Love & War | Brad Simpson ✔️

23. "Ella, don't hyperventilate but Brad Simpson is stood in your room"

The six different colours were definitely not needed but I made them all anyway.

"It looks like they filmed an episode of The Great British Bake Off in here" Tris says, laughing at his own joke. I just roll my eyes and carry on with my icing as the two of them come in the kitchen to most at what I'm doing.

"Aw, have you made these, El?" My brother asks, pointing to the five cupcakes sat on a plate near me that I've already finished, "they look cute"

I can't disagree. So far I've made Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, Princess Jasmine, Rapunzel and Ariel, and for each one, I experimented with a different technique of icing them with the buttercream to represent different textures of the dresses. Then I sprayed each 'dress' with a light layer of edible glitter. They look pretty adorable.

"Mum's asked me to design a new cupcake for the cafe" I tell him absentmindedly as I focus on finishing the delicate yellow swirls of Belle's dress.

"They look good" I hear him say, and I glance up to see him picking one up.

"Put it down" I say sternly, before pointing over to a plate of cupcakes that I hadn't decorated yet, "there's some spares cakes over there, you can have some of those"

Thankfully, he puts Sleeping Beauty back down and grabs a couple of the plain cupcakes. He hands one to Brad and then scoops up a large dollop of buttercream onto his.

"Mm, they taste pretty good, El" he mumbles through a mouthful of cupcake, "I'll go take one to Millie" he says, before grabbing another cupcake. He completes the same procedure he had done to his by scooping up the buttercream, before leaving the kitchen.

I realise that means Brad and I are alone again and this never usually ends well, especially with his recent bouts of flirting.

He sits down on the table adjacent to me as I start to spray Belle's dress with a light coating of gold glitter. Then I place her on the plate next to the other princesses.

"Can I have a go at one?" Brad asks. I stare at him blankly, "please, I'll try really hard to make it look nice"

I sigh, "fine, you can do Tinkerbell"

I hand him the cupcake in which I've already placed the Tinkerbell figure in and the icing bag filled with green buttercream. He grabs the bag, obviously a little carelessly as a large dollop of buttercream squirts out of the nozzle and onto the crotch of Brad's black jeans.

"Shit" he mumbles whilst I snort with laughter. I watch as he tries to scoop it up with his finger but there's still remnants of green buttercream smeared across his jeans.

I laugh harder.

"Hey, shut up" he tries to be angry but I can see him trying to hold back a smile, "I'm not a bloody professional cake decorator, am I?"

"Good job, isn't it?" I grin as I take Snow White and the same yellow buttercream that I used for Belle to start on her dress. Just as I'm icing the first strands of dress, a hand comes into my line of vision and cheekily smears buttercream across my cheek.

I look up at Brad with a deadpanned stare to see a large grin on his face.

"You shouldn't have laughed at me!" He argues, the smile never leaving his face.