My next morning shift passes in a sunny haze. It feels like I brought Barton Springs back to the bakery with me. Little bits of yesterday are clinging to me in the best way. I’ve ridden a bike for the first time in years. I’ve put W really and truly behind me. I’ve gotten three couples back together. Now all I have to do is find the rest.

When all of my morning muffins are done, my cakes are in the oven, and my batters for tomorrow are prepped, I drag out the big chalkboard that Gemma calls tacky but lets the counter staff use when they need to move something they have too much of. Alec hates food waste more than Gemma hates bad signage.

I pull out a green piece of chalk and, with my limited art skills, write Iced Green Tea Sale.

“Did Vin tell you to do that?” Gemma asks as I drag it out to the sidewalk.

“Oh, Vin would approve,” I say.

I have to believe that if he knew, he would give me his gruff but genuine blessing.

“Do we have a lot of iced green tea?” D.C. asks, heading to the drink fridge to double-check.

“Tons,” I shout. But only because I was here alone at 5 a.m., making about seven gallons.

I go to the kitchen and try to keep myself busy until either Kit or Aadi shows up. I tell myself it’s inevitable — even if the tea itself has no magical properties, it’s a sizzling-hot Saturday and one of them will have to come in for their favorite refreshment. Then I’ll deploy the scone I rescued right out of W’s hand.

I’ve laid the frosty, refreshing trap.

It’s time to bake.

And wait.

And wait.

Really, it’s harder than you think to keep an eye on anything from the kitchen when you’re baking. It involves a lot of sudden, desperate double-checks and random spikes of worry over whether or not you set a timer for the mocha cherry muffins. Marisol keeps looking at me like I’ve left all of my chill in the walk-in.

Maybe I have.

But I finally get a glimpse of them right before the lunch rush. Kit’s short stature and messy blond mushroom of hair. Aadi’s lanky frame and neat black braid. I expected them to show up separately — like Araceli and Verónica did at the springs — but they just walked in with a bunch of friends.

I try not to stare too directly as I cut up the scone into tempting bites and arrange them on a plate. When Kit and Aadi make it to the front of the line, D.C. is waiting to help them. They order iced green tea in the largest size that we carry. When they’re done, they don’t start enthusiastically mapping the depths of each other’s mouths. They stand with a firm distance between them and watch a video on a friend’s phone. They’ve never been deterred by the presence of other people before, not when it came to kissing.

So they’re here together, but they’re not back together.

Maybe they just need a little nudge from my scones. After the double success at Barton Springs yesterday, I’m feeling relatively confident. I slide into place next to D.C., behind the counter.

“You came in right when I was going to put samples out!” I say. D.C., who is seamlessly helpful, signs what I’m assuming is the same thing, just in case they missed what I was saying. He wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on a sample.

I hold out the plate directly in front of Kit and Aadi. They look deeply uninterested, in the way that only fourteen-year-olds can. But three of their friends, plus a random customer, swoop in with greedy fingers and grab most of the samples.

There’s one left. Will it still work if only one of them eats it?

I push the plate forward.

D.C. grabs the last gingery square of scone and pops it in his mouth. “Syd, this is amazing!” he croons.

“Uh. Thanks, I guess.” I’m slouching ungratefully past a baking compliment for what might be the first time in my life.

D.C. isn’t ready to let go of this moment, though. He’s taken with the scone’s power, running around acting like this is a sudden holiday, or maybe a full moon, infused with new energy and spark. And he already has a lot of those. “Oh, wow. I can’t wait to get home and see Paola.” That’s his longtime girlfriend. She comes in at least once a week, and everyone loves her. She’s usually breezing around in a floral romper and heeled sandals, but I’ve seen her try out drag when D.C. gets all done up. They make an absurdly good couple, either way. “Do you think I should bring her something? Flowers? A cat? She likes cats. Maybe I should bring her a cake!” he says, like cake is an idea he just invented, despite the fact that he works at a bakery. “Or one of these scones. Do you have any more?”

“No,” I say with a tiny sigh. “That was the last of them.”

