Page 21 of Packed in the Fire house

“Are you saying that you can make proper mac and cheese and freshly made cookies?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “We don'tmess around when it comes to cookies at the station. If you can do that, we will forever be in love with you.”

Sunny giggled, giving me a warm smile before nodding. “Why don't we go to the baking section, and I'll pick up the ingredients I need? The least I can do is bake you guys some cookies after everything you’ve done for me.”

“Yes. Go anywhere you need, get whatever you need in triplicate. Actually, there are a lot of firefighters at the station. Get everything you need to make a batch of cookies times twenty.”

Sunny snorted. “That's a lot of ingredients, and you don't know if you even like my baking yet. Maybe I'm a terrible baker and my offer is a thinly veiled threat.”

I paused. She wasn't wrong, but I desperately hoped that she was a good baker.

“But… cookies,” I whined.

“Come on, let's go get everything we need for a few batches, and then if you like the cookies, we can come back and get more ingredients. How about that?”

I perked up. “Yes, ma’am!” I said excitedly, pushing the cart in the direction of the baking ingredients.

Every time she so much as looked at an ingredient, I placed it in the cart, refusing to listen when she complained. If these ingredients could make me cookies, then I was going to buy them.

The only time I relented was when she nearly threw a block of butter at me, insisting that she was looking at the butter because she wanted the unsalted and not the salted. I was a good boy and put the salted butter back.

Then I proceeded to add eight blocks of unsalted butter to the cart.

“What size diapers is this little monkey wearing now? Rune told me to grab at least three boxes.”

She shook her head. “That’s way too many! I can’t let you get them.”

“Rune told me to do it, and I’m going to do it. Have you seen the size of the dude? He may be a sweet, cuddly alpha with you, but he will throw me in a river if I don’t get the diapers like he asked. Really, sunshine, you’ll be helping me out by letting me grab them…”

She huffed, giving me a disbelieving look. “If he insists, but I will be paying him back!” she declared as she followed me over to the baby aisle.

Twenty minutes later, Sunny bit her lip as we approached the checkout. “This is a lot.”

“I don’t care. I’ll happily pay for it a hundred times over if I get cookies,” I said as we put everything onto the conveyor belt.

“You seem to have a shocking amount of confidence in my baking skills,” she mused as she trailed behind me.

“I just have a sixth sense about these things,” I said as I handed Luka a roll of paper towels for the kitchen. He excitedly clutched it as we bagged our groceries.

If she noticed all the snacks I had snuck into the cart after seeing her eyeing them, she didn’t say anything.

Which was good because the last thing I wanted was for our first fight to be in a grocery store checkout over cereal.

Chapter 9

Sunny

We arrived back at the firehouse just in time for lunch. I had intended to go into my room and hide for a while, but Blaze dragged me toward the kitchen where Rune was dishing up BLTs.

“Hey, Cher,” he greeted warmly.

A few other firefighters were milling around the kitchen, grabbing food, but they all greeted me with a smile or a nod.

“Go sit down, sunshine. I’ll grab us food,” Blaze said, nodding to one of the smaller tables.

Doing as I was told, I carried Luka over to the table, keeping him in my lap as I sat down. My butt had hardly touched the seat when Rune and Blaze joined me, both of them carrying two plates of food.

I took my plate gratefully off Rune, pleased to find plenty of extra bacon on the side. Handing a bit to Luka, he giddily fisted it and shoved it into his mouth.

“Ahh, good boy likes his bacon!” Blaze laughed.

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