Sprinkled with Love

“So what did you do? Go by the photo?”

He nodded. “The pretzels and chocolate chips looked good.”

Well, she supposed that was something. Perhaps they could modify the recipe a bit. “Let me have that coconut back.”

He handed it over and watched as she returned it to the shelf. “But I thought we needed it.”

“Not if you don’t like it—”

“But the recipe—”

“Can be modified.” She glanced down at the store list in her hand. She might as well find out if they were going to have any other problems. “How do you feel about oats?”

He shrugged.

Not a good sign. She scratched them.

“How about pecans?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like nuts in my food.”

She was tempted to ask why he’d chosen this particular recipe since he obviously didn’t like most of the ingredients, but she knew the answer—he was drawn in by the name, cowboy cookies. Sometimes men could be such little boys.

There had to be a way to fix this. There was nothing in the Bake-Off rules she was given that said they couldn’t make up their own recipe. And it didn’t make sense to have Avery bake something he wouldn’t eat.

With her mind made up, she said, “Okay. Pick out a couple ingredients you would enjoy in your cookie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not the eggs and flour and stuff, but rather what you’d like to replace the coconut and pecans with.”

“Oh. Okay.” He started down the aisle. He stopped at the end and held up a bag of Reese’s Pieces. “I like these.”

She had to admit that this totally confused her. “But you just got done telling me you don’t like nuts in your food.”

“But these aren’t nuts. They’re different.”

“It’s peanut butter.”

“But it’s a different texture and doesn’t taste the same.”

Was he serious? By the look on his face, he was. She reached for the bag and placed it in the cart. “What else?”

He looked around and she pointed out a few things. He ended up keeping the pretzels and chocolate chips that were mentioned in the recipe. Okay, it wasn’t the total disaster she was anticipating. These ingredients were things she could work with.

By the time they finished their tour through the store, they had everything they needed for the cookies, and in the process Jillian had picked up her weekly store order. She noticed that Avery hadn’t picked up any extras to take home with him. She considered asking him about it, but she decided to just let it go.

This was a new area for them and she wasn’t sure what the boundaries were in this newfound relationship. Was she just to be his mentor? Or were they going to try to resurrect their prior friendship? It was all a bit confusing.

Chapter Eleven

This was a mistake.

Avery insisted on carrying the groceries into Jillian’s apartment. It was the least he could do. This whole evening wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d hoped. Something had shifted between them since running into Mrs. Monroe, and Jillian refused to talk about it. Even joking around with her to add some levity to the situation hadn’t fixed things—at least not permanently.

Had Jillian changed her mind about working with him? The thought didn’t sit well with him and it had nothing to do with winning the Bake-Off.

Avery placed the groceries on the counter, not quite sure what to say next. Perhaps it was best to give Jillian some space. “Thanks for shopping with me. You know, if you have other things to do, I could take all of this and get out of your way.”