Page 66 of Slew Foot
“Sorry.” He tucked his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t do it again.
“No. I am sorry,” Mickey said. He took a deep breath but didn’t look at Rafe or even stop chopping. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, it’s fine. You’re right. You’re chopping fast and if I got too close that could have ended with me having to go get stitches or something, right?” Rafe asked. That was the last thing the team needed.
“Yes, but …” Mickey closed his eyes, and he looked upset aboutsomething. Rafe still wasn’t sure why though. “I need to stop.”
“Stop doing what?” Rafe asked.
“Telling you what to do.”
“But I told you yesterday, Ilikeit when you do.”
“That’s the damn problem,” Mickey said under his breath.
“What?” Rafe asked, confused.
“Nothing. This is my problem. Not yours.”
That made evenlesssense though. Rafe was about to ask him to explain when Mickey finished chopping, turning to dump the pieces of chocolate into a pan, where he’d already added cocoa powder and sugar.
Which was apparently different than cocoa mix or something?
Rafe had gotten lost when Mickey started talking about baking cocoa. And then he added a pinch of salt, which Rafe didn’t understand either until he thought about salted caramel, which he loved.
So maybe the salt made the chocolate better?
Who knew? Apparently, Mickey.
It was a good thing he knew what he was doing though, because when he added the milk and stirred with a whisk, it looked sort of gross and lumpy and brown. Rafe would have given up then but the more Mickey stirred, the better it looked.
The whipped cream he’d made before he started on the chocolate looked totally bomb.
Rafe had been so confused when Mickey poured cream and a little sugar in a bowl and whisked itby hand. But it had turned out exactly like the stuff that came out of a can. Except, better. He’d stolen a swipe of it when Mickey wasn’t looking.
“Did you know the name for a whisk in German translates to snow broom?” Mickey asked after a minute, finally sounding like himself again.
“I definitely didn’t,” Rafe said, leaning a hip against the counter. “But that’s cool.”
Mickey offered him a small smile. “I thought it was funny too.”
He turned up the heat a little, still stirring, and Rafe watched as everything slowly melted together and the room started to smell like chocolate. Oh yeah, Mickey definitely knew what he was doing in the kitchen.
Score one for Rafe. He had awesome roommates and one of them made shit likethis.
“Get two mugs please,” Mickey said.
Rafe had put his own mugs away in the cupboards earlier, so he knew exactly where to go.
“Are any of these yours?” he asked, scanning the shelves. The ones that weren’t his were all either Harriers’ mugs or plain white.
“No. Tanner bought a basic set when he moved in, and we both got some from the team.”
Rafe wondered why he hadn’t gotten any team mugs. Maybe he should ask someone, like the social media dude, Thad, who was always talking about subtle ways to work the team branding into their posts.
Rafe should totally start posting shirtless morning coffee pics again now that he was settled in. He got so many likes when he did. He could switch up his favorite mugs for the team ones though, if that was good for branding or whatever.
Rafe glanced over at Mickey. “My family, we each had our own favorite mugs,” he explained. “Mine was the one with a snowman on it.”
