Page 28 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Blake

I arrive twenty minutes early. Twenty-five, if you count the time I spent pacing outside her porch, clutching a basket like some overgrown Little Red Riding Hood with a baking kink.

Inside the basket: backup flour (unbleached, obviously), two silicone spatulas, a whisk, three kinds of sprinkles, because choices matter, and the world’s stupidest apron that says “WHISK TAKER” in bold Comic Sans.

I almost left it at home. I almost wore it naked.

Compromise: it’s folded neatly between the cocoa powder and my crushing need for validation.

I’m here to help Jennifer bake cupcakes for the fair. The fair. Like, the fair. Where normal people bring casseroles and buy homemade soap and definitely don’t show up high on adrenaline and sexual frustration, hoping to win a blue ribbon and maybe also get railed over a kitchen island.

“Chill,” I whisper to myself, adjusting my grip on the basket. “You’re not here to get laid. You’re here to bake. Like a man. A man with a hand mixer and unspoken feelings.”

I knock. The door opens. There she is. Ponytail. Bare feet. Flour already on one cheek like a goddamn magazine spread titled Domestic Goddess Who Could End You. I swear I forget how to swallow.

“Hey,” she says, raising a brow at my basket. “Is that… backup flour?”

“I come prepared,” I say, like that explains everything and not literally nothing.

She steps aside to let me in, and the scent hits me immediately, vanilla, lemon zest, and whatever perfume she wears that smells like sin had a cozy little home life.

I set the basket down too hard. A whisk bounces out and clatters to the floor like an enthusiastic sex toy. She smirks. I die inside a little.

This is where I shine. Not at crime scenes. Not in hearse logistics or corpse-acid ratios. But here, in the quiet chaos of measuring cups and preheated ovens, where everything has a temperature and a purpose.

She hands me a bowl, and our fingers touch. Static zaps. I swallow a groan and pretend the hardness in my jeans is purely culinary.

“Preheat to 350?” she asks.

“I already did,” I say. “On the way here.”

Her eyes drag over me, slow and suspicious. “What?”

“Nothing! Just… brain words.” I stir flour like it unplugged my charger at 3% battery and pretend I didn’t just confess to preheating my boner.

Because here’s the thing, I don’t want to be just the guy who accidentally helped bury a body. I want to be the one who bakes her victory cupcakes. Who knows her favorite brand of butter. Who kisses frosting off her lips and then begs for more.

Also, I think zesting lemons while she watches might count as foreplay. And I’m okay with that.

Jennifer’s tossing lemon zest into the mixing bowl like she’s done it a thousand times and only slightly wants to strangle it. I’m still trying to slow my breathing. And the boner.

Then she says, completely casually, like this is normal conversation between two people who definitely didn’t load corpses into a hearse last week, “Oh, by the way, Carson cop-magicked the list of the secret fair judges.”

The devil on my shoulder claps. The angel mutters, ‘Goddammit.’ “He what now?”

“Yeah. Something about ‘leveraging municipal networks’ and ‘it was in the public interest.’ Honestly, he said it in that voice he uses when he’s lying but it sounds super hot, so I just nodded.”

My whisk stills in the batter. “So we’re cheating. Officially. We’re cheaters now.”

She shrugs, licking lemon curd off her thumb. “We’re optimizing our odds through intelligence gathering.”

I might be aroused.

She keeps going, totally unbothered. “Edgar sent flavor profiles. Like, actual files. I’m talking handwritten notes, vintage paper, wax seal. He called it ‘dessert intelligence. That man is either a Victorian spy or deeply unwell.”

“Both. That’s why we love him,” I say.

She slides a page across the counter, and I read.

Judge One: Loves a tart-sweet balance. Lemon, raspberry, aggressive tang with delicate crumb.

Judge Two: No coconut. Not even extract. Childhood trauma.

Judge Three: Once cried over a molasses biscuit. Prefers nostalgia. Hates ‘showy’ presentation.

Suggested flavor fusion: Lemon molasses swirl with a bruleéd raspberry crunch top.

Remember to breathe, dove.

Under that, a P.S. in loopy calligraphy: “I have a funeral today. I’ll miss your hands. Tell Blake to fold the batter like it’s foreplay.”

My face goes fully volcanic. Jennifer snorts into the mixing bowl.

And that’s when it hits me like powdered sugar to the sinuses.

We’re doing this. We’re actually a team.

Carson broke a few laws, Edgar gave us literal war dossiers on baked goods, and I, me, I get to be here.

Not as an accessory. Not as the emotionally safe backup plan.

But as the guy holding the bowl. The one who zests, whisks, folds.

The one she lets in her kitchen, in her chaos, in this weird murder-flavored bake-off of a life.

I matter.

