“I’m creaming them.”
“You’re turning them into fucking gravel, Romeo. That’s not creamed butter, that’s dairy carnage. It looks like Martha Stewart got shanked in a flour sack.”
He glares at the bowl like it just insulted his nonna. To be fair, the butter-sugar mixturedoeslook like it’s been emotionally and physically compromised.
“Baking is stupid,” he announces.
“Baking is chemistry,” I counter. “Precision. Ratios. Gentle touch. You’re just bad at it.”
He bristles. “I’m not bad at things.”
“You’re bad at this. Accept it. Learn. Grow. Be humbled by the cookie gods.”
He looks so genuinely scandalized, I lose it. Like, full-body, unhinged laughter. The kind that makes you snort and then question every life choice that led to baking with a man who could crush walnuts with his knuckles and is personally offended by soft butter.
“Stop laughing at me.”
“I physically cannot,” I gasp. “You look like the butter called your bestie a whore.”
“The butter started it.”
“Rise above, babe. Be the bigger dairy product. Transcend the churn.”
I’m wheezing now. Actual tears. And when I look up, he’s staring at me with that same look, like I’m something wild he doesn’t know how to hold.
This sets me off again. I’m doubled over, tears in my eyes, and when I finally straighten up, Enzo is watching me with a soft, wondering expression.
“What?” I ask, wiping my eyes.
“Nothing.” He looks back at the bowl. “Show me again. The... creaming thing.”
He says it deadpan. Doesn’t evenblink. And my brain throws itself off a cliff.
I slide up beside him, take the spatula, try not to imagine what else he could be doing with those hands if he ever learned to fold.
“Gentle,” I say. “It’s not a fight. You don’t win at cookies. You seduce them.”
He tries again. Still too forceful. Still hot.
I’m in hell.
“You’re not used to gentle,” I observe quietly.
“No.” He doesn’t look at me. “I’m not.”
I swear the air temperature drops five degrees and spikes ten at the same time.
I want to teach him gentle. Want to show him soft. Want to spread him out on this counter and demonstrate exactly what seduction means in contexts that have nothing to do with baking.
“Gentle’s overrated anyway,” I say lightly, breaking the tension before I do something stupid like lick flour off his forearm
I don’t push. Just stand beside him while he learns to be soft with butter and sugar, and wonder what it would take for him to be soft with himself.
Day twelve, he tells me about his father.
We’re on the couch. Leftover Chinese food on the coffee table. Some terrible movie playing that neither of us is watching.
“He was in the family,” Enzo says. Out of nowhere. Like the words have been building up and finally found an exit. “Myfather. He wasn’t important, just a soldier, you know? Did what he was told. Kept his head down.”
