Chapter 7
Emily couldn’t believe that Abdul had brought her dinner. It was one of the sweetest gestures anyone had ever done for her. She almost hadn’t accepted his offer for dinner. Her heart had fluttered when she saw him at her door and she knew that if she sat and ate a dinner with him, if she allowed herself to get any closer to him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn back. But when she looked up into his deep brown eyes, there was no way she was going to say no. Damn the consequences of being potentially hurt when all of this had to come to an end. She had spent enough of her life alone recently and for once it was nice not to be alone.
She hadn’t meant to reveal anything about her parents, that was usually a topic that was reserved for a strictly need to know basis. The tears that sprang to her eyes at their memory definitely wasn’t supposed to happen, but when she was around Abdul, she felt like melting chocolate. The moment he took her hand across the table, a shock of electricity shot through her. It was something more than physical, more than attraction. It was something that she felt down into the core of her. Something amazing that she’d never felt before.
For a second, when he looked at her, she thought he might kiss her. Her entire body buzzed with the anticipation of feeling his lips on her, finally learning what he tasted like. But she broke away from the possibility when she suddenly stood up and said she should really be getting back to work. Abdul startled as if out of a trance and stood up abruptly. Immediately she had wished she’d let him kiss her like she thought he might. But what good would that have done? It would have done nothing but break her heart, and hurt another woman in the process. She didn’t care what feelings were stirring up to life inside of her, there was no way she could let them out.
“Thank you so much for dinner, it was really sweet of you.”
Was it just her or did Abdul’s eyes look like they were in some sort of panic? A big part of her wished he would ask to stay, she really didn’t want the night to be over. But she knew it would be better for both of them if he just left.
“How about I help you clean up?” He asked her. “You have enough to do tonight and I clearly came and helped make more of a mess for you.”
Emily was about to turn down his offer but he started to pick up all of their garbage before she could say a word. When he looked around for the garbage can to throw everything away, she pointed to the kitchen as she wiped up the table.
“Wow, look at everything you have going on in here,” he called out to her from the kitchen.
With the table cleaned she walked into the kitchen and examined what she had left in there. She had pieces of shattered attempts at roses and pots that had had boiling sugar inside of them. Leaning against the doorframe, she felt disappointed in herself. She knew sugar work was very difficult but she had always been a natural when it came to anything having to do with baking and decorations. But for some reason, the roses just wouldn’t cooperate.
“Yea, I’m having some difficulties getting things right,” she answered sheepishly.
Abdul picked up one of the sugar creations that looked nothing like a rose and examined it. Emily felt embarrassed and frustrated and took it from his hand.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. The sugar isn’t coming out that clear and I can’t get my fingers to shape it like a rose. I can’t even get one there’s no way I’m going to be able to get several done for the cake. Not to mention it’s looking doubtful that I will even have anything to show Nora tomorrow.”
The tone in Emily’s voice had immediately taken a tone that Abdul didn’t like. It made him hurt to hear her so down and doubting herself.
“Why don’t you show me what you’re doing?”
Emily looked at him skeptically. “You know how to do sugar?” she asked.
He laughed and shook his head no. “Sometimes though, when you don’t know exactly how to do something, if you show what you’re doing to someone else, you might see what you’re doing wrong.”
She’d never heard of this logic but decided to go with it anyway, she’d take anything she could get at that point.
“You don’t mind staying?” She was almost nervous to know his answer. If he said no or even looked like it wouldn’t be a good idea, she already knew she would be disappointed.
“Not at all. So start from the beginning.”
Abdul leaned back against the steel counter in the kitchen and casually crossed his arms in front of him. Suddenly Emily felt nervous. She had an open kitchen concept so that people could watch and she could engage with her customers while she was working and it had never bothered her before. Truthfully she enjoyed her open kitchen and loved when people could see her making their delicious creations. But having Abdul so close to her, watching her move, looking so casual with her as if the air around them wasn’t sizzling.
How was she supposed to focus with him watching her every move? Somehow she managed to muster up whatever courage she had and started to pour in her ingredients to melt together and create the sugar.
“What are you doing to start?”
Emily explained, as if she was teaching Kara, the ingredients that she was pouring in and how the needed to melt together and come up to a high temperature without burning. Abdul nodded along as if he was understanding every move she was making. His stare was intense and she felt like she might melt and boil like the ingredients in her pot.
Once the sugar was fully melted, she poured it onto a sheet pan that had a protective cover so that the sugar wouldn’t stick.
“What’s next?” Abdul asked
She explained that she needed the sugar to cool a bit when she poured it out because it was so scorching hot that she would burn herself otherwise. After it had cooled she started to roll sugar, keeping it pliable. She started to cut the sugar into smaller strips the size she needed for the roses.
“How do you mold the roses?”
Emily’s focus was sharp, taking her time to press the rose petals with her fingers making them the perfect shape.
“You have to shape each petal individually, it takes a lot of time to do each petal on its own and make them perfect. If one is wrong it makes the whole rose look wrong.”
For the next several minutes Emily didn’t say a word. She methodically cut and gently molded the sugar into petals about one inch in size. Her fingers were nimble and tentative, making sure to keep moving quickly so that the sugar didn’t seize on her. The pan with the sugar she kept under a lamp that was heated to keep the sugar warm but she still had to work quickly. Her fingers soon found a rhythm with the sugar and it soon seemed as if they became one. She had forgotten that Abdul was in the room and had even forgotten that she didn’t know what she was doing. Letting her instincts take over, her fingers guided the process.
Pressing the last petal together she held out her fragile flower. It was a perfect, glasslike rose.
“Wow,” Abdul breathed.
“Yea, wow,” she answered. There were no other words. She’d actually made the perfect rose. Sure the process had taken some time and it would be a grueling process to make as many as she needed to make for the cake but she knew she could do it and do it beautifully.
Emily looked up at Abdul to see what he thought of her creation, but he wasn’t staring at the rose. He was staring at her.
“I wasn’t talking about the rose, Emily.” His voice came out gravelly, as if something was caught inside that he didn’t know how to get out. “I was staring at you.”
Her breath caught at his words and her mind raced with hope that there could be any way that he felt the same about her as she did about him. After making the rose in his presence, something that was such an intimate process for her, she had immediately known that she’d let him in somewhere special to her, somewhere that no one got to go.
In two smooth steps he was in front of her. His strong hands gently cupped her face and he stared down at her with a fire in his eyes that she knew she felt inside of her. He parted his lips only slightly and leaned down to her, a lock of hair falling in front of his eyes. Emily could hardly breathe, she didn’t have a moment to think about what was about to happen. She tilted her head up and opened herself up to him.
When their lips met she instantly felt dizzy and exhilarated. It was almost as if she was watching herself from the other side of her kitchen, seeing the passion that was flowing between the two of them. When she’d daydreamed about hips lips and his taste, she never imagined it would be so divine. Her dreams hadn’t come close to experiencing the real thing. And when she always thought that sirens would go off in her mind, telling her that what she was doing was wrong and that she should back away, instead her mind stayed quiet, reeling only in the feel of him.