by Emma Hart
The kiss threw me off. A lot. Big time. Off this planet crazy. Yet somehow, the two of us watching a movie we’ve seen at least fifty times, watching it the way we always have, didn’t change a thing. Didn’t even lend a thought to what had happened between us earlier that night.
I didn’t even text Carly back when she messaged me halfway through the movie. I was afraid that if I did, I’d get suckered into a conversation and end up telling her Cain kissed me.
I want to tell her that he did, but I also want to keep it to myself.
I don’t want to taint the memory by putting it into words.
Stupid, yes. I know that. Fucking hell. I’m no idiot.
Lies. I’m a total idiot.
Bleary-eyed still, I pull a coffee mug from the cupboard and shove it beneath Cain’s coffee machine. I exchange the pod and hit the button on the top to make it go. It sputters pathetically, and a quick glance shows that the water tank is empty.
Of course it is.
I fill it and restart the process with the exception of replacing the coffee pod. Since nothing came out of it, nothing’s been wasted. A glance at the clock tells me I have thirty minutes to get dressed into something more covering than my pajamas before making my way down to the main Elliott household.
Every holiday it’s the same. One year the Elliotts hold it. The next the Barkers do. I’m not sure what or who started our crazy tradition, but I’ve loved it every year. I think it started the year the Elliotts moved to Barley Cross—my mom wanted to include them in everything, so include them she did.
The rest is history, as they say. Or present day, whatever.
The coffee machine spits the end of the cycle and I pull my mug from beneath it in just enough time to hear Cain awake and on the phone.
“What?” His deep, husky, sleepy voice asks. “Are you…give it a rest, Nina.”
Ahh. Fabulous.
“We’re over, Nina. What I do in my time is nothing to do with you…no, really, it fuckin’ ain’t.”
I lift my mug to my lips, looking up at the ceiling. Toodooloo.
It sounds like his feet hit the floor. “Don’t fuckin’ sit here at god knows what time in the morning telling me you wanna talk when you and your band of bitches made Brooke so uncomfortable that we had to leave…yeah, we. What part of she’s my fucking best friend don’t you understand?”
Awwwwwkward.
His bedroom door opens. His voice becomes much clearer. “No, I really don’t give a shit, if I’m honest. You weren’t happy and neither was I. It’s over so get over it.” There’s a seconds silence before, “Fuck me.”
“It’s a little early for that,” I say, lifting my coffee mug to my mouth.
Cain stills.
I still.
He’s wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
I. Quit. Life.
I’m actually frozen in place. I can’t decide if it’s his messy bedhead or his sleepy eyes. His swollen eyelids or pouty lips. His wide shoulders and toned arms.
Or his fucking perfectly sculpted body, from his shoulders to his chest to his abs to the ‘v’ that disappears into a place that’s really not hidden by his bold, blue boxer briefs.
Or his thighs, as thick as tree trunks yet still obviously solid muscle.
I’m staring. I’m staring so bad, but despite our relationship and the fact he’s seen me in my underwear, I’ve never really seen him in his. Not totally naked without a t-shirt. And now I’m annoyed I haven’t.
Cain Elliott is a walking wet dream. The type you orgasm from before you wake up.
That’s right. He’s a fucking rare species all right.
I can’t look away. Oh god. He’s watching me watch him. I’ve turned to stone, I know I have. I can’t speak or breathe or move or holy fucking shit, what is wrong with me?
“Um, shit,” Cain finally says. “I didn’t think you’d be up.”
“Count us even,” I choke out. “You know. For the baseball bat thing and all that.”
He clasps his fingers together and stretches. “Not even close in comparison, B.”
“Go and put some damn clothes on!” I turn away from him, hugging my coffee close to me.
He probably thinks I’m being awkward. I hope he does. Lord knows I know I’m being awkward. Crappy, crap, crap.
“You haven’t moved, have you?” I ask.
“Why are you awake? You don’t have work. You’re never up this early.”
