ALANNA ✔️

Chapter Thirteen

Friday evening found Alanna in her kitchen trying to teach Ryan how to bake a simple chocolate cake. How did they get here you ask? The home science students had been tasked with baking a cake for their class on Monday and let's just say Ryan couldn't tell the difference between a sieve and a whisk. It wasn't that extreme but you get the mental image.

Alanna had been with Ryan for the past two hours and it was definitely not panning out for them. Ryan had insisted on going directly to Alanna's home from school saying he needed as much time as possible. Alanna didn't understand why he couldn't just want till Saturday where they could cook the whole day but after three failed attempts and a lot of broken eggs she agreed with him. He definitely needed all the time he could get to at least make a presentable enough cake.

"This is hopeless. You're hopeless." Alanna exclaimed as she tossed the fourth ruined cake into the trash.

"Hey don't insult me. Cooking just isn't my thing. All I need is a little more practice. And besides I have the best teacher so I'm guaranteed to get better." Ryan defended himself as he licked chocolate off a spoon.

They were both covered in the ingredients that were meant to go into the cake mix and not onto their clothes. Alanna felt like crying from how messy her kitchen looked. It looked like it had been hit by a hurricane of eggs and flour. Ryan thought it'd be fun to have a food fight in the middle of baking. It lasted a few minutes until Alanna realized she'd be the one to clean up the mess and had put a stop to it.

"You know what I think, I've been going at this all wrong. Go grab the recipe book in my backpack." Alanna instructed Ryan.

"Yes ma'am." He replied and left the kitchen.

Alanna started cleaning up the mess slowly beginning with the utensils they'd need to bake again. She had finally found the one thing that Ryan was terrible at and it was definitely not a fun discovery. Ryan was good at everything except anything that involved the kitchen. He was good at eating and critiquing the food he ate but anything that involved getting the food in the plate he was terrible at that . Alanna thought he was pretending to be bad but after spending two hours with the guy he couldn't be that good at pretending. He was just that bad and it was up to her to make him at least better at cooking.

A part of her her was actually glad that she found something she could help Ryan with. He was always the one helping her out with everything like her studies and making new friends that it felt good being able to help him out in return. Looks like she could be of use to him too.

"Here's the book you ordered." Ryan said jokingly when he came back to the kitchen.

Alanna chuckled "Nice waiter pun but unless you actually intend to be one then this time try harder at the task at hand."

"Okay, this time I will definitely give it my all." Ryan replied determinedly.

"Good now open page thirty six. It has a basic recipe for the simplest of cakes. We can start with that and move on to chocolate cake tomorrow." Alanna instructed.

Ryan opened the book and a piece of paper fell out. He bent down to grab it and before he could open it to see what it was Alanna snatched it away from him when she realized what it was. Ryan looked at her puzzled as to why she hid it.

Alanna herself wondered why she had taken the paper from Ryan. It was intended for him anyway so why did she take it? She should have given it to him by now but something always held her back.

"What's that?" Ryan asked the recipe page forgotten.

"Nothing." Alanna replied quickly.

Too quick for it to be believable.