Page 60 of Rescue

“Let’s divide our custard into two pots,” John says. “And then we can gather around the stoves.”

Once we’re standing in front of the cooking top, John hands a whisk to Cash. “Here you go,” he says. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“Oh, I can’t cook,” Cash says quickly, trying to hand the whisk back, but the chef only laughs.

“Which is why you’re taking the class.” He holds out another whisk. “I need another volun—”

Before anyone can respond, Paige is grabbing the whisk and walking to the other stove at Cash’s side.

“Okay,” John says, sounding slightly bemused. “The goal here is to keep the custard in constant movement. If you allow the mixture to be still in any one spot, we’ll get burns. We want zero burns.” He grins at Cash. “So you’re going to have to use all your arm strength.”

Cash snickers. “Dude. I play guitar. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Let’s get started then.”

John turns the heat on under the pans and instructs Paige and Cash in how to stir the custard. “Good,” he says. “Now you only have to do that for two more minutes.”

“No problem,” Cash mutters. But after thirty seconds or so, his face starts to tighten.

“What’s the matter, babe?” Sam calls cheerfully. “Your arm getting tired?”

“No,” he says, his voice tight. “It’s just… a repetitive movement.”

Daltrey snorts. “Then you should be really good at it.”

Daisy smacks his arm. “Don’t be crude.”

Now that Cash has hinted that he might be having difficulties, the guys have no choice but to trash talk him. Paige happily joins in. Her face is smooth and unlined as she whisks her custard, apparently having no issues with her arm aching.

“Okay, twenty more seconds,” John says.

“Think you can handle it, Cash?” Reed calls.

“You look tired, buddy,” Levi says. “Sure you don’t want to give up? There’s no shame in losing to a girl.”

Paige smiles at him over the stove. “No shame at all.”

“Will you all please shut up?” he growls, right as John calls time and pulls the two pans from the heat.

“Okay, here’s the moment of truth,” he says, pouring the custard from the pans into two glass bowls. “If we see any scorch marks on the side of the pan we’ll know that we have some burning.” As Paige’s mixture fills the bowl, he smiles at her. “Good, Paige. Very little scorch mark right here, but nothing major. This will be a good custard.” She beams and turns to Cash, eyebrows raised. “Now, Cash,” John says, pouring his custard into the next bowl. “Well, look at that. Not a single scorch mark. That’s just about perfect.”

Cash gives Paige a huge smirk. “Don’t worry. There’s no shame in losing to a rock star.”

She’s still glowering at him when we return to our seats. “He’s asking for trouble,” Karen mutters.

John gets the custard in the cooler to set then instructs us on how to mix and knead our dough, a process which consists of rolling the dough into a ball before slamming it into the counter top. Soon the room is filled with the noise of dough slapping against marble. “Your brothers seem to enjoy this part,” Haylee says. It’s the first thing she’s said to me since her attempted apology earlier, and I feel a flash of guilt for being so cold. But then I follow her eyes around the room, and I have to laugh. She’s right—my brothers are taking great glee in slamming their dough around.

“Dylan and Lance are into it too,” I say, nodding at their table.

She smirks. “Guess it’s a guy thing.”

Once our dough is properly elastic, John shows us how to layer it with the butter we rolled out earlier. It’s an involved process including a lot of rolling and layering. To keep our dough from sticking, he teaches us a method of flinging flour to the counter surface. It involves a little flick of the wrist to get the flour to spread evenly, and I’m terrible at it.

“No, like this,” Haylee says, laughing. She has the flicking movement down pretty good, and I try again, attempting to copy her, but my flour lands on the table in a clump.

“Daltrey!” Daisy squeals. “You’re getting flour all over me!”

She isn’t exaggerating. She has a huge swath of flour down her shirt. Daltrey takes one look at her and starts laughing, causing Daisy to take a handful of flour and flick it right into his hair.