Nice try, asshole. I hold up one tub of blue and red sprinkles, conveniently left on his kitchen side by Mandy. “It’s July Fourth. Why else would I be up early than to bake two hundred cupcakes?”
“Two…two hundred cupcakes? Isn’t it usually a hundred?”
“For my mom’s. Your mom’s is two hundred.”
Cain, apparently unbothered by his state of undress, folds his arms across his chest. “Shouldn’t you have started this yesterday?”
“Yes,” I answer simply. “Which is why I’m up before the birds.”
He puts a mug beneath the coffee machine. “Do you want my help?”
“Are you putting some clothes on?”
“Maybe.”
“Last time you helped me you burned twenty-four cupcakes.”
“Yes…” He hesitates, waiting until his coffee is done until he speaks again. “But now Mom has the oven with a timer so I won’t do that again.”
I stare at him for a long moment. A really, really, long moment. “Put some clothes on and meet me in your mom’s kitchen in ten minutes. With the attitude that you’ll do exactly as you’re told.”
He raises his cup in a salute and winks. “Yes, mistress.”
“Fifteen minutes, Cain! Fifteen! This is not fifteen minutes!” I shove the red-hot tray of burned cupcakes toward him. “This is twenty minutes.”
He backs up, hands held up at his chest, palms facing me. “Fifteen? Twenty? What difference does it make?”
I drop the tray onto the kitchen island and shake off the oven mitt. It falls to the ground without a sound. Meanwhile, I grab a perfectly golden cupcake and Cain’s excuse for a baked one.
“This is the difference!” I launch them both at him.
He covers his head with his hands and both cakes bounce off his fingers to the floor.
“Jesus.” Zeke strolls into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes. “What’s going on in here?”
“He burned my cakes!” I yell.
“It’s eight-fifteen in the morning, you psychopath!”
I throw a burned cupcake right at his head. I hit my mark and it bounces off his forehead, into the wall, and onto the floor. “I don’t care!”
Zeke turns to Cain. “Can’t you put her on a leash or something?”
I chuck a second cake at him. In his sleepy state, he can’t avoid that either. He does, however, manage to catch it this time before it falls to the floor.
“Fucking hell!” Zeke throws the cake back in my direction, but he misses by a mile. “This happens every year, Brooke. Why don’t you start on the third instead?”
“Because I’m useless and I forget.” I sigh and pick the cupcakes out of tray one by one for the cooling rack.
“Woulda been a better idea than what we did yesterday,” Cain grumbles. He puts a new tray of cakes into the oven and sets the timer for fifteen minutes.
“Make it twelve,” I tell him, glancing over my shoulder. “And yes,” I say, arranging the cakes on the rack. “You’re right. It definitely would have been a better idea.”
“Why? What happened?” Zeke grabs a cool cake and before I can yell at him, bites into the top of it. “Mm, ‘is good.”
“Thanks.” There’s no point being mad. He’ll just eat another if I do that.
“Well, what happened last night? There’s no awkward sex story, is there?”
This time, Cain grabs one of the burned cupcakes and throws it at his brother. Hard. “Fuck off, Zeke.”
Zek holds his arms out.
“We saw Nina last nig
ht,” Cain says. He gathers up the rest of the burned cakes and throws them in the trash. Then he launches into an explanation of what happened last night. Sans kissing.
Zeke hits the button on the coffee machine when Cain’s done. “Fuck. That sounds awkward.”
“No kidding,” I mutter. I prod the top of the first batch of cakes, and feeling that they’re cool enough, reach for my piping bag full of red frosting. “I felt like I was in an international court of judgment or something. Except the judge and the jury were all bitches.”
He chuckles and pulls his mug out from under the machine. “Were they assholes to you? Do I need to break into their apartments and put bright red hair dye into their conditioner?”
I pause, holding the icing bag poised above a cake. “How do you know about that trick?”
Cain snorts. “He jilted his cheating ex a week before the wedding. He spent three days straight Googling revenge methods before he broke up with her.”
Zeke raises his eyebrows and, with a smirk, salutes me with his coffee cup.