I don’t want to begrudge them both the post-scone bliss. But my eyes follow Kit and Aadi as they move down the counter. The scone was right in front of them and they didn’t even bother. It can’t be the recipe, right?

No. Those are my best scones. Even baking nonbelievers like Harley think they’re delicious. It must be the magic, then. These two need something besides new-love-interest excitement.

But what?

D.C. keeps signing with them, and I wish I knew more ASL, because maybe I could pick up a little bit about who they are beyond body language and drink preferences. But even if I did know how to sign, I would never be a natural at just whipping up conversation like D.C. does. He’s the kind of person who works at a bakery counter mainly because it brings him joy. He could be doing a much more high-profile and well-paid job right now, but he loves meeting people in general, and queer people in particular. He chats with everyone like it’s his life’s true purpose.

Okay. I have to at least try, right?

I approach the little group, putting my hands up and making the best of my alphabet skills. I feel like I’m back in kindergarten, in more ways than one. “What kind of muffins do you like best?” I’m not sure that anything I’ve baked today would work, magic-wise, but at least I could get a sense of what they’re interested in, like I had with Rae and Jay and Verónica and Araceli.

They both shrug at me, and I can’t tell if it’s my shoddy signing or they’re just not all that interested in muffins.

“I’m going to get their iced teas, okay Syd?” D.C. says, giving me a hearty backslap.

“Yeah. Of course.”

As D.C. pours a stream of pale green liquid over two cups filled with crushed ice, I study Kit and Aadi. Their friends are hanging out by the window, but they seem okay to linger here together. They’re not mad at each other. They’re not even awkward around each other. Which means there’s nothing big left unsaid between them.

I sigh. Loud, this time.

Something is getting lost in translation here — and I’m not talking about anyone’s ASL skills. I mean the fact that, no matter how hard I stare at them or how many slightly invasive questions I ask, I can’t seem to figure out what these two need in order to patch things up. It’s like staring at a sheet of pastry that just fell apart in my hands and having no idea how I can turn it back into a viable piecrust.

Kit and Aadi leave, and maybe they’re not together together, but at least they’re enjoying their Saturday, signing rapidly with their friends, and drinking iced green teas the size of their own torsos.

I clock out right after lunch and head toward my car. I’m supposed to go to a study group for a math test on Monday. I have to keep my grades up, I know, and my math quizzes have been swooping down from the usual A- to the mid-B range. I decide to skip the review session, though. I’ve been working hard all year to prove to both my biological and baking parents that I can handle the double load. But this is more important than a math test. I have to figure out which feeling plus what baked good equals happiness. I’m also learning that everyone’s idea of happiness is different. It’s like solving for X, except everyone gets to eat.

I backtrack and go in through the front of the Proud Muffin, get myself a glass of iced green tea — mostly out of guilt because I really did make too much — and take it out to the porch. I throw on my sunglasses against the glare of my phone. Setting my drink on a circular wrought iron table, I type in the words Martin Thomas.

There are no fewer than fourteen people living in the Austin area with that name. The youngest is a sophomore at Lake Travis High School who plays viola in concert and chamber orchestra. The oldest is a man who lives in East Austin and owns several laundromats. In between, there’s a music producer, a software engineer, a law professor, someone who runs canoe adventures in the Hill Country, two bartenders . . .

I can’t drop in on all of their last known whereabouts and ask if they’ve recently gone through a breakup. Or bought a brownie. I can’t give fourteen strangers a randomly selected dessert and wait to see what happens.

I finish up my iced tea and head back into the lovely shade of the bakery. The counter is particularly busy this afternoon, with four staff members working at top speed. I edge my way in, and when there’s a gap in the orders, I plant myself in front of the computer.

“Just checking my hours,” I say to anyone who might be listening.

But really I’m checking our customer database just in case Martin enrolled in our email program to get updates including daily specials and weekly meetups.

He hasn’t.

Without knowing which Martin Thomas is mine, I have no way of guessing what his relationship needs are.

I’m failing this emotional math test, and for one fleeting second, I wish I were at school. Taking the kind of test where the answers can be confirmed by the teacher and the work checked to make sure it’s all right and everything is wrapped up in forty-five minutes or less.

