by Simon Archer
“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Deity apologized. “White willow bark is great for reducing pain and inflammation, but it can have a harsh taste.”
“It’s okay,” I said with my tongue hanging out. “I’m okay.”
“Well, you have to swallow it for the bark to work,” Deity said through a giggle.
I managed to get the piece of bark down my throat, regretfully. “What do you want to torture me with next?”
“You don’t have to eat this one, I promise.” Then, she scooped a finger into the bowl of orange paste. She held out two fingers towards me. “I’m going to touch your face now, okay?”
I nodded, granting her permission. Deity leaned forward and smoothed the paste over the bridge of my nose. Her touch was delicate, careful. She knew exactly where my weakest points were and grazed them only with the lightest of touches, like a feather caught in a whimsical breeze.
I could smell her through the sharp tang of the paste. Natural aromas of honey and nectarines burst forth and stroked the inside of my nose. For the first time since I’d broken my nose, my sense of smell seemed to help rather than hurt that appendage. I could have inhaled her all night long.
With her this close to me, an urge rose inside me. I wanted to tuck that strand of hair behind her ear. That was all, something soft and innocent. To show her I cared, but that I was too nervous to go any further. I could leave it there, with the ball in her court to make the next move.
I talked myself up to reaching out, to making the simple gesture when Deity pulled back unexpectedly.
“There,” she declared. “The tumeric and green tea combo should also help with the swelling around your eyes. You’ll look a little orange for the next day or so, but it’s better than black and purple.”
“Depends on who you ask,” I countered, swallowing my disappointment as she moved farther away from me. She cleaned up her concoctions and placed the jars back in their original sections.
Deity leaned forward on the counter across from me, arms spread out wide as she gripped the edges. “I like the orange. It suits you.”
“I always thought black was sexy,” I said rather clumsily. The words tumbled out of my mouth, and I was sure I looked the fool.
Deity confirmed my suspicions when she glanced down at the counter, her face a flush of red. Or wait… was that a smile she was hiding?
I got to my feet, intending to cross over towards her when my stomach roared. It slushed around, demanding to be heard.
Deity’s eyebrows shot up to the edge of her hairline. “Was that your stomach?”
“Yeah,” I murmured.
“It sounded like a wild boar or something,” Deity commented with wide eyes. “Wait, did you not eat dinner?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Deity said as she slapped the counter definitively. “Let me whip you up something. What do you want? Those cheesy noodles? Or the curly fries?”
“Actually,” I said sheepishly, “Barth’s got me on a strict diet because of the--”
“Training, gotcha.” Deity supplied. She tapped the counter, her fingernails clicking randomly. “I’ve got you covered.”
“You do?”
“Yep,” Deity said with an award-winning smile. “I’m going to make you cookies.”
“Cookies?” I questioned. “I don’t think cookies are on Barth’s approved list.”
“These will be,” Deity promised. She wagged her eyebrows up and down suggestively. “And they will taste delicious.”
“How are you going to manage that?” I wondered, slightly skeptical.
“Magic,” she teased. “Come, help me.”
I froze by the table and refused to come closer. “Oh no, you don’t want that.”
“Sure, I do, that’s why I asked,” Deity said as she waved me over. “Come on.”
“No, really, you don’t,” I said with as much conviction I could muster. “I’m hopeless in the kitchen.”
“Now, who told you that?” Deity asked, resuming that one hand on the hip pose. She had no idea how alluring that position was, and I swallowed to make sure I could answer her appropriately.
“My mother.”
“Well,” Deity said slowly. “I’m sure your mother was a very intelligent woman, but I believe anyone can find their place in the kitchen. I promise you’re not hopeless.” She held out her hand to me. “Come on.”
I wanted to walk the three feet towards her and take her hand, if for no other reason than to feel the warmth of her touch. The space between us seemed like a cavern. There as a reason the kitchen remained dusty and unused. I had always been too big for it. After countless crushed glasses and spilled recipes, my mother had eventually banished me to the outdoors. It wasn’t a harsh or true banishment, but as a kid, I learned that my place was far from the kitchen.
When I didn’t move, Deity walked around the counter and stood in front of me. She closed the gap between us and held out her hand again.
“Come on, Rico,” Deity said with a wink. “Let me show you what I can do.”
I thought about her invitation, how it almost seemed like a favor to her. Like she was opening a door and asking me to walk through. Walking through the door seemed a lot easier than baking cookies. I wanted to get to know her so badly, and this was the opportunity to do so. I wasn’t one to miss an opening if I could help it.
So I inhaled and took her hand.
13
Deity squeezed my hand and led me to the other side of the counter, officially crossing the threshold into the kitchen.
We stood there for a moment, holding hands. I gazed down at her and met her eyes, surprised to find she was looking up at me too.
“See?” she said with a bright smile. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
“No,” I admitted.
Deity released me, and I felt in freefall without her touch. I didn’t think I could become addicted to something so quickly. I enjoyed the thrill her touch brought me. It made my heart race, my skin tingle, and my hair stand on end. It was as close to the exhilaration of fighting that I had ever gotten.
