Page 81 of The Rom-Commers

Charlie paused. “I’m making you breakfast.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s your birthday,” Charlie said.

“How do you even know that?”

“Your dad emailed me.”

“How does my dad have your email?” Nobody had Charlie’s email.Ibarely had it.

“He got it from Logan,” Charlie said.

“But—why?”

“To send me this recipe. For canned-biscuit doughnuts.”

Wait. Had my dad guilt-tripped Charlie Yates into making birthday doughnuts for me? Didn’t he know that I wasjust a writer?

I shook my head. “Oh, god. I’m sorry,” I said.

Charlie frowned as I stepped closer. “Sorry about what?”

“My dumb dad,” I said, my throat feeling a bit tight. “He shouldn’t have done that.”

“Shouldn’t have—?”

“Guilt-tripped you into making me doughnuts,” I said, taking the canister out of Charlie’s hand. “My dad just—loves me,” I said, “and he assumes everybody else does, too.”

I chucked the biscuits into the trash can. A three-pointer from across the kitchen.

“Hey!” Charlie said. “I’m doing something here!”

“Don’t do anything,” I said. “I’m shutting this down.”

“But I bought three bags of powdered sugar,” Charlie said, like that was some kind of counterpoint.

I was already walking away.

“Where are you going?” Charlie asked.

Um—I was in a swimsuit. Walking toward a swimming pool. But okay. “I’m going swimming,” I said. “Alone.” Then I gave the kitchen a quick glance, and said, “Just leave all this. I’ll clean it up when I’m done.”

CHARLIE DID NOT“just leave all this.”

When I came back in from my swim, bundled in my terry cloth robe, my hair towel-dried and pulled back in a damp bun, and far less refreshed than I wanted to be—the kitchen wasworse: sprinkles all over the counter, cocoa powder everywhere like the container had exploded, open biscuit cans and hunks of dough on every surface, and the remains of smoke in the air, as if Charlie might have set a thing or two on fire.

But on the little kitchen table, sure enough, there was a tidy plate of semi-successful doughnuts. With candles in them.

Mission accomplished.

When Charlie saw me walk in, he grabbed a box of matches and bounded over to light the candles—but I stopped him.

“Please tell me you didn’t fish those biscuits out of the trash can.”

“Nah,” Charlie said, stepping over to the fridge and opening the door. “I panic-bought, like, thirty tubes.”

Sure enough, lining the fridge shelves were enough cylinders of canned biscuits to keep us fed on doughnuts for possibly ever.

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