“It’s burnt to a crisp.”
“Not my fault.”
“You heated the oven two hundred degrees more than you were supposed to.”
“Not my fault.” Nate gnawed on his lip and looked down to the right. He was obviously trying to move as little as possible, like being immobile would prevent him from receiving any more of Ella’s wrath. His nostrils, however, flaring at the scent of charred pineapple right-side-left cake, betrayed him.
“How is that not your fault?” Ella’s eyebrows were begging to separate from her forehead and fly up to the full height of her incredulity. “I told you to preheat to 325. You somehow took that as a cue to put it at 525, which incidentally happens to be the very highest our oven can go.”
“Not my fault.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re scary.”
“My house, I’m allowed to be scary.”
“Does that mean that if we go to my house I can be the scary one?”
“Sure, but we’re not at your house.”
“Should fix that.”
“No.” Ella flicked him on the nose and immediately realized how very like a mother she felt. She had a hand on her hip, flour in her hair, and was frowning in disapproval at a tall, gangly, extremely awkward teenage boy who looked like he wanted little more than to sink into the ground and not come out for a few years.
She blinked a bit, then snapped out of it enough to finish her thought.
“No, we are not going to your house. It’s fine for me to have you here, but I can’t go to a boy’s place.
“I thought we decided I wasn’t an axe murderer.”
“Mom might become one herself if I went to your place.”
“Fine,” Nate grumbled. “But it’s still not my fault.”
“Please explain your reasoning, because I still don’t understand how you reaching out with your hand and turning the knob of your own volition to 525 degrees is not your fault.”
“The whistlers made me do it.”
Ella pressed her lips together. She wasn’t sure if she was actually displeased or hiding a smile. Perhaps both.
“Fine, don’t tell me.” she said. Then she grabbed a fistful of flour out of the still-open container on the counter behind her and smashed it into his face. He stared at her in shock for a moment, then dumped pineapple juice down her shirt front.
Definitely both.
YOU ARE READING
The Speed of Dark
Humor'When Penn first met Ella, her presence caused him to within seconds divest of all traces of dignity he possessed. He held out his hand like they were potential business partners instead of strangers in the freezer aisle of Aldi and told her that hi...
