Page 42 of Continuum

I glanced at him before I nodded. “He is.”

“So, I was right…” She moved closer to me and her voice became more insistent. “You two are just friends?”

“I wouldn’t sayjustfriends. This is a date after all.”

Her brows furrowed. “You two are on a date?”

Her incredulous tone was annoying to say the least.

I opened my mouth to say something when he turned to face me. “Like I said, I’m on a date with this beautiful woman right here, so I’m going to decline. Here you go…” He handed me his orange zest. “And here you go.” He turned to hand her back her business card.

“Really?” the woman he was talking to exclaimed.

“Yeah. I don’t need your number,” he told her. “I’m good where I’m at.”

I smiled and grabbed the lemon extract before going back to my station. Kwame was right on my heels.

“You didn’t have to give her number back for my benefit,” I whispered to him. “If you want it, you—”

“I want you,” he interrupted, causing everything in my brain to come to a screeching halt. “And so that there’s no confusion that this is a date…” He leaned down and planted a soft kiss against my lips.

I stared up at him dreamily. “I don’t know if that got the message across.”

He met my lips again but for longer. Pulling away, he kissed my cheek and then put his lip against my ear. “I’ve recently discovered that I can’t kiss you without my dick getting hard.”

I giggled as we parted ways.

“Your time starts now!” Pamela announced.

Kwame and I laughed and joked our way through the baking process. When we pulled our cakes out of the oven, they looked similar. As we plated them on our special cake dishes, I glanced around to see if ours resembled others.

“I think ours looks the best,” he whispered.

“I do, too,” I agreed in the same hushed tone. “But I recognize that we’re completely biased.”

“Now we move on to the entrée,” Pamela commanded from the front of the room.

Every cake was picked up and shelved on a cooling rack that was then rolled to the front of the room. We washed our hands and came back to a freshly wiped down counter and the ingredients for a meal replacing the baking stuff.

“Okay, okay.” Kwame clapped and rubbed his hands together as we uncovered freshly washed chicken breasts. “I was worried for a second, but I can handle chicken.”

“But did you see the macaroni and cheese?” I pointed to the other recipe. “It’s not just about the meat.”

“Macaroni?” The joy left his face immediately. “I tried to do macaroni once and that shit didn’t work out.”

I chewed my bottom lip to keep from laughing. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t judge what’s about to happen.”

“I got you. I won’t let you go out like that.”

He shook his head. “Don’t let me bring the team down. Save yourself.”

I burst out laughing. “Come on.”

The recipe was not the macaroni and cheese that my grandma and mom made, but I had all the ingredients I needed to make it like they did. “How about this, you handle the chicken and I’ll take care of the macaroni?”

“I could kiss you right now.”

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