Chapter 12 Reed
Reed
The chocolate chip cookies came out as sad, flat pancakes. I poke one with a fork, and it bounces back.
“How did you manage to make cookies chewy and crunchy at the same time?” Paolo asks, examining the disaster spread across my kitchen counter.
“I followed the recipe exactly,” I protest, checking the chocolate chip bag again. “Bake for nine to eleven minutes. I baked for ten.”
“Did you measure the flour?” Vick asks, breaking off a piece and immediately spitting it into his napkin.
“Of course I measured. Two and a quarter cups.”
Kash holds the measuring cup I used. “Reed, this is in liters. The recipe is in grams.”
I stare at the Pyrex cup, then at my friends, then at the cookie graveyard covering every available surface. “There’s a difference? I thought there was a 1:1 ratio…”
“Oh, buddy,” Paolo says with genuine sympathy. “There’s definitely a difference.”
Twenty-four cookies that even Eliza’s goats would reject. A cookie exchange where I’m supposed to bring three dozen to share, and I’ve produced exactly zero edible options.
I text Eliza:
Can’t make it to the exchange. Cookie situation is a disaster.
My phone rings immediately.
“What do you mean you can’t make it?” Eliza’s voice carries a now-familiar note of irritation.
“I tried to bake cookies. They’re inedible. I have nothing to contribute to a cookie exchange.”
“So help me bake mine, and I’ll share.”
I glance around my kitchen, where evidently a flour bomb exploded. “I don’t think I’m qualified to help anyone bake anything.”
“Reed Saint Nicholas, get your ass over here. I’m making shortbread, and I need someone to knead the dough.”
The line goes dead before I can argue—again—that my middle name is not Saint.
Paolo raises his brows as Kash pats me on the back. “This is promising,” Kash says. “I think she likes you.”
I shake my head, scraping cookie detritus into my trashcan. “Her sisters invited me, and she’s beholden.”
“Beholden?” Vick arches a dark brow. “She invited you to her house, man.”
Paolo holds up a finger. “Commanded you to go.”
“Best not keep her waiting.” Kash shoves me toward the door, and Paolo tosses my car keys. “We’ll lock up here.”
Eliza opens her door wearing an apron covered in embroidered farm animals. Flour streaks her cheek, and her dark hair is twisted up with a pencil.
“You came,” she says, stepping aside to let me in.
“You commanded me to.”
“I invited you.” She smiles. “Okay, it was a command.” Eliza leads me toward the kitchen, which smells of vanilla and butter and everything my kitchen failed to achieve. “Hit me with your best ideas to assembly line this.”
Her kitchen is nothing like mine. Mismatched mixing bowls crowd the counter next to containers of ingredients that don’t match anything else.
A stand mixer that probably dates from the Carter administration whirs in the corner.
Mason jars full of flour and sugar sit next to a ceramic cookie jar shaped like a pig.
“This is my grandmother’s recipe.” She hands me an apron that reads ‘Kiss the Cook’ in faded letters. “Esther says so, anyway. I don’t think any of us met her.”
I tie the apron strings, hyperaware of the irony of the message across my chest. “What happened to your grandmother?”
“Mom burned those bridges before I was born.” Eliza pulls a chunk of golden dough from her refrigerator. “So we’re doing animal shapes, and I think we need twenty-four pointy ears for cats, pink noses for all of them, and I’m not sure how many brown ears for the cows and dogs.”
I glance at the few already-shaped cookies lined on parchment paper on the counter. “You made those by hand?” I watch as she transfers the completed cookies to a baking sheet.
“Yeah, and now my fingers are cramped.” She hands me a lump of cold dough. “Your job is to work with the orange food coloring and then make me twenty-four tiny triangles. Got it?”
I resist the urge to ask her if they should be isosceles and start poking the dough with my finger. “I can follow directions.”
“Good.” She grips my bicep and then squeezes it before moving to a bowl of cocoa powder. Heat radiates along my arm where her hand made contact with my sweater.
“Where do you want me?” I ask, then immediately wish I’d phrased that differently.
