Page 32 of Inked Devotion

I made my way into the kitchen and rolled my eyes. Of course, I wasn’t the first person up.

Brenna was there, her hair piled on the top of her head, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and an apron around her waist. She had her earphones in and shook her ass as she worked on the dough in front of her. I swallowed hard and did my best to ignore the way her butt moved.

I needed to stop thinking about Brenna this way. It wasn’t like I had done it often before. She’d always just been Brenna. I had thought at one point she had feelings for my twin, but that hadn’t been the only thing stopping me from thinking about her as anything else other than my friend. Sex and relationships complicated things, I knew that. But we had already had sex, and we were quite literally changing our relationship with every moment we were near one another, despite how hard we did our best to resist that.

“Are you just going to stare at me oddly?” Brenna asked as she pulled out an earphone.

I winced. “Sorry, I didn’t want to scare you, and then I didn’t know how to get your attention.”

“Well, you’re lucky I don’t scare easily.” She shrugged and gestured towards the coffee maker. “I already started the first pot, though I’m pretty sure I’m going to need more than one cup to get through the day.”

“Thank God,” I mumbled as I went over to the coffee maker. I poured myself a cup and looked down at her half-empty mug. “Refill?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Thank you, but no. It would affect my sugar to cream ratio, so I’m going to wait until I finish this cup.”

“You’re up early.” I took a sip and I nearly groaned. It was made perfect, and I knew Brenna had been the one to make it. And not just because she was the only one around, because it could have been on a timer. No, it’s because Brenna knew how to make damn good coffee.

“I would say you’re up early as well, but it seems that neither one of us could sleep, and frankly, I have a lot to do today.”

“The family isn’t helping?” I asked with a frown.

“There’s going to be a lot more than baked goods today at the reunion, and the family each has their roles. Mine happens to be oddly labor-intensive right now—and features actual rolls. If I had gotten here earlier, I’d have more time, but this is fine.”

I frowned. “Did our night at the hotel hurt your timeline?”

She blushed, and I could’ve kicked myself for bringing it up, but it was a legit question. “No, I was going to get here yesterday anyway. Maybe I’d have had a couple more hours, but not really. We didn’t stop for anything on our last day, and I had scheduled that in. It’s more of the fact that I had work to do, so I wasn’t going to take time off early to get here, and I wanted the road trip to think. It’s not like I can make anything but the cake itself early, and my mom didn’t have space in her fridge for me to do so. Either way, it’s going to be a lot of work right now.”

“Tell me what to do.”

She nodded and gestured towards the two large metal bowls. “Wash your hands and get kneading. It needs one more proof, and then we’re going to do some baking.”

“After I knead, do I need to shape it?”

She raised her brow, and I grinned.

“What, I watch baking shows. The second proof is after you shape things.”

“You’re right, and I’ll do the shaping just because they want one of them as a plait, but the cob you can do.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that just a sphere of some sort?”

“No, a sphere would be circular all around, Benjamin,” she teased.

“Okay, fine. You’re right. I’ll get to kneading, is there anything else?”

“Cinnamon rolls are in the oven, and now we’re going to work on everything else.”

“Good, because I’m starving.”

“You’re lucky I made an extra batch, because my family can eat their breakfast sweets like the Montgomerys eat cheese.”

“I’m not even going to touch that,” I said with a laugh.

She just grinned, shook her head, stuck her earphones in the pocket of her apron, and both of us went to work quietly.

We worked for about an hour before Brenna’s mother walked in, her hair and makeup already done for the day, but she had on comfortable pajamas still. “I was going to see if I could help, but it seems like you brought your own helper with you. I love it. I’m going to start working the eggs and bacon if that’s okay, if you don’t mind having an extra person in the kitchen.”

“Of course,” Brenna said as she moved closer to me. I did my best to ignore the heat of her. “Everything else for breakfast is just about ready.”

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