Then I look up and I see Jessalee brandishing a day-old dark chocolate and roasted pear muffin. And a handful of cash to buy it with.

Most people who drop in pay with cards. For the most part, cash customers are either over the age of sixty, because nostalgia, or under the age of sixteen, because allowance. But Jessalee is special. She’s old-school, without being actually old.

What if she’s the customer who bought a solitary brownie? She’s so into day-old pastries that I never would have thought to consider her. But the muffin in her hand is a reminder that Jessalee’s always had a weak spot: deep, dark chocolate.

And she was at Barton Springs the other day. She didn’t get a scone, but maybe she showed up after Harley and I both went inside. She would never just swipe one from the top of a strange car.

“Hey, Syd,” she says, lifting up on the balls of her feet as part of the greeting. “Want to ring me up while you’re here?”

“Oh, I’m clocked out. But . . . I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay!” she says brightly. “Let me just pay for this.”

“Oh, that’s on the house,” I say, a little quickly.

“Are you sure?” she asks, a dash of confusion on her face.

“You’re such a good customer, a day-old muffin is the least we can do.” But that makes it sound like we give away muffins all the time, and I don’t want Jessalee to go around repeating it like it’s some new policy, in case the other regulars get the wrong idea. Vin and Alec have generous hearts and would happily give away all the pastries to our regulars, but they do need people to buy things. “You’re just . . . special.”

“Why, thank you, Syd,” she says, holding the muffin to her heart.

I run around the counter, whip off my apron, and join Jessalee at one of the cooler tables in the back, away from the window. She puts down her notebooks, her writing pens, her laptop, setting everything up in some mysterious and meticulous order. Jessalee is just as serious about her writing as I am about my baking. I think she works as hard as anyone at the Proud Muffin, and suddenly I’m glad all over again that she has a place to come and do what she loves.

But first: the muffin. I sort of expect Jessalee to eat like a rabbit, but she chomps into it with her entire face.

“Oh, those are good,” she says, crumbs flying everywhere.

“I know! I love them. Alec let me help recipe test those.” I can feel myself wanting to get wrapped up in an elaborate baking discussion, so I redirect. “They use the same chocolate as the brownies I made last week. Did you see those?”

“Syd! Those were yours, weren’t they. Oh, I adored mine. The cherries were . . .” She mimes her heart exploding into a thousand fluttering pieces.

Usually that compliment would fuel me for hours. Right now all I feel is grim satisfaction. “Did you . . . did anything bad happen to you after you ate it?”

Jessalee takes out a folding paper fan that has seen better decades. She bats the air, moving hot particles around. “If you’re asking after my digestive health, Syd, you don’t have to be so delicate.”

Okay, I was definitely not implying that my baking gave anyone food poisoning. Swerving around my offended feelings, I switch to a much more direct approach. “Jessalee, are you dating anyone?”

Her face swerves almost as suddenly as my questions. “Oh, bless you, Syd, but I think we’d be better off as friends.”

“Wait. What?”

I almost start to protest the idea that I was hitting on her. I almost say something about Harley.

But she’s already pulling something out of her purple alligator purse. “Here, if you’re looking for a place to get started . . .” She takes out a little card with her name on it and Authoress of love, magic, etc. written in swirly letters on the other side. She digs up a fountain pen and scratches a few words.

A time, a restaurant, and a day in the not-too-distant future.

Does she want to set me up with someone? Is she going to use her romance novelist skills to train me in the ways of love, etc.? What’s happening right now?

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there, too,” Jessalee says with a dry little pat to my shoulder. “You won’t be going into this alone.”

“Oh. Great. Thanks.” Even though I have no idea what she’s talking about, the scribble on this card is an invitation into Jessalee’s personal life, and I need to figure out who she’s dating. Or who she was dating.

I’m one step closer to settling all of this.

And in the meantime, I have a date of my own tonight.

A real one.

