“Hmm.” She pressed her chin into her hands. “Did you now? That dress wasn’t conducive to getting that low, but I managed.”
She sure had, but again, they weren’t here for this. “Look, can we focus on what we’re here to do?”
She rolled her eyes and looked around at the ingredients he had laid out to make simple chocolate cupcakes with frosting so he could get some piping practice. He had gotten various tip sizes for the bag after doing some research online.
The plan was for her to give him a quick tutorial on cupcakes in general, then they would both make theirs separately while the phone was set up to capture everything. Seemed simple enough.
Except, Reba was going on about techniques he could use to make his cupcakes moister while his mind meandered to the finer details of his work presentation. He still had a few finishing touches before he ran it by Dax and the team. Then they would be good to go for the real deal with the client.
“Hey, you got that? Does it make sense?”
Devon focused on Reba, who was looking at him expectantly while she poured out her portion of flour. He had no clue what she was talking about, but they were following a recipe—how hard could this be?
“Yeah, sure. Got it.”
“Okay, well, measure out your flour. You can follow the recipe precisely. I just tend to wing it at this point.”
“Wing it? But why? There’s a recipe for a reason.”
Reba rolled her eyes at him again as if he was the one being unreasonable.
Devon measured out his flour as the recipe instructed while Reba continued on with her chaos measuring system—which was to say she didn’t have one because she didn’t even glance at the laptop where the recipe was up on the screen.
“It’s cupcakes. I’ve made way too many of those in my lifetime to need exact measurements anymore.”
The thought of just winging something like this made Devon nervous, but Reba’s words did have some truth to them. As much as he refused to follow her chaotic ways, he had to admit this wasn’t his area of expertise. He might raise a brow at her questionable methods, but he had to trust that the end result would be as she expected. He, however, didn’t have that luxury of doing whatever he pleased because he didn’t want to destroy his kitchen in some freak baking accident.
They continued on, with Reba’s chattering competing against her music while they mixed the wet and dry ingredients together. He looked over at her batter, which didn’t look any different from his. He seemed to be on the right track. The main difference in appearance would come when they got to the piping of the icing. It didn’t seem like rocket science, and yet he wasn’t totally confident in what he would produce—a foreign emotion since he didn’t tend to venture outside of his usual skill set. Give him the challenge of coming up with the perfect design proposal, and he was excited about it. Baking was outside his normal activities.
“Not too full,” Reba instructed as he poured his batter into the cupcake-lined tin. “Fill it halfway, or you’ll have overflow.”
“Alright, makes sense.”
By the time the cakes were in the oven, Reba looked as well put together as she had when she’d rolled in this morning. Devon noticed some flour on his t-shirt, and the counter looked like an explosion of messy bowls and utensils. Flour was also sprinkled on a portion of the island where his sifting method hadn’t been quite so neat.
“Let me wash up some things before we move to the next phase.”
Reba came to stand next to him at the sink, putting her elbow-to-elbow with him. He had a double sink, and yet her presence felt too overwhelming.
“I don’t need help, it’s fine.”
“It’s only fair I help too. I can stack after you soap up and rinse.”
He had a precise stacking routine, and he could imagine Reba just fitting in stuff on the drying rack anywhere she felt like. An image of the entire precarious mess toppling over was enough for him to grit out, “Not necessary. I like doing this.”
Reba folded her arms, turning so her back was propped against the rack as she watched him. “Of course, you do. Have it your way then. Time to change the music to more local offerings.”
Devon ignored the burst of Spanish and English lyrics on a song he recognised as one Keiran had worked on. He vaguely recalled his brother mentioning working with the singer, who had Trini and Venezuelan heritage. The song had an upbeat pop vibe that Devon usually avoided, preferring more mellow sounds. Finished with the wares, he turned around to find Reba shimmying her shoulders and swaying her hips in time to the beat.
He had easily avoided her dancing at the beach house by leaving. He couldn’t just walk out of his own house because he found her movements distracting. She lifted her hands above her head as she kept grooving along to the track, her crop top rising with the motion. He refused to allow Reba to affect him in any way.
You are better than this. You will not allow Reba Johnson to be a threat to your peace of mind.
“Ready for the fun part?” she asked.
He wasn’t. He anticipated a mess of icing covering his counter when they were done, but he had signed up for this.
“Sure,” he replied because he was Mr. Cool. A pair of hips and a bare stomach didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Let’s do it.”