12 DAYS OF DEXER!!

baking cookies

"What did he say we needed??" I looked at Exer, who seemed just as confused as me. "Uh.. baking powder, flour, vanilla, and eggs. We have the rest of the stuff at home." "Well, let's go then!" We walked into the store, heading to the aisles that contained each set of ingredients. "Jeez, $10 just for some eggs?? Your dad gave you money to pay for all this, right?" Exer was counting what we had, and looked up at me and smiled.

"Oh, now that I think about it, he didn't. I can pay though, I have some extra money from my last paycheck." He continued counting the rest "It should be... $29?" Wait, how much was the vanilla?" I turned to look, as we were standing next to it still, and he walked over and stood next to me.

He put his hand down at his side and it brushed against mine. I jumped, and pulled my hand up, turning to look at him. He was sitting there, deep in thought, recounting the numbers in his brain. I noticed myself staring and turned away to face back towards the neatly-stacked shelves when he finally broke the silence and walked back to the cart.

"It is $29! Finally I got something right. Let's go, Day!!!" Exer grabbed my hand, pulling me over to the cart with him as he started running down the aisle. "Exer, slow down!! You're gonna crash!" I heard him laughing and continued chasing after him. He was slowed down from the cart and I caught up to him and slid infront of the cart and held out my hands, stopping him in his place. "Finally, I caught up to you for once!"

Exer laughed, and I couldn't hide my own while we walked the rest of the way to the register and paid for our baking ingriedients. We went outside, turning the corner and leaving down the shadowed path home.

"Why did he make us go out so late to get all this stuff??" I looked at Exer, seeing his face illuminated with orange and red from the nearly-gone sun. "My dad asked me this morning, but since YOU wanted to come with me, I had to wait all day just so you could get ready." He said, shrugging his shoulders. I made an angry face, about to say something, but then I saw we were infront of Exer's house and he opened the door.

We walked in, and I set the grocery bags on the counter while Exer sat down on the couch. I leaned over the couch behind him as he pet Lucy-fur, who had climbed up onto the sofa next to him. "Are we gonna bake it tonight, or are you going to do it with your dad?" He flipped his head up, looking up at me as I looked down towards him. Flustered, I walked away over to the counter and picked up the messily-written recipe "He left a recipe, so it should be fine if we do it, right?"

He thought for a second, probably trying to imagine what his father would want him to do. "Hmmm, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. Plus, you're probably a better baker than him. Cooking? He's great at that. But baking? Last year someone called the fire department from the amount of smoke leaving the window." Exer smiled, and I laughed, picking the ingredients out of the bag and sorting them into groups on the counter.

"Alright, so first we put the salt, baking powder, flour and sugar in a bowl. Exer, do you have a measuring cup?" I turned to look at him, but saw he was just staring at me. "Uh, Exer?" He blinked, and jumped up quickly, turning away from me. "Oh- sorry, haha I'll get the measuring cup!!"

He ran over to a cupboard, opening it to reveal a measuring cup along with plenty of other baking tools. "Alright, we need three full cups of flour and an additional three quarters first. And we need two bowls for the wet and dry ingriedients." Exer grabbed the bowls and I poured out the cups of flour, dumping them into the bowl.

"Are you sure?? That looks like a lot." I didn't blame him for questioning it. The bowl was half-full with flour, and it was only the first ingriedient! "Uh.. I think so? That's what it says on the recipe your dad wrote." Exer walked over, standing right next to me, our shoulders touching. "Lemme see." He looked at it, trying to read through the messy hand writing and see the numbers.