A few hours later, after a quick stop at the grocery store, I drive over to Harley’s house. I’m distinctly aware that this is the first time we’ve hung out without the Proud Muffin involved, or the stated purpose of baking to save other peoples’ relationships.

I park across the street. When I knock, he answers the door with bare feet, which is new, and a brilliant smile, which is getting to be familiar. Small people cluster behind him. There are only two, I think, but they seem infinite in energy if not in actual number. They pop up around Harley’s legs like kernels in sizzling coconut oil. That’s the secret to making perfect popcorn at home, if you didn’t already know. Coconut oil makes it smell like movie theater popcorn, and lots of real butter and salt on top make it taste incredible.

It’s possible that I’m thinking about popcorn to avoid thinking about the small people surprise.

“Hi! Hi!” they say.

“Hi?” I say, looking at Harley. I thought this was the night that he had the house to himself. That was, in large part, why I showed up here right as the sky melted like a perfect peach sundae.

Harley comes in to hug me with one arm hooked around the back of my neck. “Uh, so the babysitter canceled at the last second and my mom is at work until ten,” he whispers on a wave of sage soap and shower-fresh skin.

“Got it,” I say.

“Syd! Syd! Syd!” the small ones chant.

“Also, I made the eternal mistake of telling them your name,” Harley admits as he opens the door wide. I walk in, but only a single step, because the front doorway is at maximum capacity. And nobody is budging.

“Harley told us more than that Syd is your name!” says the smaller of the small people, who has stubby pigtails and is constantly swaying from side to side.

“Harley told us alllllll about you,” says the taller, skinny one whose eyes are the same brown as Harley’s.

“What did he say?” I ask, a little terrified to find out how he talks about me when I’m not there.

“Like you are Syd and you’re a baker and sometimes you make magical cupcakes?” the tall one asks, looking for confirmation.

“Brownies,” I say promptly. “And scones.”

“Scones are English!” they blurt.

“And brownies are chocolate,” the small one adds, raising a tiny, pedantic finger.

“So true,” I say. “Now I feel like I should know your names and two things about each of you. To make it fair.” From working the bakery counter, I know this much: little kids are big into fair. Also sugar cookies shaped like pets.

“I’m Dean,” says the pigtailed one. “And I love cheese and horses and my pronouns are she and her.”

“That’s three things,” says the tall one, squinting with painted-on maturity. “I’m Verity and I’m in third grade and my pronouns are she and her.”

“My pronouns are he and him,” Harley says, which I know because we’ve been texting constantly for the last few days and at some point Harley just sent he/him with a thumbs-up, and then we kept talking about the time that the Proud Muffin hosted a pole-dancing club and tried to set up some foldable poles in the community space, but one of them fell and hit the emergency fire alarm and everybody kept trying to dance in their neon G-strings and eight-inch platform boots when the fire trucks came.

It’s only after getting through that whole story again in my head that I realize Dean and Verity are staring at me: polite, waiting.

“Syd isn’t using any pronouns right now,” Harley says.

The little siblings “ooooooooh,” like that’s interesting. Exciting, even.

“Thanks,” I whisper to Harley over Dean’s and Verity’s heads.

“No worries,” Harley whispers back. “They might ask every time they see you, though. We do pronouns every morning with juice and a quick rundown of our dreams. In case you were wondering, I had pineapple-orange juice and I dreamed about electric eels filling up the library. It made me anxious at first, but then I taught them how to read and they taught me how to shock people.”

“Wow,” I whisper.

It hits me like half a dozen eggs cracking at once.

I like this house. I like this family. They talk here.

I’ve gotten so used to not saying things at home. Stepping around certain subjects like piles of laundry that someone left on the floor. And yes, my parents are wonderful people and my sister cares about me fiercely. And no, I’m never going to forget how lucky that makes me.

But it does seem like I’m always the one who has to speak up and tell everyone how I’m different. I have to find a way to help them understand me, even though I don’t really understand them either. Having a gender? Why? Feeling like your body and who you are inside line up all the time? How? Identifying with other folks of your assigned gender as a kid, when I identified with things like extra-fluffy cumulus clouds and nebulas? What does that even feel like? I get nervous trying to explain myself sometimes. I get tired. I grow sharp edges where I didn’t think I had any. And I definitely get to the point where I just want to bury myself in baking and not deal with any of it.

