As mentioned last week, I recently received a short Wilfair fic from a reader. Uhhhh, exciting! I'm thrilled.
And she's kindly letting me post it here.
It can be a challenge to put yourself out there creatively, and since this is her first public toe-dip into Wilfic, she's going to sit on the sidelines for now, name-wise. That may change! I leave it to her.
Here's part one. I'll post the second and final part in a couple of days.
Did
It Feel Good to Mix Things Up?
“I don’t think we should, like, be here.”
“It’s
your hotel, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.”
“And
the kitchen is part of the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“So
it’s your kitchen, too.”
“Um.
I guess so.”
“Good.
You’ll need to help me find everything.”
I
leaned uneasily against the countertop, chewing on the edge of my thumbnail,
and watched as Gomery strode confidently to The Wilfair’s walk-in refrigerator,
pulled open the stainless steel door, and disappeared inside. Despite his assurances,
I couldn’t shake the fear that someone was about to catch us on our illicit
midnight baking adventure and that when that happened, I was going to be in big
trouble. Trouble with whom, I didn’t exactly know, but that didn’t help me feel
any less nervous.
I
was so lost in my thoughts that the sound of a door opening nearly made me jump
out of my skin. I looked around the kitchen in panic before realizing it was
just the refrigerator. Gomery poked his head out, his glasses fogging thickly
as he did so. “Fair? Could you give me a hand in here?”
Still
warily casting glances around the kitchen in case someone was hiding in a
corner, waiting to catch us, I followed my partner in cookie-baking crime.
“Brr. It’s cold in here. I mean, of course it’s cold. It’s, like, a
refrigerator. Its purpose is to keep food cold. I just. Um. Never mind. What
did you need?”
“Butter,”
Gomery replied. “I already found the eggs.” He paused. “You know, if Monty were
here, he would probably make that into a joke, seeing as you, well, have eggs,
of a sort, yourself.” He paused again and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Er.
I kind of ran that into the ground, didn’t I?”
I
wrinkled my own nose and shrugged. “A little. It doesn’t matter. Anyway,
there’s the butter.” I pointed to a shelf to the right and slightly above our
heads. Gomery reached up easily and brought down a stick of butter in its waxed
paper wrapper. As he handed it to me, his fingertips brushed mine. I could feel
all the hairs standing up on my arms, but I didn’t know if that was from his
touch or from the refrigeration. I wondered if his arm hairs were standing up
as well. Then I wondered why arm hairs did that. Why did goosebumps happen? And
why were they called goosebumps, anyway?
“Uh,
Fair?” Gomery prodded gently. “Do you think we should maybe go back in the
kitchen where it’s warm?”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I
was just thinking about, uh, goosebumps, and I forgot where we were. Anyway...”
I spun around and led the way out of the refrigerator.
Gomery followed,
carrying the carton of eggs. “Did you know, goosebumps are a vestigial
structure? Like your appendix. Other mammals can fluff up their fur when
they’re cold or threatened, but we humans don’t have the same thick fur that
they do. Well, most of us don’t, anyway.” I remembered the man with the chest
pelt I’d helped at The Redwoodian, and I could tell my current companion was
remembering the same thing. He cleared his throat. “Um. In case you were
wondering.”
“Not everyone has their
appendix, either,” I added.
Gomery smiled. “That’s
true. But I do.”
“Me, too.” I set the
butter on the countertop. “So. What else do we need?”
“Let’s see. Flour.
Sugar. Vanilla. Cream of tartar. Baking soda.” He held up a hand and counted
off the ingredients on his fingers as he listed them. “Oh, and we’ll need a
mixer, of course, and a spatula and a mixing bowl.”
“Like that?” I asked,
pointing to the large stand mixer in the corner of the kitchen.
“Well, that will work,
for sure, but I’d rather use a hand mixer, if we can find one. I think that
might be easier for you to handle, seeing as it’s your first time.”
“Hmm,” I hummed,
thinking. “Between the two of us, you’re the expert here, so I want to make
sure you have everything you want.”
“Everything?” He raised
one eyebrow teasingly.
“Everything you want
for baking cookies,” I clarified with
an eye roll as I began to open cabinets. Together, we managed to hunt up all
the ingredients and tools that Gomery had specified.
When I looked at
everything spread out before us on the countertop, I began to feel a little
overwhelmed. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Oh, absolutely. I’m
the expert, remember?”
“But it seems like
there are so many variables. I’m going to screw it up.”
“We’ll take it one step
at a time. It’ll work out in the end, trust me.” Gomery’s voice was easy and
confident.
“All right.” I still
felt unsure, but I didn’t want him to know that.
“Now what?”
“Now, if we were doing
everything absolutely properly, we’d wait for the butter to warm up and soften
on its own. But frankly, I’m feeling a little impatient tonight, and it’ll make
very little difference in the final outcome anyway, so we’re going to speed
things along a bit.” He strode across the kitchen to the microwave. “Just don’t
tell anyone about this.”
“If we were doing
everything absolutely properly, we wouldn’t be here, in our pajamas, at” – I checked the wall
clock – “nearly one o’clock in
the morning.”
“That’s true,” Gomery
replied. “But I think in cases such as this one, a little impropriety doesn’t
hurt.” He dumped the softened stick of butter into the mixing bowl, then picked
up the mixer. As he rotated the blades to fit into their sockets, the muscles
in his forearm flexed. Not entirely unlike the way they did when he turned a
stubborn valve on an ancient steam boiler. I felt my head start to go damp as
it often did when I thought too intently about Gomery’s forearms.
Focus,
I reminded myself.
I shifted my attention to watching how he held the spatula
in one hand and used it to scrape the side of the bowl while he manipulated the
mixer with his other hand.
Watching his hands was,
of course, only marginally less exciting than the alternative.
To be continued...
