"Do not destroy my kitchen for the love of God," I warned George as I unlocked the door, stepping into the house. Ria had given me a forewarning that she would be at work, giving me the perfect time frame to let George in without getting bombarded with questions and pressure from Ria.
"Do you really think I'd do that?" George said with a loud eye roll.
"Yeah, after you accidentally knocked my sandwich out of my hands."
"Oh come on, that was an accident!" he exclaimed, and I let out a chuckle of satisfaction as I tossed my purse onto the couch. "This is a nice place." His tone switched from accusation to admiration in a mere three seconds.
"Thanks. Not my place, though," I reminded him, and quickly pulled up the Victoria Sponge Cake recipe on my phone. "Come on, can you take out the self-raising flour, baking powder, and sugar? They should be in the cabinet to my immediate left."
George nodded, and walked behind me as I washed my hands to grab the three ingredients from the cabinet. Once they were set on the countertop, he quickly lathered his hands with soap and rinsed, drying his hands with the paper towel I tossed him. "What are we making?" he inquired curiously, leaning over to check the recipe displayed on my screen.
"Victoria Sponge Cake. It's easy and fast. Okay, wait, we need strawberries and jam," I noticed, and located those ingredients from the fridge. "Then softened butter, margarine, whipping cream, eggs, confectioners sugar."
"Easy and fast," George mocked as he gathered the ingredients as I listed them off.
"Shut up frat boy."
George wrinkled his nose at the sudden name-throw. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
I laughed at his confusion while measuring out the ounces of the ingredients. "It's funnier if you don't know."
"You're rude," he attempted a scowl, but caved in when I convinced him to begin whipping the whipped cream to firm peaks. "This needed preparation beforehand to be easy and fast."
"Okay whatever, I take that back. But it's not like you have anything to do for the rest of the day, don't you?" I looked over at him and saw his eyes narrow in defeat, which formed a victorious smile on my face. I swiftly bounced past him to preheat the oven and make sure he wasn't making a mess all over the countertop.
"Oh don't gloat on me now," George complained over the loud noises of the electric hand mixer. "I bet you don't have anything, either."
I shrugged and pulled out two 8-inch baking pans to begin lightly greasing the bottoms of them. "You'll never know. Maybe I have plans later."
George scoffed. "Yeah right."
"Do you have plans later?" I shot the question back to him. His glare at me was enough of an answer, and I happily greased the rest of the pan before moving onto the next one while George finished whipping the cream.
"I have friends," he argued as he turned off the hand mixer and set it down tiredly.
"I never said you didn't."
"You are irritating," he commented in defeat before aggressively snatching my phone from the counter to read the instructions. "Large bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together. I'll do that." George quickly grabbed a large bowl and sieve and tossed the heap of baking powder and flour into the sieve. I watched as he impatiently tapped on the silver rim, observing the fine powder falling through the holes.
Our banter went on for the rest of the process to prep the cake batter, and once the two pans began its time in the oven, George had yet begun another argument that resulted in my temptation to throw the roll of baking sheets at his face.
"Since when does fruit belong on pizza, huh?"
"Since always!" I scoffed, folding my arms and leaning against the fridge. George mimicked my actions, and mockingly rolled his eyes.
"There's no point! Pizza is supposed to be tangy, and fruit just adds... sweetness!" he exclaimed.
"Some people like sweetness mixed with tang, George. You have to eat the full thing for satisfaction, you can't just take off the sweetness before saying it's bad."
George's lips curled into a confused frown, and he gave me a questionable look. "What is that supposed to mean?"
I raised my brow, and slightly leaned forward. "Uh, what I just said."
He shook his head. "No no, like, elaborate."
I opened my mouth to question his request, but I decided against it, not wanting to start another banter. "Well, you can't just say you hate pineapple on pizza after a nibble on the edge with a sliver of the fruit on it. That's barely trying to concept of pineapple on pizza at all. It's good when you eat it all, the entire slice, or if you still think it's bad, that's fine. At least you didn't just stop at the first bite... uh, what are you doing?" George's thumbs quickly moved on his screen, and as I finished my ramble, he quickly put his phone back in his pocket and smiled awkwardly.
"Nothing, just... your words are true. I'll try the full thing," he quickly responded just as the timer to the oven went off.
"Finally you have common sense," I replied as a thank you before sliding on oven mitts to pull out the two tins. After quickly letting them cool and assembling the layers with the jam, whipped cream, and strawberries, I handed George a fork who looked at me curiously.
"No knife?" he asked.
"I was getting to that," I informed, and grabbed a large knife from the drawer to my right and cut a large slice of the two-layered Victoria cake. I dumped the piece onto the plate set in front of George, and cut a slice equally as large onto mine. "Even if you think it tastes bad, pretend it doesn't."
George's exhale was accompanied by a loud laugh as he cut a large chunk of the cake and shoved it in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and his eyes widened in what I hoped was good shock.
"Oh my God," he choked, holding his hand to cover his mouth as he spoke while chewing. "This is good."
"Really?" George nodded enthusiastically, and I mouthed a forkful of cake to confirm. The fluffy cake melted on my tongue, accompanied by the sweetness of the whipped cream and jam that made my eyes water. "Holy shit, this is good."
"We did a great job," George noted as he continued shoving large bites of cake in his mouth, taking a large breath in between each. I watched in amusement while eating on my own as his cheeks puffed up from the excess cake. When George glanced back at me, he smirked, causing me to slightly frown.
"What?"
"You have... whipped cream on your nose," As fast as lightning, he reached out and gently flicked the tip of my nose, showing me his finger that had secured the dollop of cream. I gulped down the bite of cake I had been chewing on, and blindly reached into the fridge for a water bottle, hoping my face wasn't burning red.
I tossed a bottle to George, whose fork clattered on the plate as he attempted to catch the bottle, but missed. I looked at him disapprovingly, and he quickly scrambled to pick the bottle up and avoid my eyes.
"You didn't see that," he stated, unscrewing the cap and gulping down a quarter of the bottle. I only smirked, which didn't seem to assure George, and took a sip of water before returning back to the half-eaten cake on my plate.
"We can sit down, you wanna watch a movie?" I suggested, noticing that we still remained in the same positions we stood while baking.
"What movies do you have?" asked George, and followed as I led him to the shelf stocked with over 40 DVD's. I grabbed his plate from his hands and set it down on the table in front of the TV as I gestured towards the shelf.
"Mostly Disney and stuff. You can pick," I offered, and watched as George knelt down to carefully scan the shelf. After a brief moment, he stood back up and I could see him grasping Tangled in his hands.
"I haven't seen this in over five years" was his justifiable reasoning, and I plopped the disk into the DVD player and turned the TV on to the correct channel.
"Top tier movie," I commented as I pressed play.
"Agreed."
***
a/n
not proofread so lmk if you notice mistakes please thank you