“I brought something,” I say, setting down a reusable shopping bag.

“I made you something!” Harley says.

He runs upstairs and I wait in the little front door nook with Dean and Verity staring at me.

“What should I know about Harley?” I ask, kneeling down. “Quick, while he’s upstairs.”

“I can hear you!” Harley shouts down.

“Harley’s bike is named Shadowfax,” Dean tells me in a grave whisper, right before Harley rumbles down the stairs. He shoots Dean a look that says he knows she told me something she shouldn’t have.

Then he hands me a neatly wrapped little rectangle of a package over the railing of the staircase. He can’t even wait until he reaches me. It squishes when I take it from his hands. The paper is candy-colored, tape running in neat lines along the seams. The two small people look up at it with oversized eyes of envy.

I rustle in my bag and find the backup chocolate chips that I bought in case. “You can open these, if you want.” They give Harley the hopefully can-we-really look of well-trained little siblings.

“Okay. Yeah. But you still have to eat dinner later.”

They cheer and tear into the bag.

That gives me and Harley a semi-private moment. He watches me as I pull the tape gently free.

It’s a white racerback tank top with black piping and the words Cupcakes Have No Gender in green across the front. When I turn it around, I notice a tiny cupcake topped with a heart where the straps meet in the back.

“Shit,” I say, then clap my hands over my mouth and mumble, “It’s so nice.”

“Why did you say shit and then say something is nice?” Dean asks. When she hits the swear word, Verity screeches.

“I yell every time my sibling swears because it is like on TV when they go beeeep,” Verity explains solemnly.

“You really like it?” Harley asks.

“Yes,” I say, almost with suspicion. Not of Harley, exactly.

Just, whenever people give me clothes, I look at them and appreciate the style or the color, and sometimes they even fit, but it’s hard to wear them. I can already see myself reaching for this on days when I can’t decide what else to put on, days when nothing else feels right.

“All right,” Harley says, already bouncing on his feet, away from this perfect moment, toward the next thing. “Dinner.”

“Where do you want to order from?” I have so many ideas. There are dozens of good restaurants in spitting distance. I made a list on my phone for quick reference. I pull it out and open my notes.

Harley grabs my phone and flips it backward over his shoulder so it lands on the couch. Verity and Dean look up from their feral chocolate feast and cheer again. “We don’t need to order anything.”

“You want to go out?” I ask. What about the kids? Are they coming with us? I quickly slap together a scheme involving the Guerrilla Drive-In and the P. Terry’s Drive Thru.

“No . . .” Harley says.

“Okay, I’m officially confused.”

He leads me into the kitchen, where the counter is full of prep work. Bowls of vegetables, chicken, spices. A pot is already simmering on the stove. I noticed the good smell in the air before, but I didn’t realize it was coming from in here, that it was meant for us. I take in a deep breath of sticky-starchy air, touched with saffron.

“This bodes really, really well,” I say in that deep, visceral voice that only Harley seems to pull out of me.

“That’s just the rice.” Harley shakes his head at me. “You look like you’ve never seen someone cook dinner before.”

“Not someone my age.” I’ve been assuming that because Harley isn’t into sweets that he’s anti-food. But I was clearly wrong. Harley is just his own kind of food person. I get a flash of us learning from each other, bumping hips endlessly in a little kitchen as we cook and bake and swap bites and teach each other techniques and trade flavors the other person didn’t even know they needed in their life. “You are unprecedented.”

Harley’s chin quirks to the side.

Then he goes to work, heating a pan, swirling oil, tossing in the vegetables. The instant sizzle of onions is deeply satisfying. “When my mom started working nights,” Harley says over the hum of the hood vent, “I decided I was going to cook. I can’t handle microwave dinners.”

“Harley calls them macaroni and glue!” Dean yells from the other room.

“Harley calls them barf and beans,” Verity adds.

“Harley has very strong opinions,” I shout back. “Like thinking that baked goods aren’t very good.”

