Still, Nora smiles at me.
God, she’s even more beautiful than I remember, and it’s only been a week since I’ve seen her.
Nora grabs the milk and walks over to the fridge. “You missed the most epic baking fail. Tessa added whipped cream instead of whipping cream to the scone recipe.”
“We said that was going to be a secret,” Tessa grumbles playfully. She looks at me. “The dough fell flat.”
“Yeah. After the scones burned,” Nora says over her shoulder.
I think I like how comfortable she seems to be feeling here. I like that she walks with ease through the kitchen, her back straight and her full mouth partly smiling, relaxed. She opens the fridge and places the milk inside. I look away when she bends over to grab a pitcher full of cold water from the bottom shelf. I try not to let my mind linger on the tightness of her white pants. They aren’t quite sweats, but they aren’t really yoga pants either. I don’t care what they are: her ass looks incredible with the fabric stretched over it, accentuating the melon shape.
She’s wearing a long-sleeved baseball-style shirt, the arms of which are a different color from the body, and her deep-blue sleeves are pushed up to her elbows. Her thick, dark hair is pulled up into a high ponytail and her socks have little cartoon bacon and eggs printed on them. The skin of her stomach is showing, but I refuse to look, knowing I won’t be able to stop.
Nora walks over to the oven and pulls out a tray of biscuits, or maybe they’re scones? Probably scones. I typically don’t care for them; Grind sells only incredibly healthy scones that taste like olive-oil-covered grains baked into wheatgrass bread. Not for me.
My mom’s professional-level skills as a baker ruined me for anybody else’s cookies or cakes. Our house was always full of sweets, which is probably why I was a pudgy kid. I have to work a little harder than normal people to be able to eat the things I like without putting on weight. It took me a while to realize that, but I’m glad I did. I remember how it felt when the assholes at my high school stopped having a reason to make fun of my weight—not that they didn’t find another reason to treat me like shit—but I felt lighter, mentally and physically, and I started gaining a confidence I’d never felt before.
Tessa and Nora have been in the kitchen every day this week, but I’ve been hiding in my room, trying to get my school assignments done and just plain crashing after work. Even in my dreams I hear the displeased customers’ voices as they stare at the menu board on the wall.
“Um, do you have, like, Frappuccinos here? Like Starbucks?”
“Why don’t you have cashew milk?”
“What’s the difference between a cappuccino and a latte?”
I only worked three hours tonight, but this week has exhausted me. As tired as I am, though, I don’t think I want to hide in my room tonight. I want to talk to Tessa, and even to Nora. I hate the way my chest tightens when she looks at me, the way her eyes always catch mine. I’m making a choice to be social tonight. It’s nice for me to engage with people, even if it’s just the two of them.
Nora takes the scones off of the hot pan and places them on a cooling rack. They smell like blueberries. I sit down at the small three-person table and watch Nora move around the room. She picks up a plastic bag full of yellow goo and twists the end, creating a puffy triangle of creamy icing. She places a small metal tip on the pointy end and squeezes the icing on top of each scone.
Nora says something about how icing makes scones taste better, but I’m too busy trying to make sure my eyes don’t linger on her ass for a beat too long to really pay attention.
I’m also suddenly struck with the question of whether I should stay out here with them or not. I don’t want to be in the way.
“How was work?” Tessa asks.
She dips her finger into a bowl of thick batter, speckled with blue chunks. Blueberries, maybe? Her mouth opens and she pops her finger into her mouth.
I look over at Nora, who’s pushing up her sleeves again. Which leads me to notice the material at the bottom of the shirt. It looks like it’s been cut with scissors to reveal the bottom four inches of her abdomen.