no more shenanigans.”
“Sounds good to me,” he says smoothly, then wraps a protective arm around my waist. “I’m excited to see how these turn out.”
Once again, the instructor huffs before continuing to monitor the other students’ progress. Still a little shaken, I take a step away and bow my head. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“For…I don’t know.”
Tears well in my eyes as I stare at my egg-covered shoes.
Stupid.
Worthless.
Always causing trouble.
“Hey,” he whispers, a strong hand grasping my chin to tip my head up. Blue eyes filled with intention lock on mine, and he leans in to brush his lips against the corner of my mouth. “Don’t apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“But we?—”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he rasps against my cheek. “Tell me we just got a little ahead of ourselves, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We…” I lick my lips as he stares. The words take a second to come out, mostly because my head is so loud, but when they do, I smile. “We just got a little ahead of ourselves, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”
The weird thing is, I believe it. I didn’t before. I never do. But Cassius has the power to make me see things in a different light. He doesn’t think I’m a burden or taking up too much space. He protects me from other’s opinions of me. He’s at my side, no matter what. Without him, the dark thoughts win, but he’s a pro at fighting them off for me.
“Exactly,” he says, landing one solid kiss on my lips before pulling back. “Now, let’s finish making these so we can have some dessert after dinner.”
“Chicken and broccoli?” I tease.
He nods. “You’re damn straight.”
I throw my head back with a laugh and can’t help but snuggle into his side. It makes it harder to follow the instructions with me plastered against him, but he doesn’t complain. He simply throws an arm around my waist and does everything one-handed.
Our crème brûlée ends up horrible, as predicted. Turns out, when you waste half of it on your clothes, there isn’t enough left to actually make it set. I don’t know, that’s just what Cassius said, but it doesn’t stop him from beaming with pride when he tries mine.
Or when he says that we’ll just have to do better next time.
Unfortunately, we have to cut our day a bit short because he has to go to work early. He drives the soccer mom van home while I look into other classes we can take together. When we’re at the apartment and he’s getting ready to leave, I pout and tell him I’ll miss him. He kisses me soundly by the door, reminding me that my dinner is in the fridge and just needs to be heated up.
Later that night, when I’m bored and missing him, I take the sparkly notebook out to add another entry.
MUST BE OKAY WITH MY MESSES.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
