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TWENTY-SEVEN

Jethro

Daytime games are weird. When I emerge from the arena, it’s five p.m. and the sky is still bright orange. But my body is so tired it could be midnight, and I drive back to Boulder in a daze.

That game sucked.

I sucked.

I’m just lucky the score wasn’t even more embarrassing.

You don’t trust yourself , Clay told me yesterday, and it’s hard to argue his point.

By the time I park at the condo complex, I’m fantasizing about a takeout dinner, a bad action movie, and an early bedtime. But as I unlock the front door, I hear the smoke alarm and Toby’s high-pitched voice.

“Uncle Jethro!” he yelps when I walk in the door. “Help!”

Dropping my gym bag to the floor, I sprint through our newly furnished living room and skid into the kitchen, expecting the worst. There’s no fire. Not that I can see, anyway. Toby and my dad stand at the kitchen island staring balefully down at a pan of burned cupcakes. There’s a wisp of smoke rising off the cakes’ blackened surfaces.

“Jesus Christ,” I swear, my heart in my throat. “I thought somebody was dying.”

“I am!” Toby wails. “I have to make three dozen cupcakes for the bake sale! Mom and I always made chocolate cupcakes, and I promised! ” He looks up at me tearfully, and I feel my relaxing evening slipping away.

“The recipe just ain’t workin’ right,” my father says. “When the tops are done, they’re wet in the middle. This is our second batch.”

“What if we bought some at the store?” I check my watch.

Toby looks scandalized. “But that’s cheating . And I don’t know why this won’t just work .”

“Did you follow the recipe?” I ask.

Toby narrows his eyes. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Uncle Jethro. Mom and I made these all the time. I used the same recipe.” He points to the back of the Hershey’s Cocoa container, and something lurches inside my chest. I remember my mother making those cupcakes, too. She wasn’t always a dysfunctional mess. Just most of the time.

Shit. “Any idea why it’s not working?”

“Because Colorado sucks .”

“Watch the language. And Colorado doesn’t—” I stop short. “Hey, do you think it could be the altitude? I’ve heard that cooking in the mountains doesn’t work quite the same way.”

“So it is Colorado’s fault!” my dad says with a chuckle. “The kid was right.”

“Let’s just fix it,” I say heavily. “Let me change my clothes, okay? And then we’ll…google it or something. Too bad none of us grownups knows how to cook.” I loosen the knot on my tie.

“Wait,” Toby says. “Your coach knows how to cook! The guy who ruined my life? I saw his groceries. Lotsa fancy stuff in there.”

My hands freeze on my tie. Suddenly, I’m picturing Clay in the kitchen, a dish towel flung over his bare shoulder. He’s tasting his spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon, while talking hockey stats a mile a minute.

“You have him on WhatsApp,” Toby presses. “Can I have your phone? I’ll ask him to help me.”

“We can’t ask him,” I say, shrugging off my overcoat. “He’s probably not even home from the game yet.”

“But this is an emergency ,” Toby says, lunging for the pocket of my suit jacket.

I groan as he taps my four-digit passcode into the phone. Clay probably won’t see the message, so it won’t matter. I go up to my room and change into some comfortable clothes.

When I return, I find Toby immersed in a WhatsApp conversation with Clay. “He says I need to adjust the liquids,” he says looking up from the screen. “He wants to talk to you.”

Sure he does. I’m the last person he wants to talk to after a losing game. “Give me the phone.”

Toby hands it over. Hitting the little phone icon inside the app, I walk back upstairs to my bedroom and close the door.

“Hey,” Clay says when he answers. It’s a little jarring to hear his voice in my ear. “I understand you have a situation.”

“Sorry,” I say in a low voice. “I told him not to bother you. The world doesn’t end if he can’t make three dozen cupcakes by morning.”

“He thinks it will,” Clay says with a quiet chuckle. “I’ll be over in five, okay? Unless you don’t want me to come.”

I sit down on the edge of my bed and flop back until I’m staring at the ceiling. “I guess… If we’re not keeping you from something important, it would mean a lot to him if you can unfuck his cupcake game.”

Clay laughs, and it’s the same boyish sound I remember from the past. “Sit tight, then,” he says. “This isn’t rocket science.”

“If you say so.”

We end the call, and I lie there another minute on my new bed, staring up at the ceiling. This isn’t rocket science . Weird how everything in my life kinda feels like that right now.

Ten minutes later I’m leaning against the counter listening in as Clay explains the situation to Toby.

“The problem is that water boils at a lower temperature in Colorado,” he tells my mournful ten-year-old. “So recipes don’t behave the same way in Boulder as they do in Detroit.”

“What am I going to do?” Toby whines. “I said I’d bring three dozen chocolate cupcakes. And I…” He mumbles something.

“Sorry, you what?” Clay asks gently.

“I bragged about them,” Toby says in a small voice. “I said they’re so good they don’t need frosting. Because frosting is gross. Mom used to dust them with powdered sugar instead.” His face droops a little further.

I feel a pang in my chest at the mention of Shelby, but I stay quiet, letting Clay handle this.

“Okay,” Clay says slowly. “Did you say what kind of chocolate cupcakes they were going to be? Because I have a chocolate and cream cheese cupcake recipe that works well even at altitude, and we could churn out three dozen pretty fast.”

“Cream cheese?” Toby asks in a small voice. “That sounds a little freaky.”

“No, it’s amazing,” Clay insists. “They’re called black-bottom cupcakes, and my aunt Suzie has to bring them to every family picnic. Otherwise, we riot. Plus, they look cool without frosting. They’re kind of swirly.”

Toby chews his lip and then looks up into Clay’s eyes. “Will you show me?”

“Yeah,” Clay says, cuffing him on the shoulder. “I will. And I’ve got some cream cheese in my fridge. But I gotta ask—do you have a second muffin pan? Or this is going to take all night.” He gestures at the small pan that only holds six cupcakes.

Toby shakes his head. “That’s the one they had at the grocery store. We don’t have a mixer either, so Grandpa and I took turns with the spoon.”

Clay glances around our poorly furnished kitchen and seems to come to a quick decision. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Get your ingredients and those baking cups and bring them to my place. We’re going to do this right, and I don’t feel like dragging my KitchenAid over here.”

“Really?” Toby perks up immediately. “Okay!” He grabs the cocoa box off the counter, and then the bag of flour.

“Whoa, easy,” I say as a puff of flour escapes into the air. “Go get one of our shopping bags out of the front hall closet.”

Toby scampers off, and I turn to Clay. “You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper. “Learning to process failure is a life skill.”

“So is learning to ask for help,” Clay says, closing the carton of eggs and tucking it under his arm. “You should try it sometime.”

My jaw drops, but before I can defend myself, Toby bounds back into the room with shopping bags and a big smile.

So I close my mouth and gather up the rest of the ingredients.