Page 10 of Frosting and Flames

“Well, it’s technically not an order. It’s not in the system.”

That earns me a slightly wider smile, almost like it’s against her will, but I’ll take it, fist pumping the air on the inside.

“Don’t you have to get back to the fire station? I can deliver them later.”

“It’s my day off.”

She blows out a breath. “Even worse. You shouldn’t be working on your day off.”

I shrug. “Yeah, but I just dumped a lot of extra work on you. It’s the least I can do.”

She hesitates, biting at her lip again as she stares at the double doors to the kitchen. “Normally, I’d never say yes. But five hundred…” She makes a helpless noise. “Come on.”

I catch Hailey’s look of surprise as I follow her sister to the back.

“What cookies are we making?” Rachel asks, retightening her apron strings. She hands me a spare apron hanging on a wall hook, and I quickly put it on, copying the way she does it with the strings looped around the back and tied in the front, then put on the gloves she hands me next.

“I have no idea,” I admit. “Chief didn’t give many details.”

She takes a deep breath. “Okay. Snickerdoodles it is. Kids like those.”

Sure. Whatever she thinks is best.

She tells me we can do four batches of 125 cookies, then sets me to work lining trays with parchment paper while she does some quick calculations to figure out ingredient amounts.

“Okay, ten blocks of butter,” she murmurs and when she pulls them out of the walk-in cooler, my eyes nearly bug out. That’s an obscene amount.

She sets a portion of already softened butter aside and dumps it in an oversized stand mixer, setting it to low. “Can you measure out six cups of sugar?” she asks, gesturing to a shelving rack in the corner with labeled airtight containers.

I do as she asks and watch her slowly add the sugar in to the mixer.

“Can you get me ten eggs? They’re in the cooler.”

Ten? Jesus? And that’s just for this batch? How much is this all going to cost her in ingredients alone?

She instructs me on what to do next for the dry ingredients, measuring them out and whisking them together in the biggest bowl I’ve ever seen while she adds the eggs to her butter and sugar.

Though our conversation is sparse and purely cookie-related, I find myself relaxing the longer we continue, like maybe I can actually be around her without spazzing. God, does she have any clue about the crush I had on her back in high school?

I sat behind her in ninth grade algebra, and I spent more time captivated by the fall of her long, dark hair than I ever was about equations. She kept it in a ponytail every day, the same as she’s wearing it now, and sometimes the ends would brush my desk.

I vividly imagined wrapping my hand around the thick mane and gently tugging, desperate to see how she’d react, if she’d finally notice me, with no real intention of actually doing it. Back then, there was a lot I didn’t do. I was an observer, not a doer.

And the things I did, I’d give anything to take back.

“So how’d you get roped into this?” she asks, startling me out of my reverie. “Since it’s your day off.”

I keep whisking the dry ingredients, blending it all together. “I have to help with fundraising for the fire station.”

Her brows raise. “Voluntold?”

I chuckle. “Yeah, something like that. I’m even in charge of planning our next fundraiser.” There’s another beat of silence, and I push past my natural instinct to leave it at that. When will I ever have a chance to talk to Rachel like this again? “It’s actually part of my punishment. I broke protocol putting out the fire here the way I did.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “What’d you do?”

“I…” Shit. I shouldn’t have told her that. I should be making myself look good in front of her. Not like an idiot. “I wasn’t thinking right. Just followed Sydney here without my gear or telling anyone at the station.” Another pause. “Guess I’m lucky I didn’t get suspended.”

She’s quiet, concentrating on breaking the eggs before she responds. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

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