Page 78 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

“Hey,” she says, raising a brow at my basket. “Is that… backup flour?”

“I come prepared,” I say, like that explains everything and not literally nothing.

She steps aside to let me in, and the scent hits me immediately, vanilla, lemon zest, and whatever perfume she wears that smells like sin had a cozy little home life.

I set the basket down too hard. A whisk bounces out and clatters to the floor like an enthusiastic sex toy. She smirks. I die inside a little.

This is where I shine. Not at crime scenes. Not in hearse logistics or corpse-acid ratios. But here, in the quiet chaos of measuring cups and preheated ovens, where everything has a temperature and a purpose.

She hands me a bowl, and our fingers touch. Static zaps. I swallow a groan and pretend the hardness in my jeans is purely culinary.

“Preheat to 350?” she asks.

“I already did,” I say. “On the way here.”

Her eyes drag over me, slow and suspicious. “What?”

“Nothing! Just… brain words.” I stir flour like it unplugged my charger at 3% battery and pretend I didn’t just confess to preheating my boner.

Because here’s the thing, I don’t want to be just the guy who accidentally helped bury a body. I want to be the one who bakes her victory cupcakes. Who knows her favorite brand of butter. Who kisses frosting off her lips and then begs for more.

Also, I think zesting lemons while she watches might count as foreplay. And I’m okay with that.

Jennifer’s tossing lemon zest into the mixing bowl like she’s done it a thousand times and only slightly wants to strangle it. I’m still trying to slow my breathing. And the boner.

Then she says, completely casually, like this is normal conversation between two people who definitely didn’t load corpses into a hearse last week, “Oh, by the way, Carson cop-magicked the list of the secret fair judges.”

The devil on my shoulder claps. The angel mutters, ‘Goddammit.’ “He what now?”

“Yeah. Something about ‘leveraging municipal networks’ and ‘it was in the public interest.’ Honestly, he said it in that voice he uses when he’s lying but it sounds super hot, so I just nodded.”

My whisk stills in the batter. “So we’re cheating. Officially. We’re cheaters now.”

She shrugs, licking lemon curd off her thumb. “We’re optimizing our odds through intelligence gathering.”

I might be aroused.

She keeps going, totally unbothered. “Edgar sent flavor profiles. Like, actual files. I’m talking handwritten notes, vintage paper, wax seal. He called it ‘dessert intelligence. That man is either a Victorian spy or deeply unwell.”

“Both. That’s why we love him,” I say.

She slides a page across the counter, and I read.

Judge One: Loves a tart-sweet balance. Lemon, raspberry, aggressive tang with delicate crumb.

Judge Two: No coconut. Not even extract. Childhood trauma.

Judge Three: Once cried over a molasses biscuit. Prefers nostalgia. Hates ‘showy’ presentation.

Suggested flavor fusion: Lemon molasses swirl with a bruleéd raspberry crunch top.

Remember to breathe, dove.

Under that, a P.S. in loopy calligraphy: “I have a funeral today. I’ll miss your hands. Tell Blake to fold the batter like it’s foreplay.”

My face goes fully volcanic. Jennifer snorts into the mixing bowl. And that’s when it hits me like powdered sugar to the sinuses. We’re doing this. We’re actually a team. Carson brokea few laws, Edgar gave us literal war dossiers on baked goods, and I, me, I get to be here. Not as an accessory. Not as the emotionally safe backup plan. But as the guy holding the bowl. The one who zests, whisks, folds. The one she lets in her kitchen, in her chaos, in this weird murder-flavored bake-off of a life.

I matter.

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