Page 70 of My Irresistible Enemy

“I don’t know. Do you want it to be?”

“What Iwantis to talk to you about butter. This is important.”

“Mmm. Butter. A classic lubricant. You have my attention, I promise.” I batted my eyelashes outrageously.

“You’re impossible.”

“No, just highly improbable.” I grinned at Em, who was a few feet away from us now, Nora standing next to him. “Now, go on, what was it you wanted to say about butter? Slick, slippery, oozing butter that just squelches everywhere, gets on your skin, makes it glide so smoothly, and—”

“If I murder him,” Nolan said, turning to Em and Nora, “you can play this tape in court as evidence, and there’s not a jury in the world that would convict me.” He looked back at me. “Thepointis, when you’re making croissants, your butter can’t be any of those things. You’re trying to keep it cold. Solid. When it starts running too much, that’s where things go wrong. If your butter leaks out of the cracks—”

“Oh, but I love it when things leak out of cracks. That’s my favorite part. Who wants a block of cold, frigid butter anyway? I mean, unless you’re gonna sculpt it into something. They used to have butter sculpting contests at the county fair when I was a kid. So maybe if we were shaping it into something kind of long and vaguely cylindrical, with a flared base—”

“Children watch this show, you know,” Nolan interrupted.

“Oh my God, calm down. I’m not destroying their innocence. It’s not like I’m telling them Santa Claus isn’t real.”

He turned back to Em and stared silently at the camera for a long moment.

“So you two are still working together?” Nora said from over Em’s shoulder.

“To my continuing remorse and regret.”

“Aw, babe. I bet you say that to all the boys.” I grinned impishly.

“What did you each draw out of the hat this week?” Nora asked.

“Well, I got butter dil—” I cut off with a yelp when Nolan kicked my ankle. “Croissants, that is. And Nolan got—what was it? Profit-er-hoes?”

“Profiteroles.” Nolan dragged a hand down his face. “I got profiteroles.”

“Right. Profiter-holes. Like I was saying. Gotta love those little holes. All empty and wide and gaping open.”

“Aren’t profiteroles usually filled with something?” Nora asked.

“Don’t encourage him,” Nolan protested.

“Wait, what?” I tilted my head to the side. “There’s a filling? I love a good filling. Tell me all about it.”

“I could have stayed home,” Nolan said wistfully. “I could have kept my old job, and never come on this show, and never had to have this conversation.”

“Yeah. But lucky for you, you didn’t. So, come on. Share with the class. What goes inside your holes?”

He looked at me helplessly. “I hate that I have to tell you that it’s cream.”

“I think you mean you love it.”

“Last time I checked, you were the one who loved cream.”

I grinned at the camera. “Turns out Nolan has a sense of humor after all. Who would’ve thought? Though, he is right. I do like getting cream-filled…things…in my mouth. Or hands. Or anywhere, really.”

Nolan banged his head against the countertop as I laughed.

* * *

All in all, it was a pretty decent afternoon.

Torturing Nolan was fun, and I was sure we’d given the editors a lot of footage to work with. Nolan and I still hadn’tconfirmedthat we were dating in any of our confessional segments, but I’d flirted up a storm in the tent today. There was no way you could watch the two of us together and not thinksomethingwas going on.

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