Page 49 of Cream & Sugar
“I was trying to make the brownies. The mixer, it…” A heavy sigh from the other side of the door. “I’m coming out. Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t.”
I take a step back as the door creaks open and Freddie emerges from the kitchen.
Oh gosh. He’s wearing an apron, but it's done little to protect him from what looks like a tsunami of brownie batter. It’s dripping from his arms, his face, his hair, falling onto the floor in thick brown globules. If he’d taken a bath in the mixing bowl, it wouldn’t have made this much mess.
I try to hold back the laughter, I really do, but it bursts out of me like a rifle blast.
Freddie looks affronted. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!”
“I can’t help it,” I say, clutching my belly. “You look like Augustus Gloop.”
Freddie scowls. “I don’t know who that is either but it sounds negative.”
Wiping a tear from my eye, I grab a wad of napkins from the counter and slide them towards him.
“Go to the bathroom and clean yourself up. We can’t have you walking around like a swamp monster; you’ll scare the customers away.”
He grimaces. “Um, the kitchen took a bit of a hit.”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean back here, you focus on getting all that chocolate out of your hair—”
Freddie groans. “Oh man, it’s in myhair?”
“Just a smidge,” I fib. “Take your time, we’ve got a while before we open. Oh and lose the apron. It’s a goner.”
With a grimace, Freddie peels the batter-slick apron off his torso and drops it into the sink with a heavy splat.
“Thanks Shaun. Sorry.”
It’s only once he’s out of sight, and the last shivers of laughter leave my body, that I realise the worst of my symptoms have passed. Normally I’d be fighting tooth and nail to get through the rest of the day, but it turns out one cure for a meltdown is a gorgeous man covered head-to-toe in brownie mix. Damn, I should have taken a picture.
The mess in the kitchen isn’t as bad as Freddie made out; it seems like he took the worst of it. A quick inspection of the mixer reveals he had it on the highest setting. Thinking about him getting engulfed in a vortex of brownie batter sets me chuckling again as I fill a bucket with hot water and soap.
Freddie emerges from the bathroom soon after I’ve finished mopping the kitchen floor. He’s managed to clean up most of the mess, but the sleeves of his T-shirt are ruined.
“Don’t suppose you have a spare shirt lying around?” he asks, hopefully.
We dig around in the back office where, to Freddie’s relief, I find one of Kyle’s old T-shirts—a black crew neck with some 8-bit video game characters on the front.
Without hesitating, Freddie pulls off his dirty top and I’m greeted with a full view of his torso. Bloody hell, he’s ripped. Not big like a gym rat, but lithe like a swimmer. I can’t even try to look away.
As he picks up Kyle’s black tee, I spot something smeared just below his collarbone.
“Wait,” I say. Freddie cocks his head towards me, a coy glimmer in his eye. I point at his bare chest. “You, er, missed a bit.”
Freddie glances down at the smear of chocolate and smiles. With one finger, he wipes off the lion’s share and licks the digit clean.
“Wow,” he says, licking his lips. “I taste awesome.”
My mouth waters. I believe him.
The brownie explosion sets us back a bit, but by opening time we’ve got a fresh batch in the oven and I’ve iced two whole cakes. The third, a double chocolate fudge cake, is the hardest to screw up so I save that one for Freddie. Cake decorating is an art, but if in doubt, smother it with chocolate. Given this morning’s accident, I’m confident Freddie can handle that.
I dollop the last of the fudge icing into a piping bag and give it a twirl. “This one’s all yours, if you can manage that?”
Freddie gives me a sheepish grin as he takes the piping bag. “Yes. No more mess, I promise.”
