Love Is Messy, Love Is Sweet

Chapter 8

"Lucas?" I hesitantly called out as I walked through his coffee shop with all the lights off and no one around. It was after hours and he had the closed sign on his door.

"Yeah! Back here!" I heard his distant voice answer and I carefully made my way behind the counter and back into the kitchen.

"This place is a mess!" I couldn't help but voice my opinions as I looked around his kitchen to the mess of stored pots and pants, cleaned plates, and coffee mugs that looked like the leaning Tower of Pisa.

"I like to call it organized chaos!" Lucas defended with a playful smile and I shook my head in disapproval.

"Alright, I have all the ingredients ready. Did you read Margie's email with the list of instructions?" Lucas asked and I folded my arms with a look that stated the obvious.

"Yes, of course you did! Why did I even ask that?" he laughed, scratching his stubble.

"The competition requires us to make the gingerbread and have it completely assembled and decorated in five hours," I told him what I memorized from the email.

"Right, so that doesn't leave us a lot of time after baking it to assemble and decorate," he looks up to me with raised eyebrows.

"What?" I spoke with sass.

"Don't give me a What! I know you could spend five hours alone just decorating a cake or a gingerbread house with your fancy piping!"

"And what is your point?" I said with sass again and this time he rolled his eyes at me.

"It means you're going to need to cut back on the fancy-schmancy details and practice a lot on time management!"

"Me! You heard the judges! You need to find your piping skills because you have none!"

"Touché! Something maybe you can help me with?" he retorted with raised eyebrows again trying to keep us in the middle ground so I gave away with my sass and respectfully agreed.

"Ok."

"Good. So for today, I thought we should just focus on perfecting the gingerbread recipe and keeping track of how long that takes us."

"Sounds good," I agree again, taking my coat off and making myself comfortable, rolling up my sleeves ready to get to work.

"So, this is my standard gingerbread cookie recipe. Tried and tested with rave reviews by the same critic of mine," Lucas said with a smile as he handed me the recipe card to review.

"Looks good to me. But we'll want to change some things to make the cookie more hard and sturdy to construct into a house."

"Agreed," he responded as we looked at the recipe card together.

"Let's use a smaller amount of baking soda so it doesn't rise as much like a cookie."

"Agree. And add less butter so the house shapes are harder."

"Yes. And less molasses so the dough isn't as sticky. That will make it a little easier to work with," I add and he looks at at me and smiles. Standing right next to me, so close I can smell his cologne and feel his warm breath.

"Look at us, we can agree on some things." His smile and closeness made my skin tingle and I had to snap myself out of it. I threw my finger up and pointed it in his face.

"And no skipping steps! We HAVE to chill the dough! It's IMPERATIVE otherwise the pieces will lose their shape and will make constructing it impossible!"

"Yes, Ma'am! Wouldn't want to break your rules!" He threw his hands over his head again with a playful smirk on his lips.

"Speaking of which...why so many?" he asked as I got to work measuring out the ingredients of flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and a pinch of salt while Lucas mixed the butter, brown sugar, and beat in the eggs, water, and molasses.