Page 29 of Owning Emma
He pretended like he was ignoring me as he squeezed the piping bag. A glob of purple icing plopped onto the cupcake. “Yeah, your hair is beginning to look a bit . . . puffy.”
“Excuse me?” I picked up his cupcake, scrapped of his mess, and put it back in front of me. “You knew what you were getting this morning. Shaw warned you.”
He tried again, this time making less of a mess and more of a swirl. I picked it up, scraped it, and placed it back down as he spoke. “Shaw warns me about a lot of things, I rarely listen.”
He swirled it again, nearly perfect. “Why is that?”
“Why is what?” He grabbed another. “Hey, when do I get to add sprinkles?”
“Sprinkles are most definitely for the advanced and skilled professional.” I pulled an empty one in front of me and began to frost while keeping an eye on his work. “Why don’t you listen to his warnings?”
“I like to find shit out myself. I think I’m ready for sprinkles.” He pulled the sprinkle bowl toward him.
I pulled the bowl away. “You are definitely not ready for sprinkles.”
“How hard could it be, Em? It’s fucking sprinkles.” He pulled it back.
“No!” I didn’t want to admit that the reason I didn’t want him to do the sprinkles was because adding the sprinkles was my absolute favorite part of the whole process each morning.
We played a game of tug-a-war, each one pulling the bowl in their direction. Each unwilling to give in. “It’s seriously just sprinkles.”
“Then why are you arguing over them?” I pulled the bowl close, almost out of his reach.
“Because I want to finish off my masterpiece.” He growled, then pulled the bowl back.
“Damn it, just let me have them!” I grabbed the edge of the bowl again. “Applying sprinkles is my favorite part.”
He suddenly let go, and I jolted backwards the bowl of sprinkles shaking with me as it jumped into the air, the tiny pieces flying in all directions. We both stopped and stared in shock as the pieces fell to the floor, the table, the pastries. I turned to him, knowing full well anger and fire blazed in my eyes. “Look what you did!”
“Me? You wouldn’t let me put sprinkles on one damn cupcake!”
“It’s my favorite part!” I wailed as I looked at the mess that surrounded me. I fought back tears. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“You needed help.” He logically pointed out.
“Well, your help caused more work than it was worth. I should have taken Shaw or no one. He’s way better at the swirl than you are anyway.”
“You taught him the swirl?” He almost looked heartbroken at that. In truth, I didn’t. Shaw only went as far as dipping cookies in chocolate, nothing that required any technique at all.
“He excelled at it, just like he seems to excel at most everything,” I said, knowing it would get to him.
“He doesn’t excel at the swirl.” His voice lowered and held a bit of a growl.
“His were pure perfection.” I shouldn’t have taunted him, I know that now. But, in the moment, I couldn’t help myself from picking on Roman, trying to make him as equally mad and frustrated as he had just made me.
“Oh?” He picked up the frosting bag, and aimed it in my direction. “Is that so?”
I dared him to make the move with my eyes, knowing he wouldn’t do it. “Per-fec-tion.”
In retrospect, that was the wrong thing to say, only confirmed by the thick stream of purple frosting that slapped me in the neck and fell down the length of my body in a solid glob. I gasped, completely shocked that he had the nerve to spray me with frosting. I grabbed the blue frosting bag, aimed, and shot it directly at him, covering his white t-shirt and pink apron in globs of blue.
He stared at the blue on himself for a moment, before leaning down to the floor and picking up a handful of sprinkles, then smashed them into the mess on my shirt. My mouth gaped open at his audacity, until I grabbed a pile of sprinkles off the counter and smeared them on his shirt, feeling satisfaction in the way the blue frosting spread across the white of his clothing.
One moment we were looking at each other, both trying to figure out what happened, the next, we were in a battle, a full-on struggle, trying to get to the bowl of frosting that sat between us. Each time someone managed to get a hand, a finger, any body part they could into the bowl, they used it to spread the other’s body, face, hair. There was elbowing involved, kicking . . . mainly by me . . . and a whole lot of pushing and shoving until the bowl was completely out of frosting and I was caged in by his arms, his body pushed close as he reached over me, checking the bowl one last time.
I turned and put my back to the table, my front to Roman’s. His eyes roamed over me, a smirk slowly taking over his face as he took in my disheveled appearance. “You really should have showered this morning, Emma. You had plenty of time.”
I shoved at his large body, he hardly moved under my push, “I did shower, you jerk. You made a mess and it’s almost opening time.”