“Yeah!” Dean screeches.

“What is that about,” Verity adds.

“Oh, look, they’re on my team,” I say loftily.

“Recruiting minors?” Harley asks.

“I don’t need children to do my work for me,” I say. “Not when I have life-changing cookies.” That’s what’s in the shopping bag. Deconstructed, of course. I lean in from the opposite side of the stove, our heads nearly meeting over the heat. My hands twitch, underused. “Can I help with anything? What else is in the recipe?”

“No recipe.”

“You’re the most practical human I’ve ever met. How are you not using a recipe?”

Harley sneaks a look at me. “I trust my instincts,” he says in a low voice. “And I know what goes together.”

Okay, I think I am not the only one applying elaborate food metaphors to life.

Dinner is ready with a shocking quickness, and suddenly all four of us are sitting at a tiny wooden table in the living room, eating rice and chicken and vegetables, except they’re better than rice and chicken and vegetables have any right to be.

“What did you do to this food?” My mouth is nearly overflowing and yet I’m unable to stop myself from talking. “This is magic. Dark magic.”

Harley’s face scrunches up against the compliment, but he can’t quite get the smile to unstick. He’s always fighting them, like if he lets them take over his face fully, he’ll never get it back.

By the time I finish eating, my stomach feels a gentle, balanced sort of full. My heart feels the same way.

I’ve never had this before. Someone cooking for me. A few times people have tried to outbake me and pretended it was a friendly way to bond or repay me for a slice of pumpkin bread, but that’s a pretty obvious passive-aggressive tactic.

This is something else.

I wish I knew how to tell him that. I wish I was as good at talking as everyone in this little house. Dean and Verity are chattering over their food, which means it takes them an extra year to finish.

Finally, unable to wait any longer, I push my chair back. “Ready to bake,” I say, because that’s what I know how to do.

Harley follows me into the kitchen, dogging my steps. It feels like we’ve reversed our dance. Before, Harley was leading, and I was following. Now it’s my turn to lead. I start unstacking ingredients from my bag. Flour, brown sugar, white sugar. Eggs, vanilla, another bag of semisweet chocolate chips.

“This feels so indulgent,” I say. “It’s been weeks since I baked just to bake.” I’ve been too busy trying to counteract those brownies — and keep my whole world from toppling if Vin and Alec actually broke up.

I think about them making out behind the Barton Springs ticket shack again. Seeing that might have been awkward, but it was a good awkward.

“What do you think happens when it’s over?” Harley asks, arranging the items I’ve unloaded on the counter. “Does the magical baking just . . . ?” His fingers sparkle through the air, in what I’m assuming is the act of magic dissolving into nothing.

I don’t know. I’ve been so focused on fixing my brownie catastrophe that I’ve hardly been able to think about what comes after it. Can I still be a professional baker if I’ve got this unpredictable power inside of me? I’ve been so careful at work the last week, making sure that anything I feel while I mix and pour out muffins is mild enough not to affect the customers in a big way. I tested a few crumbs, just to be careful. Nobody has left the bakery screaming or crying.

But could I really keep that up forever?

For the second time in recent history, my future wobbles.

“As soon as everyone has the bakes they need to get back together, that should put things right,” I say. I hope.

Harley fiddles with an egg, turning it over and over in his fingers. “That depends on why it started, I guess.”

“It started when W broke up with me.” That much is pretty clear-cut, even if the inner workings of the magic are, well, magic, and not strictly logical.

“Sure.” The egg slides and Harley barely catches it. “But correlation is not causation.”

“Some of us haven’t been to college yet,” I remind him. “You’re saying that just because it happened at the same time doesn’t mean that the breakup caused the brownies? I guess that’s possible, but there’s no reason to think another explanation would be better. That’s Occam’s razor, right? Everything else being equal, why multiply our theories?”

“See, you’re totally in college,” Harley says.

I laugh, but something else is pressing on my brain. “What else could have done it?”

“I don’t know,” Harley says, fighting another one of those unruly smiles. “Maybe if you work at the Proud Muffin long enough, you become a magical queer baker.”

