Our Love Story

Chapter Nineteen

It's been a few weeks since the night of the concert, and now I sat in the living room of the guys' apartment. Bags of chips and cans of beer littered the coffee table, and Everett sipped his beer from beside me on the couch.

Ava and Luka sat on the other side of the couch, and she lifted her can in the air. "To Nova getting a job at that cool, trendy cafe!" she exclaimed as we clinked all of our cans together.

"How is it going there?" Luka asked me.

Tilting my head, I stuck my bottom lip out in thought. "It's actually pretty fun," I answered. "I thought making drinks would be boring, but I don't mind it." I smiled. "The cakes they make there are pretty good, too!"

Ava laughed. "I bet! They look so good from the pictures you sent me. I definitely need to go try some!"

My eyes widened as I remembered something, and I turned to look at Everett. "Oh, right, speaking of cakes," I began, clearing my throat. "Your mom's birthday is this Saturday, so I thought I could try baking her a cake from scratch this year!"

He raised an eyebrow. "Really? You sure you can do it?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Well, I've been practicing a little bit at home! I should be okay," I said. "After watching the owner at the cafe make all the cakes we sell, I wanted to try baking some cakes myself since it looked pretty fun."

"So, my mom is just your guinea pig for your experiment?" He laughed. "Go right ahead, I'm sure she'll love anything that's made by you."

"Thanks," I said. "By the way, I was wondering if you could help me."

"Sure," he said. "That way I can make sure your cake doesn't come out as a disaster." He shot me a teasing smile, which I glared at.

"It's going to be good, just you wait and see!" I shouted, chugging down the rest of my beer.

Once the day of Everett's mom's birthday arrived, I went over to Katherine's place to borrow a couple of her cake pans. I walked through her house to the kitchen and found her pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Morning!" she greeted me. "Peter let you in?"

"Yup," I said, grabbing the cake pans that Katherine left on the counter for me and stuffed them into my bag. "Thanks for letting me borrow these. I'll have them back to you in no time."

"Don't worry about it, we barely use them," she told me. "Anyway, you're baking it all by yourself?"

"Everett's going to be helping me," I said.

"Wow, really?" A smile spread on her face. "You two are getting along a lot better these days. It makes me happy!" Sipping her coffee, she peered at me. "Actually, I wanted to ask you something." I raised an eyebrow for her to continue. "Has he said anything about me to you?"

Tilting my head in confusion at her question, I shook my head. "No, he hasn't," I told her. "Why do you ask?"

She laughed. "Just wondering!"

I stared at her as she tucked a hair behind her ear and shrugged. "Well, I gotta get going. Everett's waiting for me back at the house so we can get started on this cake."

"Alright, I'll see you later!" She waved at me as I left.

Back at home, I made my way to the kitchen to find Everett leaning against the counter, waiting for me. "Hey," he said. "I got the ingredients out and ready."

"Thanks," I said, pulling the cake pans out and setting them on the kitchen island. "So, I was thinking of making a layered strawberry shortcake."

"That sounds good." He grabbed the measuring cups and cake flour. "By the way, how is Katherine doing? It's been a while since I've seen her."

"She's the same as ever," I told him. Looking over at him, I pursed my lips in thought. "Actually, she asked me something kind of weird."

"What?"

"She asked me if you said anything to me about her." As the words came out of my mouth, his hands halted, hovering above the bag of flour. My eyebrows furrowed slightly. "What's wrong?" I asked.

He shook his head as his hands started moving again. "Nothing," he said. "It's just that it was a weird question." Looking over at me, he smiled. "We should get started on the cake, it's going to take a while."

"Okay," I said slowly, deciding to just ignore the strange vibe that filled the room and pulled up the recipe on my phone. "So, preheat the oven...."

A half-hour later, the three cakes were done baking and after they cooled down, we worked on layering them on top of each other with whipped cream and slices of strawberries layered between each layer of vanilla cake.

"Wow, this is looking really good!" I exclaimed, eyes wide and mouth agape. "I can't believe I did this!"

The corner of Everett's mouth lifted in an amused smile. "Hey, don't forget that I helped you."

"Of course I won't!" I said. "It's just that I did most of the work, you know?" I shot a grin at him.

He smiled back as he looked down at me. "Oh, you have flour on your face." Before I could react, he stuck out his hand and placed it on my face, his thumb softly wiping the flour off my cheek.

I froze in place as I stared up at him, my heart racing from the heat of his hand. He had moved closer to me, and my eyes focused on his face and my eyes flickered over onto the strand of hair that fell over his eyes.

Without thinking, I reached up to push the hair back and out of his face before my eyes met his. The look of intensity in his eyes made my heart pound harder, if that was even possible. I didn't miss the way he glanced down at my lips and back into my eyes. My mind raced with a million thoughts, the top one being: are we going to kiss?

However, he pulled away from me, abruptly ending whatever was going on between us. I watched as he ran a hand through his hair, unable to meet my eyes. "I got it off, the flour, I mean," he said, voice low. "Anyway, you got it from here, right? I'm going to go see if my mom needs help with anything." He glanced at me. "I'll see you later."

I couldn't say anything as he quickly brushed past me and out of the kitchen, leaving me confused.

I didn't just imagine that moment between us, right?

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Author's Note: I'm sorry this chapter is super short, I just had a period of writer's block and I wanted to at least post something. I'm definitely going to keep updating this story, so look forward to more!

Thank you for reading and remember to vote if you liked it!