Better With You (Better Love 2)

15

We make cherry cheesecake cookies.

I make a graham cracker cookie dough and a brandied cherry topping with fresh cherries. I was so excited when I saw the bottle of brandy on the add-in shelves that I actually squealed.

While I fret over that, Riggs throws together a cheesecake filling mixture, but he does it “his mom’s way.” He uses ricotta cheese, egg whites, and lemon zest, in addition to the standard ingredients that I use (cream cheese, sugar, and egg yolks), and the way he alternates between beating to whipping to folding so seamlessly makes me jealous and turns me on. The fact that the man can make my nipples hard by beating eggs is ridiculous. Who knew baking could be so sexual? I hate it.

We roll the cookie dough into balls, using a rounded teaspoon to form them into little bowls. When I move to spoon the cheesecake mixture onto the cookies, Riggs stops me and suggests we pipe it in. Damn stupid genius. So, he does that, making the cookies gorgeous and neat, and we bake them. When they come out of the oven, they’re almost perfect. Once they have cooled enough, I delicately spoon a single brandied cherry onto the top of each one.

We’re finishing the last cookie when a PA tells us we have five minutes left, and I’m fucking proud of us.

“Did we just crush this task?” I whisper to Riggs, as we stand back and watch the other teams scramble.

“I think we did.” He looks at me with a smile that takes over his whole face, and I die a little once more at how grossly attractive he is.

And also at how clean he is.

I look from his apron down at my own and huff.

“How the hell do you stay so pristine?” I whine.

He shrugs and chuckles. “You’re a mess, Sundance. You were making me dizzy with how many times you spun in circles today.”

My chest warms and my eyes narrow. “Don’t call me that.”

The large timer buzzes before he can respond, and we move through the whole judging process again. This time, Riggs encourages me to speak during the interview, and I find myself giddily explaining our choices. Yesterday’s dark doom and gloom feeling is completely drowned out by the light of today’s excitement. It’s such a good feeling, and I’m vibrating with it.

When they announce the bottom three, we’re not in it. We don’t have the day’s top recipe, but we don’t get sent home, and that’s huge.

Taylor’s team does get cut, though, and Riggs is so damn smug that I’m pretty sure he’s happier about Taylor’s loss than our kind-of win. He’s such an alpha asshole, thinking he needs to flex on Taylor or pee on me like I’m some sort of possession. I let him assume, though. It’s none of his business how I know Taylor, or that Taylor and Brandon were kind of seeing each other right before Bran died. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t keep in touch with him after I transferred. Seeing Taylor used to hurt too much, made me feel too guilty, and I couldn’t handle it.

Seeing him now, though? It felt good. I missed him and didn’t even realize it. I missed knowing someone who knew Brandon, and I would have liked to hang out with him and catch up, but Riggs was too busy being a dickhead.

It irks me, a lot, but it’s not enough to bring me down from the high of not being cut.

We’re staying.

I’m gonna do it, Bran.

“Hey,” Riggs says after I say my goodbyes to Taylor, “What do you say we go get dinner and strategize for tomorrow? I’ve saved a few recipes for Bangladesh. I already requested a few things we’ll probably need, but we have until midnight to send any other ingredient requests to the PAs for tomorrow.”

I nod right as my stomach grumbles. “Sounds good. But we can’t go anywhere crazy expensive. I’m cool with finding a McDonalds or a Subway or something.”

Riggs’s eyes widen, and he grimaces. “Are you fucking kidding? I’m not getting fast food when we’re in one of the best culinary cities in America. I’ll pay for you.”

“No. Hell no, Riggs. You’re already spending an obscene amount of money on that boujee ass hotel. You’re not paying for my food too.” I plant my feet on the sidewalk, once again refusing to get into the car. He scowls.

“We’re not arguing over this.”

“Seems like we are.”

“Get in the car. I’m starving. I want to get dinner.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“You’re overbearing. And annoying.” Despite my insults, he grins at me, and I bristle. “And you’re a pain in my ass.”

Riggs sighs and rolls his damn eyes at me. “What about we split a pizza? Have you ever had Chicago deep dish?”

I scoff. “I’m from Illinois, Riggs. Of course I’ve had Chicago style pizza. Jesus, you think I live in a cave?”

“Wait, you’re from here?”

“Yep. Well, not here here, but from Illinois, yeah.”

“Why didn’t I know that?”

I shrug at him and break eye contact. “We didn’t do a whole lot of talking.”

We’re quiet for a moment, no doubt both thinking about all the things we did instead of talking, and I shiver. It has nothing to do with the windchill.

“Get in the car, Barnes. We’ll split a pizza.”