Page 87 of Leather and Longing
“Okay, the tins are in the oven. They’ll take about thirty minutes, and in the meantime, we get to the good part.” Paul’s words broke through his reminiscences.
As far as Adam was concerned, it had all been good.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Paul placed a spatula into his hand. “The lickings.” He chuckled.
Adam laughed. “Nowyou’re talking.” He licked over the flat edge, humming with satisfaction. The taste plunged him right back into his childhood, of wrestling with his father to win theprize of the mixing bowl when all the batter had been scraped from it.
Well,nearlyall.
“Hey, save some for me,” Paul griped.
Adam held onto the spatula with a tight grip. “You want some of this? I’ll give you this spatula when you can prise it from my cold, sticky fingers.”
Paul guffawed. “Like that, is it?” Adam heard him move closer, and took a careful step back.
“Possession is nine-tenths,” he declared, his arm stretched out, hopefully holding it out of Paul’s reach.
“Ooh, you’re on dangerous ground,” Paul crowed. “Especially if you want to eat any of this cake when it’s ready.” He snickered. “Chocolate icing, cream, rich chocolate sponge…” The words dripped coaxingly from his tongue, and for one fleeting second Adam was reminded of the child catcher fromChitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Damn it.
If there was one thing Adam had a weakness for, it was chocolate.
He expelled a reluctant sigh and held out the spatula. “Here. Take it.”
Paul let out a giggle. “We can share it, y’know.” The spatula shifted in Adam’s hand. “Okay, I’ve had enough. You can have it. Itisyour birthday, after all.”
“Yeah, I was wondering when you’d remember that.” Adam gave a mock huff and went back to sliding his tongue over the smooth silicone, licking up every trace of batter.
Paul laughed. “You lick, I’ll clean up.”
Adam was more than happy with that arrangement.
He sat at the table with his prize, listening to Paul bustle around the kitchen, washing the bowls and implements, wipingdown surfaces. “Did your mother teach you to bake?” he asked between licks.
Paul barked out a laugh. “God, no. Mum can’t bake to save her life. I learned all this at school. How about you?”
“My mother taught me when I was about ten. It was just me and my parents by then: Caroline had married, left home and was expecting Dean.” He smiled.
Happy days.
“You haven’t said much about your parents.” The scrape of a chair as Paul sat down.
“That would be because they’re dead,” Adam explained simply. “My mother died following lung cancer when she was sixty-nine. I was thirty-one at the time. My father didn’t last long after that, barely a month before he joined her.” He gave Paul what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. It’s nice to talk about them. I had a great childhood.” That didn’t mean he didn’t feel a brief pang: Dad would have been eighty that year.
He pushed the thought aside and sniffed the air. “That smells good.”
Paul got up and moved away from the table. The rich aroma grew stronger when the oven door was opened. A moment later, it was more intense.
“Keep your hands off,” Paul told him. “The trays are bloody hot.”
Adam nodded. He held out the now clean spatula. “You want this?”
Paul took it from his grasp. “Wow. You’d never know there’d been cake mixture on this thing. It’s pristine.” A plop followed when the spatula was dropped into the sink.
“Paul?”
