“Waffle bar?” He didn’t have a clue what that was, but he supposed he’d learn soon enough. “And you made marshmallows yourself?”

“Well, yeah. I wanted the egg shape, so homemade was the way to go. Anyway, let’s melt the chocolate so we can get these out of the way.”

Keiran had never heard of anyone actually making marshmallows from scratch. He knew about buying them from the store, so he stared at Cherisse as she instructed him on melting the chocolate, then how to cover the eggs. The tiny, from-scratch, egg-shaped marshmallows. He couldn’t get over that as he did as she instructed and dipped an egg into the chocolate. How did you even make marshmallows?

“Keiran, focus!” Cherisse snapped. “Your egg is dripping.”

Sure enough, he’d forgotten to let the excess chocolate drip into the bowl before moving it to the parchment-lined baking sheet.

“Shit, sorry, I’ll clean up.”

“Nope, just keep going. I’ll get it.”

Cherisse was a drill sergeant in her kitchen. As soon as they completed one thing from the list, she checked it off and had already ensured the next item was prepped and ready to go. Keiran’s eyes went round at the photo of the cake they were about to attempt, a multi-colored four-layer mini cake, with some sort of cream in the middle of each layer, and on top, a bunny nose and ears.

“How many of these are we making?”

Cherisse’s grin was a little evil. “Enough for about one hundred people or so.”

Keiran groaned. His energy was already lagging. Working in the studio until late meant he’d gotten two hours’ sleep before making it over here. Which Cherisse wouldn’t care to hear. It was his own damn fault for underestimating this entire process. Despite her grumpy moment before her coffee, Cherisse had gotten increasingly animated as she’d explained everything and instructed him on what they were doing. Her love for baking was clear, and he truly hadn’t anticipated the work that went into this.

“Not quite the popping frozen items in an oven for a few minutes you anticipated, huh?” she said, casually throwing his ill-advised words to that blogger back at him.

“Yeah, I—”

She waved away his words. “It’s squashed. I just couldn’t resist. Now, batter time.”

By the time the different colored layers of cake were in the oven, Keiran was somehow covered in flour while Cherisse looked fresh as ever. They were both wearing aprons, but Keiran was so clearly out of his depth here that it hadn’t mattered.

“Uh, you have a little flour there.” She reached out to wipe at his cheek, and Keiran froze. Cherisse snatched her hand back. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that without your permission.”

“It’s fine.” A lie, because that tiny touch had felt like fire trailing across his skin. He was too tired to shield himself against Cherisse this early in the morning. His defenses were down.

They’d called a truce, but Cherisse willingly touching him like that was an anomaly. Perhaps her defenses were down too. He didn’t know what had prompted that move, but the awkwardness was growing, so he pointedly asked, “Frosting’s next?”