“Say we do one together now and it isn’t bad, could I do another one later?” CJ asked.
I didn’t even try and hide my excitement. “Any time you want,” I told him.
Trevor yawned again as he stood off to the side in my kitchen. He’d been so quiet I forgot he was in there, but he was standing right beside Deepa while she did whatever she was doing on my laptop. “You film cooking videos?” he asked.
If he wanted to simplify it that much… “Something like that.”
“For a living?”
CJ sighed, but I nodded. “It isn’t my full-time job yet, but it will be. You can look up The Lazy Baker if you want.”
The older man raised and dropped his eyebrows, suspicious, I could tell, but he still reached into his pocket for his phone. I wondered what the hell he was thinking. That I was lying? But I would never know because he asked, “Hm. Is there somewhere I can sit and wait?”
“In the living room is fine,” I answered him before focusing back on the two men. “So, you guys want to screw up a recipe then? Together?”
Amari grinned. “Let’s do one together. If it’s bad, I want CJ to throw up too.”
My smile melted off, and I squinted at both of them. “Look, that happened one time.”
But when we all laughed, I knew this was going to be good.
* * *
Five hours, several pounds of frozen wings, and eight biscuits from a box later, I was sprawled out on my couch.
Alone.
CJ, Amari, and Trevor had left half an hour ago, thanking me for inviting them to participate. Well, at least, CJ and Amari had. Trevor, who I’d caught watching us pretty intently, had muttered a goodbye that sounded almost genuine—especially after I’d given him the rest of my strawberry-flavored frozen yogurt. And after he’d read through the release form that I had asked CJ and Amari to sign.
And they had promised to come back and make another video “whenever I wanted.”
Deepa left ten minutes after they did. She’d given me a hug and told me she still couldn’t believe they had come over and participated. I couldn’t either.
We’d cleaned out my freezer following the twenty minutes it had taken them—because I’d basically stood by monitoring CJ and Amari in action—to mix the ingredients together, drop the “batter” for the key lime cheesecake bites into the muffin pan that CJ had set liners into. Then we’d stood around the kitchen for the twenty-five minutes it had taken to bake them, forty-five minutes for them to cool, and then another hour—that should have been more like four, I realized afterward—to set them in the fridge to chill.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
During that time, I’d heard Amari’s stomach grumble and had asked if they wanted to eat. I hadn’t been surprised even a little bit when they’d nodded. Deepa and I always took a lunch break while things baked or once we were done if it was something fast. What I had been surprised by was Trevor perking up at the mention of food. I knew there had been a reason why I’d bought the jumbo family pack of frozen wings when they’d gone on sale.
It really had been a good day.
And now I was editing the video of us a little and debating whether or not to try and squeeze another one in. It was a lot more work—and a lot riskier—to film without Deepa helping me, but she’d seemed pretty fidgety, so I’d told her she could go home. Plus, it wasn’t like I really had anything else to do. And all the equipment was still set up, so I’d just need to make a few adjustments before I could get started.
I’d give myself another ten minutes before really deciding whether or not to do it despite what time it was in the afternoon. I mean, I had makeup on already, I’d ironed my clothes the night before just in case, and I had the ingredients.
Yeah, ten more minutes. I started the video again from the beginning.
“Hello, Lazy Bakers. We’re back at it again today with two very special guests.” On the screen, I drum rolled my hands on the light-colored granite counter that was about three seconds away from looking way too small.
That was when CJ and Amari walked right in to the shot to stand on each side of me, CJ with a stone-cold flat expression that warmed my heart big-time because I had felt his nervousness, and Amari on the other side with the biggest, goofiest expression on his face. I gestured to my left in the video. “My two new friends, CJ Daniels and Amari—”
The oh shit moment was all over my face in the video.
I had thought about stopping and restarting, but I tried not to do that because it seemed even less authentic. I prided myself on doing things as fluidly as possible. Fuckups and all.
Even when those fuckups included me not knowing someone’s name for the first time ever. I guess that was what I got for having someone I’d barely met to participate.
On the screen, my head turned toward Amari, and my face barely managed not to turn totally pink as I put the dumbest smile on my face, scratched the tip of my nose, and asked, “Eh, Amari? What’s your last name?”
Freaking CJ beside me lost his shit and started laughing. Loud. On the screen, I turned to look at him with a big smile on my face right before I started laughing too.
“I’m so sorry, Amari.” I cracked up.
The rest of the video went pretty well; they seemed a little nervous, but they did great, saying a few things here and there as we all did slight alterations to the same recipe to see whose came out better. Key lime cheesecake bites were what we’d ended up with. Mine had been the best. CJ’s were
