The Mathematician (Book 1)

15. Desserts With Frosting

I didn't care what Harry thought or said. He might not care openly about having solved a major problem that any other person would've thrown a party to celebrate. I was a normal person, and to me this was a huge deal, ergo I was doing something to make it a special day. Or rather a special evening.

It was after dinner, and I had sent Harry's staff off to bed so I could be alone in the kitchen to fulfill my plan. It wasn't going to be anything too elaborate, just a little something.

But if I had just done something worthy of a million dollars, then I would want some cake.

And so cake there would be.

I wasn't a master chef, but I knew my way around a kitchen since my mom hadn't been the most motherly type. I had had to make my own lunches for school and had to make my own dinner the days she was out doing God knew what when she was off her meds. Sometimes, I even baked myself some comfort food, including my own birthday cakes when she accidentally forgot one year. Since then, I had started making my own cakes, just in case.

Standing in Harry's kitchen now, working up a very simple red velvet-vanilla frosting cake, I didn't think I would have any problems until I reached the part where my icing needed whipping. I was used to hand-whipping, but despite this being an old house, it seemed everything was modern and up-to-date in the kitchen. That meant no hand-held whisk. Only the electronic kind.

And this one was being a little bitch, just because it was my life.

"Come on, you," I snapped at it as I shucked the actual whisks into the little holes in the machine. "Click. Just stay in! God, is it that hard?"

I was talking to a hand mixer. What exactly did I expect would happen?

Glancing over at my cake, which was cooling on the rack, I turned my eyes back to the whisk when it finally snapped into place. Thank God. "Finally."

Putting the whisks into cream and vanilla bean mixture, I snapped the plug into the outlet – and then let out a yelp as the whisks started whisking, catching me off guard.

"Sonofabitch!" I screamed as cream went flying everywhere, and as quickly as I had plugged it in, just as quickly did I pull it out, letting the whisks grind to a halt as I breathed heavily in my spot.

There was cream on the walls, the counters, the floor, and yes, on yours truly.

"I think I've seen this porn before," I breathed to myself as I slowly set into motion, reaching for the dish towel laying on the kitchen island. Thankfully most of the cream spray seemed to have been contained to one corner of the kitchen.

Wiping myself down first, then the floors and the counter, I was halfway through finishing cleaning up the walls when I suddenly heard a throat clearing itself behind me.

Oh, God.

Slowly turning around on my foot, I smiled sheepishly as Harry stood in the door, arms crossed and brow raised. He glanced at me, then to the cream on the wall, then to the cake on the rack, and then back to me again. I could see the pieces clicking together in his head.

"Surprise?" I tried, chuckling dryly.

"Which part?" He questioned, now coming in as I awkwardly shifted and tried to hide the mess behind me. "The cake or the cream or finding you alone in my kitchen?"

"Uhm... which one do you like the most?"

He leaned up against the kitchen island and glanced over my shoulder to the last cream I hadn't gotten rid of yet. "This is the part where you explain, I believe."