Page 96 of Double Shot

“Oh, is this the pickleball thing?” Klaus asked. “It sounds fun! I’ve never played.”

“Yeah, well.” Dan didn’t look too convinced. “I think Vince is going to work on Holt to get him to take us out for drinks after, so at least there’s that.”

He and Rafe finally left, waving goodbye as they headed down the porch steps and cut right across the front lawn to go back home next door.

Klaus closed and locked the door and turned to face me, grinning playfully. “I have a surprise for you.”

I blinked. “Yeah?”

He nodded, coming toward me and taking my hand to lead me back into the kitchen. “I made something after you left earlier.”

“Made something?”

He led me to the kitchen island, then let go of my hand so he could make his way to the fridge. After grabbing the handle, he paused, then opened the fridge door with an extravagant flourish.

“Ta-da!”

I stared at the… thing taking up an entire shelf of the fridge. A lopsided brown mound, lumpy and textured on the top, the whole thing tilting precariously to one side. It looked like… Well, I didn’t really want to say what it looked like.

“Oh!” I tried to inject as much enthusiasm as I possibly could into my voice, but I was pretty sure I failed spectacularly. “It looks… amazing.”

I still wasn’t entirely sure what ‘it’ was, so I clammed up after that, too scared that I’d guess wrong and make him feel bad. Even so, my reaction didn’t seem to be what Klaus had anticipated. His brows twitched into a hurt little frown. He turned his head to look at the thing himself and froze.

“Oh no,” he gasped, a hand flying up to cover his mouth. “Fuck.”

“I’m sure it…” I trailed off, because I had no idea where I’d even been heading with that sentence when I started it.

Klaus turned back to me, flushed and looking genuinely devastated, which made my chest feel too tight. “Fuck,” he repeated hoarsely. “It’s because I rushed it. I tried to get it all done before you got back, so I put the frosting on when the sponges were still a little warm… okay, they were still hot. But then I put it straight in the fridge so I figured it would be okay!”

In a rush, I remembered Klaus telling me on one of our dates that he wanted to make me a chocolate cake when he was in his new place.

“I’m sure it still tastes amazing,” I said quickly, taking a stilted step forward because I didn’t know whether he wanted me to comfort him right now or not.

Unfortunately, that just gave me a better view of the cake mound in the fridge. The texture on the top looked worse from here. Lumpy, almost grainy… a little like rice pudding. I had very bad memories of having to eat rice pudding as a kid and nearly throwing it straight back up.

“And I didn’t let the butter soften completely before I made the frosting.” Klaus must have just noticed the same thing I had. He was starting to sound a little tearful. “Fuck, it’s a complete mess.”

“It’s not! And anyway, it’ll still taste good.” If we just ignored the appearance and blocked out the texture.

I started to sweat a little. I got weird about certain textures. Fuck. Okay. I could do this. For Klaus. I’d eat the rice pudding frosting on the shit-shaped mound for Klaus.

“M-maybe it will.” At least I seemed to have managed to make Klaus feel a little better. He reached into the fridge and carefully picked up the cake plate, then slowly turned to set it on the island.

He only made it halfway before the top of the mound slid off the bottom layer completely. It drooped off the side of the plate, covering the back of his hand in lumpy brown frosting, then dropped to the floor, where it splattered over the side of the counter, the freezer door, and Klaus’s legs.

He froze in horror, still holding the plate, staring vacantly at the remaining mound in his hands.

Wincing, I took another step closer and reached out. “Klaus—”

I flinched when he burst into tears.

“I just w-wanted to do this for you tonight s-so it was s-special,” he sobbed. “I w-worked so hard to get it done in time.”

“Baby, it’s okay.” I took the plate out of his hands, put it on the island, then set my hands on his shoulders to gently steer him away from the mess all over the floor. I was desperately trying to think of anything I could do to stop him crying. The sight of it was making my chest feel like it was being torn open from the inside. “Klaus, it’s—It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does,” he wailed, clutching big fistfuls of my T-shirt and getting chocolate frosting all over it.

“Why don’t we make another one right now?” I asked desperately. “It’s… it’s not that late…”