Want a Kiss I'll Give You a Punch

Chapter 9: I Love Pie

Dane

I can't get over how manly I am, really. What do I do when I chicken out in front of a girl? Retreat into the kitchen to go get some pies. It's so manly, I'm just overflowing with it.

No, I'm just joking around because, what kind of guy does that?

Dane Nor, obviously, because kitchen mittens and silver pots are so comforting it makes him feel all fuzzy inside. What am I doing with my life? There are other guys lifting weight and getting all buff when the only thing I'm doing is lifting deserts from the oven!

Once I carefully stacked the pies on top of the oven, I threw the oven mitt across the room and watched it bounce off the stainless steel cabinets and crumple into the trash can.

Great. Now I had to wash it. Good going Dane.

What kind of girl would like me?

I was probably off my rocker when I thought that Jacquelyn liked me back. She told me before that I was a big giant teddy bear that usually hangs on those impossible miniature game booths at those roller coaster parks.

She called me a teddy bear, for crying out loud. That's not manly!

What kind of girl wants a freaking teddy bear for a boyfriend? Not me-if I was a girl of course. Don't freak out, I'm completely straight.

Jacquelyn smiled and took a seat while staring at me from across the counter. "Does it take twenty minutes to get a few pies out of the oven, my Chef Ramsay?"

I blushed and stuck my face in the oven so it would look like it was the heat that made my face red. Why do I always blush at the slightest things? But she called me her Chef Ramsay.

Oh come on Dane, snap out of it.

"Sometimes." I muttered while I stuck my head further into the oven. I couldn't figure out which was hotter, my face or the furnace I poked my head in. I'm pretty sure I turned it off, so it shouldn't be that hot in a few minutes.

She laughed as she walked into the kitchen and crouched down by me. "What are you looking at?" Jacquelyn laughed again, trying to peer into the oven with me.

I blocked her off and placed my ear dangerously close to the right side of the oven so she couldn't see. "Looking for a pie." I stated in a matter-in-fact-with-all-seriousness tone.

Trying her best to not laugh in my face, she clasped her hand over her mouth to contain a fit of giggles. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," I nodded carefully so I wouldn't burn my neck or the top of my head, "Sometime one gets lodged in the back. You've gotta look real hard to spot it sometimes."

"I bet you do." Jacquelyn chuckled. "Would you like me to turn off the oven for you while you go 'look' for this pie?"

I swallowed hard. "That would be nice."

Dang, I didn't know that crouching down this low would kill my legs like this. Maybe this was a sign that I probably had to go to the gym more and work out; I was such a wimp.

"This is ridiculous," Jacquelyn sighed playfully as she wrapped her arms around me and started to pull me out, "get your head out of the oven. If you keep this up, your going to bake your brains and turn into Frankenstein."

Frankenstein, how did she get that? Baking my brains has nothing to do with the Frankenstein story plot. The monster had his brains implanted into his head, and his name was not Frankenstein. 

Holding my hands out the side on the counter to keep my head in the oven, I refused to let Jacquelyn pull me out like this. I was a guy, so I was supposed to be the strongest one. She wasn't going to pull me out of here this easily.