Page 46 of Allured By Her

“That can be a tough combination,” Tenley said. “Plus, there’s the fact that most of the guys around here you’ve known forever, and you know too much.”

I shuddered. Even if I dated guys, I could never date someone from around here because of knowing too much. It was kind of hard to find a guy attractive when your friend had dated him and told you all the details of their sex life, down to all his extremely specific kinks.

Tenley sighed. “Guys are better in books anyway. They’re always wearing gray sweatpants and leaning in doorways and brooding and saying the right things. Mmm.”

I loved all of that stuff, just when women were doing it. Guys didn’t have a monopoly on gray sweatpants and leaning. Fuck. What were we talking about?

The timer for the cupcakes finally went off and we got the tray out of the oven and set them on the stove to cool before we frosted them.

“I have some piping bags if we want to get fancy,” I said.

“Fuck yeah, let’s get fancy,” Tenley said.

Before I put the frosting into the piping bags, I whipped some air into it to make it super fluffy. I handed a piping bag to Tenley. “Go for it.”

I went for a simple design, just making little dots of frosting on the top, but Tenley was making what looked like a rose.

“Wow, you’re good at that,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, not looking up from what she was doing.

“Have you done this before?” I asked.

“I’ve dabbled in baking. I’ve dabbled in a lot of hobbies. I can’t seem to find anything that sticks. I mean, other than reading,” she said. “But now that I write books, I consider reading as part of my job.”

She stood up and studied her handiwork.

“Not bad.”

“You put me to shame,” I said. Not that I was a terrible decorator, but Tenley’s looked like a professional had done them. We split up the cupcakes and each decorated half. In the end, Tenley’s looked much better than mine, but they tasted the same when you ate them.

I picked up a cupcake and peeled the paper off as Tenley did the same.

“Happy breakup,” I said.

“Happy breakup to you too, former fake girlfriend,” she said, and we toasted with our cupcakes.

“Strawberries were a good idea,” I said as I took my first bite. The fresh strawberries were sweet and bright in contrast with the rich chocolate and then the strawberry frosting added a creaminess that brought it all together.

“Definitely,” Tenley agreed, devouring her cupcake and then licking her fingers. “I think, in my vulnerable emotional state, that I need another cupcake.”

I laughed. “Tenley, you can have as many cupcakes as you want.”

She grinned and reached for another.

* * *

I kind of assumed that once she had recovered from her hangover, Tenley would have gone home, but she didn’t seem to want to leave. She kept nibbling at cupcakes and making more coffee and wandering around my apartment.

“This place is cute,” she said.

“Cute means small,” I said.

“I mean, it is small, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Cleaning an entire house is a pain in the ass,” she said. That was true. One of the rules growing up was that my sister and I were in charge of most of the cleaning and dragging a vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs was a task I never wanted to do again. Ingrid’s house was all one level, which made things a little bit easier.

“Not a lot of room for books, though,” I said.

“True. Sometimes I worry about the foundation, though.” She flopped down on the couch with a sigh. She was still wearing my clothes.

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