“I do like that,” I admit.

“Oh,” Harley says, eyes flicking to the clock on the oven display. It’s 8:45. “I have to put them to bed.” He heads to the living room, and I’m left staring at the ingredients from my bag. Ingredients that somehow don’t add up.

“Sorry, you have to be this tall to ride the Stay Up Late Train,” Harley says.

Dean jumps and jumps, hitting the bottom of her head against his hand. Verity just sighs and trundles upstairs.

Harley disappears for a few minutes and I hear him saying brisk, non-negotiable things about brushing teeth. Then there’s a quick song — yes, he is actually singing to his little siblings, it’s fine, I’m fine — and he comes back.

I think back to the grocery store. The quick, scattered way that I traveled through the aisles. The unseeing rush of checking out, bagging without thinking because I was too busy picturing my night with Harley.

“Noooooooo,” I wail like a horrible baking ghost. “No, no, no, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Harley asks, running back into the kitchen.

“I don’t have coconut.”

“That’s okay, right?” Harley tries, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You can just leave out the —”

“No!” I nearly shout. “Do you have any?”

Harley pokes through the cupboards, but somehow, I already know it isn’t there.

“You really can just make it without the coconut,” Harley tries again.

“I need the coconut, it’s what makes these cookies . . . these cookies.” I’m trying to swirl calm into my voice, but I can feel panic coming for me, and I don’t know how to stop it. Harley’s about to see me at my worst. When I can’t make something I’ve been planning on — when a recipe goes wrong or simply doesn’t get a chance to be baked in the first place — I can’t keep it together. I turn into the soggy bottom of a poorly baked pie.

“Then make something else,” Harley says firmly. Like he’s sure of it. Like he’s sure of me.

“There’s nothing else to make.” He flings the cupboards and the refrigerator open wide. It’s sweet. It really is. “It’s not that simple,” I say, thinking of how long it took me to pick this recipe.

Then I see something on the side of the fridge. A near-full container of heavy cream.

“Do you have powdered sugar?” I ask, voice still scratchy with my last defeat.

Harley turns to the cupboard and then turns back, holding a bag over his head with both hands, triumphant as a boxer in a big-budget movie.

And then I’m throwing frozen peas out of the freezer to make room for my best metal mixing bowl, and I only wait five minutes for the bowl to chill, because it’s after dark and it’s not over ninety degrees. And at the same time that the temperature is finally dropping, my impatience is rising. I pour all the cream in the chilled bowl, grab the mixer Harley unearthed for me, and skim the beaters through the cream. Harley hovers just behind me.

“What are you . . . ?”

“Shhh,” I say, like even the smallest word might disturb the molecules of cream as they start to gather.

Soon, we’re staring at an enormous bowl of fresh whipped cream. I’ve added a tablespoon of sugar, so it’s barely sweet, which I know Harley will like, and there’s no shortage of things we can slather it on. I spotted an Entenmann’s raspberry cheese Danish twist in the bread box. A carton of wild blueberries in the fridge.

Harley can’t wait for any of those, it seems.

He dips a finger straight into the bowl. The whipped cream goes right between his lips.

He smiles, his fingertip still hooked there, his tongue pressed up behind it, his teeth looking very close and very white. And then he dips his finger into the whipped cream again and holds it out for me.

My lips close around his finger, and my first taste of Harley is skin and salt and cream, silky soft, a hard surprise at the center. His finger moves in my mouth, pushing a little deeper and then drawing back out.

“Um,” I say, when I have my mouth back.

Then we switch, and I feed him a bite of whipped cream, and then we’re giving it to each other by the handful, smearing it into each other’s faces. Getting creative about what parts of the body we’re aiming for.

We laugh and shriek and run after each other around the kitchen.

I dearly, dearly hope his siblings don’t wake up.

But even that fear can’t stop me tonight.

