Unstoppable Spiderlings

Episode 10: Spiders Take Flight

Julia burns her hand on the oven, but only flinches a little as she wraps her fingers around the bottom of her sleeves to try and hide it. Taking an oven mit, she pulls out some of the cookies and turns off the timer in order for the beeping to stop giving her a migraine. Maria puffs her cheeks out and turns to another page in the recipe book saying, "We can't do the pumpkin cookies, Jules."

"What? Why not?" she asks, placing the tray on top of the stove. Freshly baked chocolate chips and the scent of melting brown sugar fills the room.

"We don't have pumpkin puree," Maria groans, looking once again into their spice cabinet just in case she missed it. "I guess that makes sense - we never make pumpkin flavored stuff."

"Well, it's a Halloween bake sale, so we really should make those. Want me to run to the store and pick some puree up?"

Maria pauses, looking over her shoulder at her sister's station. There are five cookie trays that are cooling, and six trays of different types of brownies already put into boxes. "Uh, I'll go and get it. You're way better at baking than I am, and it looks like you have a rhythm going."

"If you say so!" Julia gives her a thumbs-up with the oven mit still on and grabs another box of cake mix. "I'm going to get started on these blood cupcakes."

"Ew, blood cupcakes?"

"Oh, hush! They're red velvet, and I am going to fill them with strawberry jam, topped with buttercream and a candy eyeball." She whips out a ziplock bag of disembodied eyes. "They're squishy too," she sings.

"Yuck, nasty! I'm out of here!" The older sister pushes the bag away from her face and grabs her wallet, hurrying out of the apartment.

Sometimes Julia can have way too much fun making sweets, she thinks as she walks around the city to the nearest grocery store. Especially when it comes to holidays, her younger sister has been the type to go all out when it comes to desserts. Once when the family hosted Thanksgiving, she made a total of seven different pies. Not a lot of people ended up coming, and not everyone likes pie, so she ended up taking five of them home and eating a slice for dessert every night. It only started getting old when she got sick of the blueberry one, and they had to throw it out.

"Ah, here we go!" she says with a gleeful sigh. The store smells like fruit, which makes sense because she steps right into the produce section. She looks around for a moment, and then finds the baking aisle.

It feels weird going to a store and only buying one small item, but at least that means it will be a quick stop. Right when she turns into the aisle, she runs into a metal cart and falls backward. "Ahh!"

"Oh, I'm very sorry, ma'am," a man's voice says, and she opens her eyes to see a hand outstretched to her. "I really have to look both ways, my apologies."

He's really good looking, like, really good looking. His light brown hair flows in a way that makes it seem soft to touch, and his brown eyes are kind when they gaze into her own. Maria can feel her face boil in a lava-like blush as she accepts his hand and lets him pull her up. Whatever you do, don't stutter. "Th-thank you!" Damn it.

"It was the least I could do," the man responds, not taking his eyes off her for a second. She wishes he would just so she could get some breathing room.

"Ey, Charmer, we got some shoppin' to do," another man chimes in. Maria looks over the first guy's shoulder to see someone not so pleasant, and it's not because of his looks. His stature is off - back hunched, furrowed brows, and an expression that would make Rhino scamper away. He has wavy, beach blonde hair and eyes that swim like the ocean, and he's muscular as he is tan. Talk about a beach bod.