Eliza’s eyes meet mine for a split second before she looks away. “Counter’s fine. Just get it nice and even.”
For the next hour, we work in a comfortable rhythm as Frank Sinatra croons from an old record player in her living room. I pinch dough into triangles, not caring that my skin dyes orange from the gel.
“These are supposed to be frogs,” Eliza says, holding up a lump of green dough she stained with matcha powder.
“They look like Christmas trees to me.”
“Reed, they have four legs.”
“Pine trees. Definitely pine trees.” I position the shape at an angle. “See? Perfect evergreen silhouette.”
“You’re impossible.” But she’s smiling as she says it, and when our hips bump as we work around each other, neither of us moves away.
“This is nice,” I say, surprising myself.
“What is?”
“This. Your house. It feels…” I search for the right word. “Lived in.”
Eliza glances around her kitchen, taking in mismatched everything and flour handprints on cabinet doors. “It’s kind of a mess.”
“It’s perfect.” Everything in my apartment matches and looks like it came from a catalog. This kitchen looks like people cook here, live here. “My place feels like a hotel room.”
“Probably a really nice hotel room.”
“Probably. But this feels like a home.”
Something shifts in her expression, softer than I’ve seen before. “Help me clean up?”
I nod and walk to the sink as Eliza slides pans of cookies into her massive oven to bake. I’m elbow-deep in soapy water when she turns to dust off her hands, staring.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re washing dishes.”
“Did you expect me to leave them for you?”
“Honestly? Yeah.” She leans against the counter. “Most guys I know think kitchen cleanup happens by magic.”
“My parents have household staff,” I admit, scrubbing a mixing bowl. “But I also told you I can follow instructions.”
“I guess you meant that.”
I rinse a bowl and hand it to her. “I definitely did.”
Eliza’s quiet for a moment, methodically drying the bowl. “What made you start a wonky tree business? Since you’re such a rule follower…”
I drain the sink and turn to face her. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I finished my master’s program and didn’t like most of the options I saw in bioengineering.” I shrug. “It just sort of happened.”
Eliza’s face brightens as she snaps a lid onto a metal tin full of amazing cookies. “That’s how I got into urban goat work.” She laughs. “Definitely not something I wrote as a life goal in elementary school.”
I lean to glance at the other pans of perfect cookies. “Turned out okay, though. Right?”
She nods, and we’re both quiet as the Sinatra record finishes. I’ve lost track of how many times we listened through. The air is warm and thick with the scent of butter and vanilla. Eliza’s kitchen is a safe little incubator.
For some reason, amidst the cozy comfort, I blurt, “My father threatened to make sure no serious investor in Pittsburgh will touch my business if I don’t join Nicholas Industries.”
Her eyes flash with anger. “He can do that?”
“He thinks he can. Charles Nicholas has a long memory and an extensive network.” The words taste bitter. “He’s probably right.”
“That’s horseshit.” Eliza tosses a dishtowel onto the counter with more force than necessary. “Your trees are brilliant. Anyone with half a brain can see the potential.”
“Not brilliant enough for anyone to risk losing a contract with Nicholas Industries.”
“What about investors outside of Pittsburgh? Or finding people who don’t give a damn what your father thinks? My sisters know people.” She steps close enough that I can see gold flecks in her brown eyes. “You can’t let him win.”
The conviction in her voice does something to my chest, makes it tight and warm simultaneously. “You really believe that?”
“I believe in you.”
The words hang between us, simple and devastating. I step closer, drawn by her fierce loyalty and the way she’s looking at me like I’m worth fighting for.
“Eliza…” I reach up to brush flour from her cheek.
A tremendous bray erupts from outside, followed by the unmistakable thump of Chiron attacking the side of the house. We spring apart, both of us laughing despite the interrupted moment.
“That ass has terrible timing,” Eliza mutters, but she won’t quite meet my eyes.
“Or perfect timing,” I mumble.
Because if that donkey hadn’t interrupted us, I would have kissed her. And once I started, I’m not sure I would have been able to stop.