Page 167 of As They Are
“Understood. I should have everything to make them. Let me pull it all out.”
I grabbed everything I would need—flour, sugar, salt, eggs, baking powder—but froze when I realized I didn’t have buttermilk.
“Shoot. Turns out I don’t have one thing.”
“Buttermilk?” Wren asked as she looked at the recipe. “We could probably skip that, right?”
I stared at her. “Skip a key ingredient of the recipe?”
“You have regular milk. Add some butter to it.”
I let out a shocked gasp. “Wren, that’s not how it works. And you can’t deviate from a recipe, it’s sacred!”
She laughed. “Sacred?Do you mean you’ve never added anything to a recipe before?”
“Not the first time I make it. I need to learn the method first and then can experiment from there.”
She put up her hands. “All right, fine. You’re lucky you don’t live too far from Food ‘n’ Things. I’ll go get it.”
“I’m already in trouble because it’s gonna take a little longer to make this. I’ll go get it. Will you mix the dry ingredients?”
“Sure.”
“And you’ll measure them, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, I was gonna dump a bunch in there and hope for the best.”
“You’re a monster.”
She laughed. “I’mkidding.I’ll measure. Especially since this recipe issacred.”
“When you eat them, you’ll see,” I said before quickly getting dressed and walking out the door. I made it a few streets down before my phone rang. I pulled it out and saw Cain’s name.
“Hey,” I said. “Everything good?”
“No, it’s not,” said a voice that was definitelynotCain. “I haven’t heard from my best friend in over twelve hours, and if you haven’t seen her, then I’m dragging Mike out of the diner and making him hunt her down!”
That was Mollie, and she sounded more tense than I’d ever heard her.
“Wren’s with me,” I said immediately. “She must not be checking her phone.”
“Her location said the library. Did you two spend the night there or something?”
“N-no, we were at my place.”
Mollie gasped. “Your place? Wait a second, did you two?—”
“Maybe I should wait for her to tell you this.”
“There’s no telling now, I’ve figured it out! I’ll get the details from her later, but you two are like ... a thing now? Or are you both still in denial?”
“We’re together,” I said. “No more denial.”
“Yes!” she nearly yelled into the phone, the sudden explosion of unexpected noise making me cringe a little. “Finally! You’re my favorite right now.”
“Hey!” I heard Cain say in the background. “Take that back!”
“Favorite person I’ve never had sex with,” Mollie said. “And Henry, you better have given her the time of herlife,do you hear me?”
