Liam slid the undecorated cupcakes away from me. “Why don’t you start mixing the batter for the donuts instead? It’ll give us a head start on Elaina and Neil’s treat.”
“That means you’ll help me?”
“A promise is a promise,” he muttered.
I clamped my hands to my hips. “Why do I sense a but?”
He lifted a brow in my direction. Not quite smiling, but that very typical Liam expression I was coming to know so well. That non-smile was his smile. “You’re an intuitive little thing. I was going to say a promise is a promise even if you’re not holding up your end of it.”
I gasped in mock offense. “How dare you! I am holding up my end of it. It’s not my fault that you fired me from unicorn decorating!”
He held up one of my unicorn cupcakes and pointed to it. “This looks like some sort of deranged donkey from the land of Oz… not a unicorn. If I bring cupcakes like this to sweet little Emma Davey’s fourth birthday party, those kids will have nightmares.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us can have the cupcake decorating talent that you do!”
“Clearly.”
I stomped my foot and even though we were being silly and playful, my temper flared inside of me. I grabbed a palm full of the pink edible glitter and blew it into Liam’s face.
A fog of glitter enveloped him, and he coughed, looking like Pigpen… but instead of a cloud of dirt, he was surrounded by sparkly flecks of blue, pink, and purple.
“You did not just do that.”
I clicked my tongue and grinned. “I think I did.”
“You glitter bombed me.”
“You deserved it.”
He pinched a section of his hair, tugging at the glitter. “This will take days to come out.”
I snorted. He clearly did not have as much glitter experience as I did. “Days? Try weeks. Next time maybe you’ll think twice before mocking your best friend.”
His eyes rolled to the ceiling and with his voice barely above a whisper, he started counting. “Ten… nine… eight… seven…”
“Are you doing that therapy thing? Breathing down from ten?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m giving you a ten second head start before I retaliate.”
My eyes went wide. “It’s not a head start if you don’t tell me it’s a head start!”
“Six… five… four…”
“You wouldn’t really retaliate against me, would you?”
He grinned. This time a real grin. One that stretched the length of his face. “Oh. You don’t know your bestie very well yet, do you?”
I glanced around for something to defend myself with and settled on the pastry bag of buttercream. I held it up, facing him like a gun as he reached for a bowl and a spatula, still grinning. “Three… two… one…”
He scooped the spatula into what was left over from the frosting and flung it at me. It smacked, wet and sloppy, in the center of my chest, splattering all over my Lululemon shirt. I gasped and squeezed the pastry bag. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite have the shooting power I had hoped it would. And instead of launching across the table at his face, it just sort of spat out onto the ground, landing on the toes of my Vincent Camuto boots.
Dammit. I liked those boots. Maybe butter will just give them a little shine?
“Crap,” I muttered, and his grin widened, triumphantly. I sighed and tossed the pastry bag down. “Okay, okay, we’re even,” I said, gesturing at my shirt.
“Are we?” He took a slow step toward me which I countered with a step back. “You said it yourself, glitter can take weeks to get out. That buttercream will come out with a single wash.”
I was smiling despite the stand-off. A big, goofy grin. The kind of grin that I hadn’t felt myself do in weeks. Maybe months.
Dan never made me smile like this. He was never playful. Never goofy. And if someone had asked me if Liam had a playful side a day ago, I would have laughed in their face. But the fact that he kept this side of himself so concealed, made this moment even more special between us. “You don’t want to mess with me, Evans,” I warned.
“Oh, I think I do, Dyker.”
He lunged toward me, tossing the bowl of butter cream aside. I spun and ran for the other end of the kitchen, only his arms latched around my waist, lifting me off the ground. Nimble fingers dug into my ribs, tickling me and I screamed with laughter, bucking against him.
My body was shaking, I was laughing so hard. I reached for anything I could… any weapon that might help me escape his grasp. The only thing within reach was one of my deranged unicorns which I grabbed and, reaching behind me, smashed into his face.
His laugh shook against me. His broad chest bounced with the low rumble of his booming laughter, and he lowered my feet slowly back to the ground before pushing his cupcake-covered face against mine and into my hair.
The door swung open and Finn came running in, wide eyed and panicked. “Holy hell… are you guys okay?”
I laughed and nodded. “Just a little, uh, kitchen mix up.”
“I thought we were being robbed or something,” Finn said, and his eyes fell to the disastrously messy kitchen. “I am not cleaning this mess up.”
Liam chuckled and licked some frosting off of his fingers. “I’ll handle it.”
“Okay, then. I, uh, have that appointment thing. You good to take over out front?”
Liam nodded. “Give me five minutes to clean up.”
Finn hesitated for only a moment, then went back out front, closing the door behind him.
“Okay, okay,” Liam said. “You up for helping me run the registers until we close? Then we can come back here and make some donuts.”
Grabbing the nearest roll of paper towels, I tore off a few rectangles and tried to scrub the
