Page 64 of The Baking Games

"Okay, let's go."

We get up and jog downstairs. I'm surprised we don't trip on the staircase as we go. Is this what giddiness feels like? Maybe I'm just overly exhausted.

We get down into the kitchen and start looking around for ingredients. For some reason, they always lock up the pantry at night, making it much harder to find what we need. But we do find enough to bake a batch of cookies. Maybe two.

"Okay. I want to make pecan praline cookies," I say, starting to look around on the counters.

"You think we're going to be able to find all of the ingredients for pecan praline cookies?" she asks, with her free hand on her hip.

"Okay, maybe you're right. Chocolate chip it is," I say, reaching over and grabbing the large canister of chocolate chips from the counter.

We move around the kitchen in perfect sync. We're getting used to this thing, this being chained together. This must be what married people feel like, the old ball and chain and all that.

Once we put the cookies in the oven, I pull myself up onto the counter and sit there, Savannah leaning against it below me.

"So, do you do a lot of late-night baking regularly?”

"Not really. Since I work at this all day, I’m not in the mood to bake at night. Plus, it's not a lot of fun to do something like this all by yourself."

"Well, you're not all by yourself on a yacht. Tell me some of the celebrities you've worked for," she says, looking up at me, her eyes bright.

I can't tell her the truth. There's no way I can tell her the truth because I wouldn't just be telling her. I'd be telling the entire world, and I'm not ready for that yet.

“I told you I have to sign non-disclosure agreements. Sorry, I can't say it, especially not on television."

She nods and shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah, I guess I understand. So what will we do while we wait for these cookies to finish?"

"We could go sit outside."

"No, I don't like leaving them in here unattended. It would just be like us to burn the whole place down. We couldn't even use the kitchen sink without an entire fiasco."

I laugh, thinking back to that moment.

"Okay, well, we could ask each other some questions."

"Wow. I like this side of Rhett, who wants to talk and ask questions. You go first." She pulls herself up beside me on the counter.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Ocean blue,” she says, smiling. “Yours?”

“Emerald green.”

“Interesting. My turn. What’s your biggest fear?”

“Oooh, a deep one.” I think for a moment. “Not being good enough.”

She looks at me for a moment. “Good enough for who?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t know. What’s your biggest fear?”

“Spiders.”

I laugh. “You must not love Halloween.”

“I hate Halloween.”

“Me too,” I say, struggling to think of another question to ask her. "Do you like to dance?"

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