Half Baked Hearts | ✔

32. Scars

"I don't know about this."

My dad was supposed to have left ten minutes ago. Yet, he was watching me pull out all my baking stuff in the kitchen.

It was foolish of me to think, after dropping the bomb that Nate was coming over, my dad would go off to work with no problem.

"Did you miss the part about us getting into Bake-A-Palooza?" I asked, grabbing eggs from the fridge.

"Did you miss the part where his family is a bunch of criminals?" He asked, folding his arms over her chest. "I should've known he was trouble after seeing the video of him fighting."

The doorbell rang and my dad didn't hesitate to answer. A sense of dread enveloped me. This would not be pretty.

When I got to the foyer, I was surprised to find Nessa and Daisy. "What are you two doing here?"

"Moral support," Daisy said cheerfully.

"And taste testing," Nessa added. To my dad, she said, "I thought you had a wisdom tooth extraction this morning?"

My dad glanced at his watch, eyes bulging. "I have to go. Charm, if that boy tries anything funny-"

"Don't worry Mr. C, we'll kick his ass," Nessa said.

Satisfied, my dad finally left for work. Minutes after his car left the driveway, Nate and Lorenzo pulled in. Kara, Landon and Liz were with them.

"What is going on?" I asked Nessa as everyone got settled in the living room. "Why are they all here?"

"Like we told you, moral support and taste testing," she said, navigating me to the kitchen. She grabbed Nate on the way. "Now, you two go make us something yummy."

Honestly, having all our friends there helped with the anxiety I'd felt all morning at the thought of being alone with Nate. Nessa was always thinking ahead.

The TV turned on in the other room, our friends arguing over which Spider-Man was the best. It sounded like Tom Holland was winning.

With them distracted, it was easier to say the things I'd stayed up all night thinking about.

"If we're going to win the competition, we have to be on the same page," I told him, organizing mixing bowls and measuring cups on the island. "And not just with baking."

He came around to the other side of the island, giving me his full attention. "Okay, I'm listening."

"How much did you know about your mom and uncle's plan?" Asked as I slid a recipe card across the island to him. No reason we couldn't talk and work at the same time.

That day I decided to try a layered cake. We wouldn't know what we had to bake until the competition, so I wanted to cover all our bases. Nate needed to know how to properly level and ice a cake.

Without hesitation, he began grabbing ingredients for the cake batter. He had become a lot more confident since that first day we attempted baking together.

I caught myself smiling as he threw ingredients into the mixing bowl. He no longer looked at me to ask if he was doing it right. He hardly checked the measurements at all. I wondered how much practicing he did on his own.

"Nothing, really," he said, finally getting to my question. "Only that your aunt owed my uncle some money."

Just like that, the peaceful bubble we were in popped. Reality had a really annoying way of making itself relevant. "And you thought them destroying my aunt's bakery was a good way to solve that problem?"