to spread the icing between the layers, sandwich them together, and then cover the cake with the rest of the icing. But you’ll want to make it smooth. The icing needs to completely cover the cake, and I don’t want to see any crumbs in it when you’re finished.”
She demonstrated how to do it. “All right, let’s see you two do that with these two layers.” She removed them from the counter behind us. Now I understood why we had created so much buttercream frosting. I hadn’t expected us to create an army of cakes.
Roxy had made frosting the cake look so easy.
That was nothing more than an illusion.
The sleight of hand.
Because in real life—when it came to Eli’s and my attempt—things didn’t go quite as smoothly (pun intended).
“That doesn’t look as flat as Roxy’s,” he said after I sliced off the domed top from two of the layers. Roxy had left us for a few minutes while she checked on how things were going up front.
I studied it. “Sure it is. It’s no longer bumpy. I just gave it a bit of a slope. Like a bunny ski hill.”
“So we’re making a bunny-hill cake?” Eli’s mouth twisted into his trademarked sexy smirk, sending my heart tripping over a speed bump and losing control of itself.
I lifted my chin, mentally reminding the vital organ of the bucket list. “Sure. Maybe instead of fondant flowers, Roxy can teach us to make cute little marzipan bunnies.”
“I bet Abby would love that. If my sister let her, Abby would fill the house with baby animals.”
“That’s so sweet. She’s so sweet. She’s the reason you volunteer with the recreational program for kids and teens with intellectual disabilities, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “I love that the program helps them develop confidence. I’ve been working with them ever since Abby was a toddler. She used to giggle and chase the tennis ball when I knocked it around with the toy hockey stick. She’s always been one of my biggest fans.”
“Has she ever been to one of your NHL games?”
“Yup. My sister has brought her to San Francisco a few times to see me play. The guys on the team nicknamed her their mascot because we win every time she comes to a game. They always get a kick out of it when she visits the dressing room because she can be quite bossy. But she has an incredible heart, and they know it.”
I scooped frosting onto a cake layer and spread it across the surface. Crumbs mixed into the frosting, and I frowned. They weren’t as noticeable as they would have been if the cake had been chocolate, but either way, they weren’t supposed to be there.
“I think you were supposed to brush the crumbs off first.”
“Oops. Forgot that part.”
He picked up the top layer, brushed it free of the pesky crumbs, and set it onto the bottom one.
“It’s not quite as level as it probably should be. Maybe I should have spread more frosting on the one side.”
Eli carefully peeled the top from the cake, and I added a little more frosting to the slanted side.
As he lowered the layer into place, I ran my finger along the side of the bowl, scooping up a healthy dollop of frosting.
Thou be thy vengeance.
But instead of smearing it on his lips, I dragged my finger across his cheek, painting a pale-yellow stripe across it. I then added a symmetrical smear on his other cheek with the remaining frosting on my finger. “There you go,” I said, laughing. “Now we’re even.”
“I’m not sure how you think that’s being even.” His gaze landed on the measuring cup next to him.
The measuring cup that still had flour in it.
He grabbed it and tossed the contents at me before I had a chance to duck out of the way. I squealed as flour covered my face.
He chuckled. “Now you look like a ghost.”
I fisted my hands on my hips and tried to rearrange my face into a scowl, but I was having so much fun, my face didn’t want to cooperate.
Instead, I launched myself at him. But I was laughing so hard that all I managed to do was grab hold of his T-shirt as my boots slipped from under me.
We both went down.
Eli performed a graceful move midair and landed on the ground, with me on top of him. Our bodies became a tangle of limbs.
And suddenly, we were no longer laughing.
I gazed at him, my breath rapid. Only I had