I stare at them both for a moment before going back to my frosting. I don’t know how to answer that, so in the interest of self-preservation, I’m simply not going to.
Although I have to give him points for the idea. That is a pretty fantastic one.
Wait…
“You did the conditioner thing, didn’t you?” I ask, stepping back from the cakes. I point the icing bag at him. “Zeke!”
He grins.
That’s all the answer I need.
“Blue,” Cain offers. “Turquoise, to be exact.”
“Oooh, ouch.” I shudder as the timer on the oven beeps. I pull out the cupcakes and set them on the side, nudging the oven door shut with my shoulder. “Wasn’t Becky, like, white blond?”
“She was. Was being the important word there for a while.”
Zeke chuckles into his mug as he walks to the door. “God bless black conditioner bottles.”
That man is insane. Seriously. I’ve never known anybody else like him.
“What time is Carly getting here?” Cain asks me. “Shouldn’t she be here helping you?”
“Ha! No!” I vehemently shake my head. So much so that I get a little dizzy. “Carly can cook, but she can’t bake. You know that. What happened two years ago when she insisted on helping me?”
He tilts his head to the side. “Didn’t she use salt instead of sugar in the recipe?”
My stomach rolls at the thought. “Yes, yes she did.”
“Hey,” Zeke says, pausing in the doorway. He turns and gestures to me with his mug. “Didn’t you deliberately feed me those?”
I grab one of the newly frosted cakes—a chocolate one. With a smirk, I peel off the paper casing and bite into it. Frosting smooshes against my nose, and I grin at Zeke.
You bet your ass I deliberately fed him one of Carly’s Special Cupcakes.
Yes, the caps are deliberate. That’s the official name and has been ever since he threw one up.
“Bitch,” Zeke fires at me before disappearing.
I put my hand in front of my face and laugh with half a mouthful of cupcake. I totally deserve that, but that prank will never get old. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he bit into that cake.
“Okay,” I say, my giggles petering out and wiping my nose. “I really need to get more cakes into the oven.”
“Wait.” Cain darts around the island toward me.
“What?” I turn back around to face him. “Oh!” I bump into him, my boobs brushing against his chest
He grabs my upper arms. “Whoa,” he says quietly. “I was just—you’ve got…”
My skin tingles where he’s touching me. Not to mention that the roughness of his hands against my arms feels kinda…nice.
“What? Got what?” I pause, waiting for him to answer. “Cain!”
“You’ve got, um, frosting.” The smirk that tugs on his lips is stupidly sexy. “On your mouth.”
I rub my fingers across my mouth. “Did I get it?”
“No, it’s…here.” He lifts his hand to my face, rests his fingers along my jaw, and brings his thumbs up to my lips. Then, slowly, he strokes his thumb across my top lip, tracing the same path with his eyes.
I inhale sharply, and I know he felt it, because he pauses briefly before he carries on, dragging his thumb to the edge of my mouth.
Cannotbreathecannotbreathecannotbreathe.
“Got it.” Cain’s low, husky voice sends tremors down my spine.
“I, uh, good.” I swallow before biting the inside of my cheek. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He’s still smirking.
Not that it would make a difference if he wasn’t, because my heart would still be beating crazy hard. I still wouldn’t be able to catch my breath properly or do anything other than look into his eyes the way I am right now.
I’m frozen in place, stuck between him and the kitchen counter, surrounded by freaking cupcakes in various states of creation.
His green eyes are dead set on mine, shining bright, and he has the firmest grip on my chin. Yet, somehow, it feels soft. I don’t know how he’s doing it or why he won’t let go, or why I won’t make him let go, but…
“B, I…” Cain stops, his thumb twitching against my chin. “Don’t fucking hate me for this,” he whispers.
Right before he kisses me again.
Just like last night, it’s slow and easy, the barest feather of a touch. Yet it feels like so much more. Like warmth and comfort and—
“Oh!”
Mandy’s voice snaps me out of my mid-kiss reverie, and my entire body jerks in shock at the same time Cain releases me.