Carson sets off the smoke alarm when he tries to broil anything. Edgar’s culinary precision is God-tier, but he’s swamped with embalming and eulogies and emotionally intense cremations today. And Jennifer? She chose me to be her whisker accomplice.

“Hey,” she says, eyes glinting as she flicks flour at my chest. “You good?”

I grin, high off sugar and sudden validation. “Yeah. Just thinking this might be the best felony I’ve ever committed.”

“Felony?”

“Cupcake conspiracy. First degree.”

She laughs, full-body and unguarded, and I swear I’d spend a thousand lifetimes preheating ovens if it means I get to hear that sound again.

We’re elbow-deep in flour when it happens. Not a murder. Not a dramatic kiss. Just a look.

Jennifer’s leaning over the counter, brow furrowed in adorable concentration as she tests the frosting texture. Her finger dips in, swirls, and then she brings it to her lips, all slow and thoughtful. I expect her to glance at the mixing bowl or maybe the icing texture.

She doesn’t. She stares straight into my soul like she knows exactly how many times I’ve thought about her licking frosting off my fingers. I malfunction. I become a sentient oven mitt. I forget every word in the English language except ‘Jesus Christ.

“What?” she asks innocently, lip glistening with lemon glaze.

“I, you, you can’t just do that.” I gesture vaguely. “With your face. And your mouth. And your…”

She smirks. “You always this articulate when you’re turned on mid-baking?”

“Apparently, yeah.” I try to redirect my brain to normal human functions like “kneading” and “not pitching a tent in an apron.” But it’s getting hotter in here, and I swear the oven isn’t even on.

Then the flour happens.

She tosses a handful, playfully, wickedly, at my chest when I suggest molasses drizzle instead of lemon glaze.

It sticks. I flail. The bowl of sifted sugar clatters to the floor. I try to clean it up, slip on a rogue lemon peel, and… rip. My shirt gives out. Like some kind of romance novel cliché. Just… gone.

Jennifer goes very, very still. “Okay,” she says after a beat, “first of all, rude. Second, That chest.”

“I do a lot of push-ups when I’m anxious.”

“You must be constantly spiraling.”

“Correct.”

She steps closer, brushing flour off my chest with fingers that linger longer than necessary.

I don’t breathe. I’m not sure I can.

We’re inches apart, the smell of lemon zest and vanilla between us like some kind of pheromone warfare. Her eyes drop to my mouth. Mine drop to her apron, which says Bite Me in blood-red cursive.

I don’t even know who started the garnish debate, but suddenly we’re arguing over lemon peels like it’s life or death.

“It needs a candied lemon twist, simple, classy, elegant,” I say.

“It needs to be perfect,” she snaps, “and you’re distracting me with your stupid strong arms and your stupid kind eyes!”

“Not my fault I was built for domestic porn!”

She throws an icing spoon at me. I dodge, barely, and lunge to grab her wrist before she can weaponize the piping bag. We end up tangled in each other, hands sticky with frosting, faces flushed. There’s icing on her nose. There’s flour in my hair. There’s nothing innocent about how we’re breathing.

And then I laugh. Because this is us.

Not just the heat and chaos. But the fact that even when we’re flinging sugar and passive-aggressively garnishing cupcakes, we fit.

“I like us like this,” I say. “Covered in frosting. Arguing about lemon peels.”

Jennifer grins, cheeks pink, eyes soft. “You really are the sweetest third-degree felon.”

I’m gone. Down bad. In love. Probably gonna end up with icing on my dick somehow. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

We’re quiet for a moment. Not the bad kind. Not tense or weird or oh no I crossed a line by saying I want to lick frosting off your collarbone. Just the soft kind. The kind that settles over you when the sugar high ebbs and all that’s left is the hum of the kitchen and the weight of being close.

Jennifer’s standing close enough I can feel her breath on my jaw. Her nose is still dusted with flour. Her hands are still messy. Mine too. And yet we’re both frozen like we’re scared if we move, we’ll break whatever this moment is.

I should say something flirty. Funny. Light.

Instead, I say, “I like being part of this.”

She squints like I’ve dropped a math problem on her. “Part of…?”

“This.” I wave a frosting-smeared hand vaguely around the kitchen.

“The plan. The fair. The weird little murder bakery coven. I know I’m not the scariest guy in the room or the one who can pull strings with police departments or, I don’t know, embalm a body while quoting Rilke.

But I can do this. I can show up early. I can bring backup flour.

I can make sure the cupcakes don’t collapse because we overmixed. ”

Jennifer’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “You brought extra flour?” she asks, but her voice is doing that wobbly, almost-cracking thing that makes my heart lurch.

I nod. “And spoons. And… a lemon zester. Just in case.”