Page 55 of Merry Mayhem
I look up at him. “I’m impressed.”
“My mom and aunt are great bakers. I might’ve had some practice in the kitchen growing up.”
I grin. “How about silver balls across the top?”
“Awesome.” He starts picking up the tiny balls between his thumb and index finger. He drops them into place in a perfectly straight line.
“You weren’t kidding about your exceptional fine motor skills.”
He shoots me a smirk and squeezes my ass at the same time. “I’mverygood with my fingers.”
I feel my cheeks flush as I look up at him quickly.
He winks. “Yes, that’s exactly how I meant that.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say breezily.
“Yes, you do. I can see exactly what you’re thinking. And we are on the same page.”
I drop my voice even lower. “Stop it.”
“No one’s watching us. Everyone’s concentrating on their own cookies.”
“We have an entire audience watching us.”
“We just look like really good contest partners.”
“Dammit!”
I look across the table to find the cookie that the twins were decorating crushed.
“This is hopeless,” one of them groans.
They look so disappointed.
“We can’t even get ourfirstchallenge right,” one says.
“Maybe we should just back out,” his brother says miserably.
“Oh damn,” Josh groans as he drags the side of his mitten across his perfectly decorated cookie, smearing frosting and sending little silver balls rolling across the table. He looks at me. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I did this.”
I give him a little frown. It was obvious he did that on purpose. But I nod. Maybe we’re teaching the guys a lesson. “It’s okay. We’ll just start over.”
He looks across the table. “You have to be able to pivot quickly in something like this,” Josh says. “Think on your feet. Get creative.”
“Sure. But…we have to follow the rules,” one twin says.
“But what are the rulesreally?” Josh asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You have to frost as many cookies as you can. And they have to look good, right? But “good” is in the eyes of the judges. We just need to impress them somehow,” Josh points out. “That’s it.”
“What are you getting at?” I ask him.
Josh looks down. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I say honestly.
