“What is it?”
When he slides the piece of paper over to me on the counter, I realize I’ve never seen his handwriting. The letters are cramped, fighting for space, a few stray scratches and crossed-out measurements. “They have a few different names, but my mom always called them zalabya. I’ve only been a couple times, but they’re a pretty popular street food in Egypt. They’re like…” He waves a hand in the air, as though struggling to describe with words something he’s only experienced through taste. “Little fried dough balls, and you can soak them in simple syrup or dust them with sugar or cinnamon, or any variety of other things. So I thought that might be… fun? If you wanted to, I don’t know, hang out for a while.”
He’s sheepish as he says this last part, and if the promise of fried dessert weren’t already tempting, the sweetness in his expression does me in.
“I could hang out for a while.”
That’s all it is: two friends hanging out. With some occasional kissing. I’m not about to deny myself that serotonin boost after the summer I’ve had.
Before he touches any of the ingredients, he swipes at his phone to play music from the room’s speakers.
“I listened to that Cat Power song, by the way,” I say, hoisting myself up onto the kitchen island. In my mind, it’s a sexy, effortless move. In reality, there’s some grunting, some awkward leg flails. Thank god his back is turned. “ ‘The Greatest.’ I liked it. Not as much as ‘Sea of Love,’ but it was a refreshing reception song. And then you were wearing a Sharon Van Etten shirt a while back—you seem to have a thing for female singer-songwriters.”
“You caught me. The moodier, the better. What kind of music are you usually into? That feels like something we should know about each other, but I guess I only know what you play on the harp.”
“Moody female singer-songwriters,” I say, and he laughs. “Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of St. Vincent, Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett.”
A moment later, a St. Vincent song starts playing. Then he turns toward me on the kitchen island. “You look absurdly cute up there,” he says, placing one hand on either side of my legs.
I kiss him once, quickly, before patting the center of his chest. “Go. Bake for me.”
Tarek looks so natural in the kitchen that it’s impossible not to enjoy watching him. It’s not just the roll of his shoulder blades beneath his T-shirt as he grabs a baking sheet or the adorable way he squints as he scans the containers of flour in the pantry. It’s the ease of those movements, something that might have made me jealous earlier this summer. Now I’m just glad he has something he loves this much.
“I used to want to be a baker,” I say, tapping my feet to St. Vincent as he works. “For a solid few months when I was seven years old. For Hanukkah that year, I begged my parents for a doughnut hole maker.”
“What the hell is a doughnut hole maker?”
“It’s one of those kitchen gadgets that only serves a single purpose, like an avocado slicer or pizza scissors.”
“If I ever start a band, I’m calling it Pizza Scissors.”
“I’ll play harp for you.”
“Pizza Scissors has the best harpist,” he says. Then he makes a horrified expression. “I can’t get over this doughnut hole maker. That’s not real baking.”
“Try telling my seven-year-old self that. Anyway, I was devastated when I didn’t get it, and it crushed my career dreams and set me on a path of… well, not that.” Since I can’t exactly finish that sentence, I forge ahead. “Have you always loved it? Baking? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard about how you got into it.”
“Ah, yes, it’s the thrilling tale of a boy, his favorite cousin, and a food allergy.”
“Harun?”
He nods, whisking flour, sugar, and a few other things together in a bowl. “That was why my parents moved out here—so my dad could be closer to his brother and their kids. Harun has celiac disease, and when he was younger, it wasn’t as easy to find things he could eat, or they were really expensive. So I started experimenting, playing around in the kitchen with my parents. I loved that I could do this one thing that made him happy, and it kind of snowballed from there.” He adds a cup of yogurt, then another, frowning at the markings on his handwritten recipe. “I always wanted to know why ingredients would interact the way they did and what would happen if you did things a different way. My whole life, I’ve been around food, and I saw how much joy it could bring people. I saw the reactions my parents got from their clients, how food could make you content or nostalgic or any number of other emotions. It’s this perfect blend of art and science. You can make a real connection with someone through your food.”
“And wedding cakes are probably one of the most intense connections you can make?”
He lifts a finger as though to say, Yes,
