Into the Black ~ a Duff Mckagan Fanfiction

Chapter 5 - Sweetheart

A few days later, Duff and I finally had established a routine.

We don't talk much, but I guess that's good, because every time he speaks he manages to make me defensive and angry. And what makes me even more infuriated is how hard it is for me to remember what I'm upset about when I'm forced to stare at his gorgeous face.

I shook my head, why was I thinking about this? I turned back to my muffins.

There was suddenly a knock at the kitchen door. I jumped, not expecting it. Daniel must have showed up extra extra early.

I locked eyes with Duff who had a puzzled look on his face, and then I saw Daniel open the door and hover in the entryway.  The fluorescent numbers on the  oven flashed 5:02am.

"Hey Daniel. What are you doing here so early?" I bit back a yawn.

"Well I've got some business to take care of, taxes, you know. But I figured today is a day as any for you guys to start making those pastries from scratch. Don't worry, I have lots of frozen ones in inventory for at least the rest of the week. So maybe today as a test run you guys could make a batch of each?"

The older man taped the recipe sheet for each pastry up on the wall near the ingredients.

"Okay." I examined the recipe sheets, it seemed pretty simple.

"Yes sir." Duff stepped away from his work, looking over my shoulder to see too. Something about his body being so close to mine was electrifying. 

"Well if you need anything I will be in the front." Daniel shot us a smile and then grabbed a freshly made chocolate chip muffin as he left.

"Dang, we have a lot to do," Duff observed.

"No shit." I chuckled a little out of stress. "We definitely need a strategy."

Just then the oven beeped, and I immediately turned around, throwing on some oven mitts and pulling the muffin pan out.

"Well how far along are you on the muffins? Maybe I can help since we won't need as many defrosted pastries."

I caught myself before I scoffed.  I didn't want to disappoint Daniel and if he wanted us to bake some stuff from scratch, I'd need Duff's help as much as I wanted to do it on my own. I quickly tallied the amount of muffins I had sitting on the cooling racks.

"I have four more batches, two blueberry, two chocolate chip. I'll make the batter and you can put everything in and out of the oven?"

"Sure."

"Then we can start on the pastries together." I couldn't believe that I was agreeing to work with someone on anything, but I clearly had a soft spot for Duff. Goddamnit. 

I mixed up a whole other batch, since I knew the recipe by heart at this point, it made more sense for me to do the actual adding of ingredients. Ten minutes later, I had two giant bowls of muffin batter ready to go. After a sprinkle of frozen blueberries into one bowl and chocolate chips into the other, I passed them to Duff to handle the baking.

He nodded at me and gave me a small smile, before divvying up the batter into the muffin pans and placing two full batches into the oven.

I walked over to the pantry, grabbing ingredients for coffee cake and the scones. "Butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon..." I muttered to myself as I took things back to the kitchen with me.

I caught Duff looking at me, but as soon as I caught his eye, he turned away. Maybe he heard me talking to myself. I shrugged and set down the coffee cake and scone dry ingredients on the counter.

I quickly washed out the bowl of the kitchen aid mixer, preparing it for the next round of baked goods. Tearing the coffee cake recipe off the wall, I brought it over to where I was now working.

I heard the oven beep a couple more times as I made the batter for our first batch of coffee cake. I sure hope this turns out good. I was so lost in my zone that it didn't register that I had heard the oven timer beep several times, and that Duff was done with the muffins.

They were all laid out nicely on the cooling rack, and he came over to where I was. "How's it going Harlow?"

"Good." I yawned. Fuck, two all nighters in a row was really starting to wear me down. When was the last time I slept? I wasn't about to get any sleep in the next couple of days, because Guns had another show that I was not about to miss.  

The tall blonde immediately yawned too.

"Late night last night for you too?" I questioned, turning back to my batter.

"Yeah. Haven't gone to bed yet."

"Me either." Mutual silence settled over us as we continued baking.

I finished making the coffee cake batter, realizing that I didn't have anything to put it in. "Fuck, do we have any cake pans?" I blurted out. 

Immediately Duff let out a laugh, a smile on his face. "You'd know better than I do. I'm sure there are some around here somewhere."

"Hmm." I tried to remember where I'd seen them before.

Maybe they are on top of the blast chiller, that's some place they would be able to hang out for a long time and not be found. 

I scurried over, thrusting my hand up as high as it could go, trying to reach the top.

Duff immediately laughed again. "Need some help over there, sweetheart, or do you think you got it by yourself?"

"Fuck you. Giraffe." I blushed red, turning so he wouldn't see. His tone was playful and I could tell he was joking.

He reached on top of it easily, feeling around for a second and making a face, before pulling down a big rectangular cake pan.

He passed it to me, and then felt around some more, pulling down another rectangular pan and a scone mold.

"Thanks." I spit out.

"No problem, sweetheart."

"Would you stop fucking calling me that?"

"Sorry, sweetheart. I only do it because 'cause you're hot when you're mad." He shot me a wink and I rolled my eyes in response, turning away from him to grease the cake pan aggressively.

Why did he have to call me sweetheart in that fucking deep voice, and why did it have to turn me on so much? Why did he have to be so hot?

--------------
the girl in the picture is kind of what I picture Harlow to look like, just a bit paler and a bit more edgy.