And that notion alone terrified me.
Deity read the horror on my face and misinterpreted it. “There’s no reason to be that scared, Rico, but I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No,” I corrected. “No, I want to at least try. Or watch. Or help, if you’ll let me.”
The words fell from my mouth like leaves from a tree, except with none of the beauty and grace. That was all Deity as she pulled out each of the ingredients to make our flour and sugar-free cookies.
“It sounds like you're taking out all of the good stuff,” I commented when she explained the recipe to me.
“Not taking it out completely,” she chided. “Just replacing it with healthier options. The sugar is natural, like what you would get from fruit. And the flour is made from almonds.”
“How does that work?” I questioned. “I mean, I grow wheat. There is a flour mill right on this very farm, and I had no idea you could get flour from almonds.”
Deity shook her head and laughed. “You grind the almonds down without their skins until it gets so fine, just like flour. See?”
She popped open a jar, the lid coming off with a click. Deity, then, shook out a little onto her hand. She held it out for me to examine. Sure enough, it was as fine as the flour I processed just acres from here.
“That’s amazing,” I marveled.
“Right?” Deity’s face lit up at my amazement. “Let’s get started. Can you get me a bowl, and do you know how to crack an egg?”
Deity was a no-nonsense baker. She ordered me about the kitchen like a general in the army, and I willfully listened to her every instruction. For some unknowable reason, she made it easy to follow her instructions. They were simple, direct.
“This is so different from cooking with my mom,” I commented offhandedly when we were rolling the dough into bite
-sized balls.
“Well, I would hope so,” Deity joked.
My cheeks reddened at the thought that I might have insulted her by comparing the experience to one with my mom. But then Deity plowed on, seemingly undisturbed.
“Baking isn’t the same as cooking,” she continued.
“You said that at the inn,” I said, remembering it as she repeated the words. “Why is that?”
“Baking is a science, cooking is an art,” Deity said like it was a mantra she repeated to herself daily. Maybe she did. “I’m a scientist. There are measurements and timing and not a whole lot of improvisation if something goes wrong. With cooking, you can just throw stuff together and get something pretty decent. Baking, though, is a whole different thing. I hate how people compare the two. It takes similar skills, but they aren’t the same.”
“I swear to never compare the two again,” I said, hoping she could hear the smile in my voice. “So, why do you prefer baking over cooking?”
“Because there is a right way and a wrong way to make elven cheese bread. There is a system to it.” Deity yanked out more dough from the bowl and rolled it delicately between her palms. “I can still experiment, sure, within the lines. I get to experiment with flavors, but there is a base set of rules to follow. I like to know that when I mix sugar, eggs, butter, and flour, I get a cupcake. Or a muffin, depending on how much sugar I add.”
“Mmm, muffins,” I muttered, thinking back to her pumpkin muffins which were the last pastry I had since starting this training.
Deity laughed. “We’re almost ready to pop these into the oven. Soon, you will be snacking on the healthiest cookies around.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” I shot her a smile, but she didn’t catch it. Deity was too busy, too focused on the size of the dough balls.
I coughed and searched for another question to ask her. “So, what do you want to do with this?”
“What do you mean?” Deity spared me a side glance to let me know she was listening but continued to watch her hands as they spun round and round.
“I mean, what’s the goal?” I wondered. “You obviously love baking, you’re good at it as far as I can tell.”
“My pumpkin muffins were that convincing, huh?” Deity said playfully.
“You have no idea,” I replied honestly. “But I want to know, do you want to open a bakery, or is this something you just do for fun? It seems like more than that, though.”
“It is,” Deity answered, her voice lower than it had been all night. Suddenly, she stopped her rolling and let the ball linger in her hands. She leaned back and stared at the wood-beamed ceiling. “I tried to open a bakery in the city.”
“You did?” I asked, baffled. “When?”
“A little over a year ago,” Deity replied to the ceiling. “But I couldn’t get the right papers.”
“I didn’t know you needed papers to bake,” I said, matching my volume to hers.
“You don’t,” Deity said. “Not technically, but you need the right papers, the right certification to be a baker. And only bakers can open bakeries in the city. See where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah,” I replied, though I was still confused, “but what’s stopping you from getting that certification?”
“I’m human,” Deity said with a small bob of her head. “I don’t have magic, and that’s one of the prerequisites.”
Sympathy, quickly followed by rage, attacked my stomach. It was already temperamental from the lack of food, but her disappointment and the injustice of her situation made it ache more.
My body stilled in response. I crushed the dough ball I had been holding, molding it to the shape of my hand until it oozed out through my fingers.
“That’s not fair,” I muttered, stating the obvious.
“It isn’t,” Deity said, “but I can’t change it. It is what it is. One of these days, though, I’m going to force-feed those people in charge of issuing certifications one of my pastries, and then maybe they’ll let me into the classes.”
I rolled the smashed dough back out onto the counter which was filled with flour. I concentrated all my efforts on rolling the soon-to-be cookie back and forth. Little did Deity know how much I understood her plight. I struggled with what to say next, how to tell her that I knew exactly how she felt. Probably more than others.