Except I’m still holding the frosting bag.
And my shocked jerk makes me squeeze it.
Right at Cain.
All. Over. His. White. Shirt.
“Oh, shit!” I squeeze the bag again and more frosting comes out.
“Jesus Christ, Brooke, put it down!” Cain looks somewhere between embarrassment and hysterical laughter. He snatches it out of my hand, and in the process, squeezes it exactly like I just did. A stream of red frosting spurts across my chest and slides down my cleavage.
“Oh. My. God!” I scramble for the sink, almost knocking over a plate of cooled cupcakes in the process, and barely manage to keep it in place as I grab the cloth. “You could have just let me put it down, Cain!”
He’s standing frozen in the middle of the kitchen, his face still in the same expression it was a moment ago.
“Oh my gosh.” Mandy stifles a laugh from the doorway as I dab at my chest and between my boobs. “I see I chose a bad time to refill my coffee cup.”
“You!” I wave the now frosting-covered cloth at Cain. “I can’t even with you!”
“Whoa.” Cain’s dad, Eddie, edges his way past Mandy into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”
I’m still waving the cloth at Cain, so I do the only thing I can think of doing. I take aim and throw the cloth at his head. It hits him in the face with a thwack, and I freeze.
He, however, bursts into laughter. I stare at him as he pulls the cloth from his face and then—the bastard.
He throws it right back at me. “If you’d put it down in the first place, neither of us would be covered with it.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect you to kiss me again, did I?”
Oopsie.
We both stare at each other. My eyes widen as my words hang in the air between us. With his parents both looking on.
Abort. Abort. Abort. Can the ground just swallow me up right now? Please? I’ll pay. Anything the world wants.
“Well,” Eddie says, moving past the mounds of cupcakes and ingredients and other things. “It’s about damn time.”
I don’t even know what to say to that, so I drop the cloth back in the sink, turn around, and dip my head.
Cupcakes.
I need to make more cupcakes and pretend this didn’t happen.
SIXTEEN
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LIFE TIP #16: Don’t get drunk.
I collapse back against the fridge and survey the kitchen. Cake racks cover every visible inch of counter space—and, uh, the sink. A sea of red, blue, and white decorated cakes stare out at me, all adorned with little United States flags.
Bought, not made. I’m not that patient.
“Can I eat them yet?” Carly asks, walking into the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m starving.”
I drop my head back again the fridge door and sigh. “Just take one. If you ask me one more time, I think I’m going to go crazy.”
“That,” she says, picking up one with bright blue frosting, “would imply you ever had any sanity, and we all know that isn’t true.”
It’s hard to argue with the truth, isn’t it?
“Whatever. I need to get changed. I’m covered in flour and sugar and god knows what else, and I’ve been in here for ten hours, so yeah.” I push off from the fridge and head toward the sink where I grab the wet dishcloth. I wipe off my hands and wrists.
“You have flour on your forehead.”
“Ugh.” I wipe there too, but I know if it’s on my forehead, it’ll be all in my hair too. “I need to shower. How long do I have?”
Carly puts down her wine, pulls her phone from her pocket, and checks it. “Little under an hour.”
“Crap. Okay.” I snatch up her glass and take a big gulp. “Thanks.” I lift it toward her and head out of the back door.
“Hey!”
I ignore her shouts and turn around the garage to Cain’s access door. I let myself in and sip the wine as I walk upstairs. Cain’s apartment seems completely empty, and the door is unlocked—I have got to talk to him about that—so I go into it.
Empty was wrong.
The beats of goddamn Kanye West are escaping from down the hall and Cain’s bedroom door. At least it’s old school Kanye West. Think Gold Digger, not the crap he puts out these days. I can give him points for that at least. I guess.
If I had my laptop with me, I’d so play Justin Bieber—his new stuff, thank you please—at full volume and drown out Kanye.
I kick the door shut behind me and head for his spare room. Knowing I had to make enough cupcakes to feed an elementary school, I packed enough stuff to last me, well, a week before leaving my apartment yesterday.