After 4 | ✓

Chapter 24

Tessa's POV:

A knock on the door tells me that Nora is here. I open the door and she pushes past me and go straight to the kitchen. I close the door and follow her. "Ready," she asks and take off her jacket, put it on the back of the chair.

"Yes," I clear my throat.
She goes behind the kitchen counter and take out every single baking pans we buy, put them on the small island.

"Can I help? I want to make too," I say and goes where she stands.

"Of course you do," she rolls her eyes. "Can you take out the ingredients?"

"Yeah sure," I goes to get the ingredients out from the cabinets and she set up the stand mixer.
After she is done with that too she take a bowl.

"Can you open the flour bag?"she asks and I open it with too much force that the flour fly over and covers small part of my black yoga pants that I'm wearing. "Oh shit. It's okay it's happened. You're the beginners." She chuckles.

"I'm not a beginners," I roll my eyes and wipe off the flour as much as possible with my hand. I give her the bag and she put the content into the bowl with some baking powder and soda, and mix well.

"Eggs, ‌milk and ‌sugar please," I give her what she wants. She crack the eggs, put them on the stand mixer's bowl and switch on the mixer. Pour the ‌milk and ‌sugar, mix them well, then add the dry content. "Vanilla extract too."

"I want to add this," I request. She nod and move away to let me add.

"Just add two-," before she say how much, I pour directly from the bottle which is 1/4 of bottle into the mix.
"Great. That too much, but it will be fine." She shrugs.

I am really not a baker or any good at baking related things. I move away and let her do the mixing and preparing the icing. We put the content into the pans and into the oven. We wait, while she making the purple icing.
As the cakes are baked now we assemble them in three layers with the icing and cover the outer part too.
She decorates it with big lilac-and-white flowers. The center of the icing flower is yellow, dust with glitter.

"Ah...its ready," she puts the hands up and I hear the front door open and close.

"Hello?" I call to whosoever is that, from the kitchen. A minute passes but no one answered.
"Hello?" I call again and headed to the door. What if is someone broke in, in my appartment this time.

When I get into the hallway, Landon almost ran into me. I say to him, "You scared me," he look up at me.

"Sorry. You okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, of course." I smile,
shifting on my feet. "I'm baking, and how can anything be wrong when you're doing that?" I laugh, with both feeling, genuine and fake.
"Nora's here, too, in the kitchen," I add.

"My mom would be proud." He smiles at me and toss his jacket on the arm of the chair. I eye at it, but decide to let this slide.

"Yes!" I hear Nora yell. I roll my eyes and he shoot me a questioning look, to which I just nod, and we head towards the kitchen.

"Thank God," I say sarcastically as I lead into the kitchen.

"She must have gotten this batch right." He says.

"We took over your kitchen," Nora tells him.

"Hey, Sophia Nora de Laurentiis," he says, opening the fridge and grabbing a water. Hearing 'Sophia' I open my mouth to correct him, but I get his little joke and doesn't say anything.

Nora says, "Hey, Landon."
A knock at the front door interrupts our celebration.

"I got it," I say with smile, "It's so pretty, right?" I nudge Nora's hip with her spatula and head to the door.

When I open the door it's some young man wearing a red work vest and utility belt. "I'm here for to fix the garbage disposal." The man says.

"Do you have ID?" I ask. I'm not letting any stranger into my apartment without seeing his ID.

"Yes mam I've. Just give me a second." He says and check every pocket to obtain that thing. After two minutes or so he found it and give it to me. I let him come in and leads into the kitchen where Landon and Nora are staring at each other.

"He's here to fix the garbage disposal," I explain to both of them.

"We have a garbage disposal?" Landon asks. It's his apartment and he don't know that he have garbage disposal like it's a news to him. I look over at Nora and she look at me like she knows that what I'm thinking and shake our heads.

"I better go," she
announces. She shoves her phone into the pocket of her jacket, which is hanging on the back of the chair, and which she then grabs. Landon move to help her and hold the jacket behind her. She hugs me and then kisses him on the cheek.
What was that about?

She gives him a wave and says, "I'll text you when I know where we're going!"

When she is gone, look at Landon with a curious look "What was that about?" I ask nosily. He's so used to my meddling that it will not going to bother him. He run his hand over his chin, tugging slightly at the hair growing there.

He lift his hands up in defense. "I have no freaking clue, she just kissed me. I didn't even know she knew my name-."

"She what!" I shriek.
The repairman cocks his head to the side like he's listening to a daytime drama.
"I didn't know either! Well, I know she knew your name," I say, being as literal as ever.

"I don't know. I'm just as confused as you." he say.

Am I confused about that boy? Or I'm being irrational?
Or you just miss him.
My subconscious adds.

Landon tighten his drawstring on his sweats and head toward the door. "We aren't done here, Landon Gibson!" I shout after him.

After the garbage disposal is fixed and the man go, I go to my work too. After my shift was almost over, Nora came and said that she is going to text Landon about the place, where we all going to meet her roommates, and go to her apartment.
I text this to Landon.
After my shift was over too I headed out for the place.

When I'm there, I check my phone to see they're here or not. And there's text from Landon that he's here.

I go inside, it's a cocktail bar I notice. And I look around to see where he is. I spot him near the bar area and go over there. When I look at his face, he's frowning and looking at the direction of Nora, where she's hugging to a bartender.

"Don't scowl, it doesn't suit you," I chime in his ear.

"When did you get here?" He turn around and asks.

"Just now; work was weirdly dead." I sigh.
"I'm going to the bathroom," I say and move my way to bathroom between peoples.

Opening the door I place my purse on the side of the sink, untie my apron put that inside the purse and tuck out my shirt from my pants.

I didn't wanted to come here but sitting in that apartment, alone, reading novel and cry about my failed relationship, would never going any good to me. So I'm here to accompany Landon, as he doesn't have any friends to hang out beside me.

When I get out the bathroom, putting my purse on my shoulder to sit with him and Nora. When I approached them and see her roommates, I'm shocked that one of her roommates that I've seen before in Washington, she is......