However, Deity reached up to her neck, the same gesture she’d done back when I’d offered her the kitchen. A little puff of flour landed on her collarbone, but she ignored it as she grabbed at something that wasn’t there. Another question popped into my head, distracting me from our shared frustration with the elves and their magic-centric rules.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” Deity asked as she came out of her daze long enough to look me in the eye.
I mimicked the motion, using my own hand. “That.”
“Oh.” Deity looked down and tapped her sternum before putting her hand back on the counter. “I had this necklace for a really long time, but I lost it recently. I guess I haven’t gotten used to it being gone.”
“That sucks,” I sympathized. “Was it important to you?”
“Not really,” Deity said, but then she paused and adjusted her answer. “It was at one point. It was from a former boyfriend, and I probably should have taken it off when we broke up, but I liked it too much.”
“Ah,” I said, swallowing my next question. I didn’t really want to hear about Deity’s previous relationships. They didn’t matter to me except for the fact that all of them were in the past, and she was currently a single woman.
“I think we should put these things in the oven, don’t you?” Deity said with a smile that didn’t reach all the way to her eyes. The sharp inhale she took seemed to be a clear sign that she wanted to change the subject.
“You’re the baker,” I stated plainly. “I’m following your lead.”
“Then I say we put these in the oven and clean up so we can enjoy our treats in peace,” Deity commanded.
I lifted my hand to my forehead and saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
Deity released a hearty laugh. “You have flour on your forehead.”
“I do?” I lowered my hand and realized she was right. My hand was still coated in flour which made sense that it was now on my forehead. Where I had touched it with my flour-covered hand.
“Here,” Deity said as she reached up and flicked the flour away with her thumb.
Before she could touch me, however, I grabbed her wrist. “You’ll just make it worse,” I said as I brought her hand back down so she could see the flour dusting her own fingers.
Heat surged through my fingers as it radiated off her skin. The buzz continued all the way to my gut and further down. The desire to have her closer to me, to feel that heat all over my body, overwhelmed me. Deity left her wrist in my hand, and her eyes caught up in mine.
I drank her in. With her round cheeks and wide eyes. The gorgeous art that ran along her arms. Each curve rolling off her body. The woman was beautiful, even with her messy, tangled hair and spots of white flour peppering her skin.
“Cookies, oven,” she murmured low, with a series of rapid blinks.
I released her wrist and watched as she scooped up the trays. She slid each one into the fire, each on its own rack. My gaze wandered down her backside and admired her all over again from this alternate angle.
Deity spun around unexpectedly and said, “Now we wait. Our job is done for the moment.”
She clapped her hands together, and clouds of flour bloomed in the air between us. I turned away with a cough while Deity groaned.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, her voice rising as she spilled out the apology. “I didn’t mean to get more on you.”
“That’s okay,” I choked out. I waved my hand in front of us, so the rest of the powder would dissipate. Then, I scooped up a little spare flour on the counter and flicked it onto Deity. “There, now we’re even.”
Deity’s mouth h
ung open in pretend shock as she glanced down at her chest which now had a cloud of flour across it. It highlighted the curve of her breasts, and I couldn’t help but think of how much had gone down her shirt and now splattered across more intimate places on her body.
The baker scoffed indignantly. She pulled over a stool and made a show of standing above it so she could be at nearly the same height as me. She lifted her hands over my head and proceeded to clap flour from her hands into my hair.
I shook my head as the little flecks crawled down my shirt and onto my back. I squirmed uncomfortably and then backed out of the way. I gathered more flour as I went and tossed it without looking in Deity’s general direction. A large plop landed on the floor.
Still taking it as a direct attack, Deity squealed and took another fistful. She held up her elbow threateningly.
“No, no, no!” I pleaded as she lobbed the flour towards me.
I ducked behind the counter on the other side, away from Deity. From her high place on the stool, she threw fistful after fistful over the counter. The white powder spread out on the kitchen floor, raining down over me. Despite my crouching, I managed to get enough to turn my hair white and dusty.
I rounded the corner of the counter and came up to Deity. I grabbed her around the middle, where she splatted the last handful directly into my back as I hoisted her over my shoulder.
“Put me down!” she said through fits of laughter. “Put me down!”
I did just that. Though, since Deity didn’t specify where she wanted to be set down, I plopped her right in the center of the flour on the floor where one of her failed shots resided. I made sure to be gentle as I set her on her ass, where a cloud of flour flew up around her.
Deity’s playful laughs turned into violent coughs, and I crouched down to check on her. “You okay?”
Suddenly, another puff of flour burst between the two of us. When the white cloud faded, we were inches from one another, with her sitting on the ground and me kneeling before her.
I caught her magnificent hazel eyes again and lost myself in them. I was a little breathless from the adrenaline of the flour fight but found my lungs still gasping for air as I stared at her. Flour dusted her eyelashes like frozen ice dangling from a tree branch. Her bright, plump lips poked through the intense white, slightly open.
