Life Happens | ONC 2024

Chapter 4

❅ Halloween.

LEX

"Blend and whisk." I pronounce over my batter with my wooden spoon like a flick and swish pertaining to Hermoine Granger.

"We're not in Hogwarts, Lex." Blanche hollers from the other side of the kitchen. "Keep the spell learning to a minimum and help me get these Halloween themed goodies ready."

I'm wearing one of her ridiculously frilly aprons and I'm elbow deep in cupcake batter. "You're taking all my fun away." Mumbling, I focus on pouring and putting a new batch in the oven.

The good thing about knowing each other for so long is that I can follow a recipe and I'm not the worst baking help whenever Blanche needs me. Before opening up her store, I was her guinea pig for all the recipes that she came up with.

I'm totally not complaining, just glad I have my bicycle to take me everywhere to burn off all those extra calories. Her sweets are just that good.

On theme holidays, like Halloween tonight, Hotcakes has a lot of orders as Blanche's creations are widely popular in town. From the stories I've heard from the Sawyers over the years, her mother had the same effect. People just orbited her warmth and sugary creations.

I know I am. Can't blame other people for doing the same.

"We need to get this done before opening," Blanche fuzzes, checking the timer on the oven for it to willingly ding at command and speed her process up.

I huff loudly. She is a walking nervous wreck. "You have enough time–we're even ahead." I motion to everything that is already packed and ready for pickup.

Wiping her floury hands on her apron, she marches to the back door when Marisol knocks.

Is it already 6 am?

"Blanquita," Marisol whooshes inside the kitchen, and stops when she sees me, complete with oven mitts. "And Lex." Her hands end up on her hips and she puts on her stern mom's face she has perfected on her kids. "Did she rope you into coming to help at fuck o'clock in the morning?"

This woman has no filter at all.

"Oh, come on." Blanche protested. "I told him to be here at the same hour as you."

There is some staring competition going on between the two ladies and I decide to diffuse the situation.

"But I came earlier anyway—or you'd be drowning in batter by yourself," I interjected, taking off the mitts. I can't help throwing her a subtle jab while I put my glasses back on the bridge of my nose. "Shouldn't you be saying thank you, Lex, instead?"

Marisol howls, laughing. While she ties on her apron, her dark curls spill out a bit from under the health code obligated hairnet, but not much can be done about taming her lion's mane.

Blanche reaches me from her working station and hits me straight with her wooden spoon, batter splattering over the freaky googly eyes of the cartoon cupcake, and I jump away. "I'm not stroking your ego, Todd."

"I have to go to the office from here. Don't get the clothes dirty, Sawyer." I wink, putting emphasis on the word dirty.

"Basta, you two," Marisol says sternly as she tries to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Keep up the energy. You're going to need it for the buttercream piping on the Jack-o'-lantern cupcakes."

Taking that as the cue for my next task, I switch stations to check if the cupcakes have cooled down enough to apply the frosting. I'm not the best decorator, but I guess if I lose my job at the paper it's sufficient to earn a pity hire from Blanche.