I fling a five-fingered star of whipped cream at him and run toward the living room. He catches me right by the door, pulls me back, spins me up against the counter. Harley pins me there, hips to hips. His face is close, eyes sparking like the candles on top of a cake, and they’re mine to blow out whenever I feel ready. Then there will be nothing but darkness and cake and plenty of time to eat it, and it’s all so overwhelmingly good that at first I don’t notice the feeling of something hard against the front of my shorts. I remember Harley’s joke about packing with a scone, and way after the fact I realize that Harley is packing something else.

We both pull away at the same moment — and then look at each other with thrilled, nervous, we’re-really-getting-close-to-the-edge-of-something glances. I’ve been hoping to get closer to Harley pretty much nonstop the last few times we’ve been together. Even while I was baking. Especially while I was baking.

Wait. I step back and test another bite of the whipped cream. “I think it happened again.”

Harley is sitting up on the counter now, spooning it into his mouth.

“I think the whipped cream . . . wait, stop eating it.” I grab the spoon. He smiles, mouth rimmed with white.

“I think the whipped cream has my feelings in it,” I say.

“What kind of feelings?” Harley asks.

“The kind that end with someone pinning someone else against a kitchen counter.”

“Ohhhhhh.” He pushes off the counter. I don’t know if he’s going to ask me to leave. I don’t know if he’s going to throw the rest of the whipped cream in the sink, add water to the bowl until it’s a thin, unappetizing white, and let the rest of my horny feelings drain right down the sink.

“I didn’t mean to put the way I feel on you, not like that . . .” I say, ready to launch a full apology.

“How is it different?” Harley asks, cocking his head.

“What?” I ask cut short.

“If you came onto me, and I was into it and felt something back, you wouldn’t apologize, right?” I shake my head so fast a gobbet of whipped cream flies off. “How is this different from you telling me, or kissing me?” Harley comes at me slower this time, eyes just as bright as before.

“I guess it’s not,” I admit.

“If anything, this is an extra brave way to do it, because if I was into someone else, I would have run out the front door to go find them and then you’d be stuck here alone, babysitting.”

“Right,” I say. “I’m very brave.”

One of his hands goes to the back of my neck, and the moment feels warm and ready and ripe.

Harley plunks a little whipped cream on my nose. “I like this.”

He could be talking about the whipped cream, or the way we’re using it, or just me being here.

Me being this close.

“I’m glad,” I say, stepping back, digging both hands into the whipped cream bowl. “Because it’s on.”

When I wake up the next morning, I smell like milk.

After a quick and necessary shower, I go downstairs to find my parents and Tess perched around the little kitchen island like birds of prey, eating out of the mixing bowl with spoons.

I got in late and shoved what was left of the whipped cream to the back of the fridge, wanting to eat the rest in private and think Harley-sweetened thoughts. In my happy daze, it didn’t occur to me to label it Syd’s Only or write Do Not Eat on Pain of Death.

Big mistake.

My parents are serving each other little love-bites and cooing while my sister makes short work of a bite that’s piled nearly as high as her eyebrows. I run into the kitchen and snatch the bowl away.

The bottom of the bowl gleams back up at me. There are only a few snowy tracks of cream left.

“Please tell me you didn’t eat all of that,” I groan.

“We did!” my dad says, looking far too joyful. He swats Mom’s butt. My mom giggles and swats him back. Tess and I look at each other, deeply horrified. “All right, have to go pack.”

“Where are you two going?” I ask.

“We decided to get away for a few days,” Mom says. “Just the two of us. A spa in the Hill Country, very relaxing.” Her words are reasonable enough, but I know what this whipped cream does.

Oh. God.

I just sent my parents on a Sex Vacation.

My dad runs down the stairs with a flapping-open bag in his hands.

“We’re going to book the room while we’re on the road, which is ridiculously spontaneous of us, but we’ll let you know when we check in,” Mom says. “After that —”

“Our phones might be off,” Dad adds.

“Our phones might not work there!” she says, sounding more giddy than guilt-ridden.

Dad steps into his shoes. “But you can get us by . . .”

“You know, that other thing.” She snaps a few times. “Email!”

“You’ll be fine,” Dad decides. “You’re basically adults.”

They fly out of the house faster than I’ve seen them do anything in years. Tess is left staring at the backside of the door.

“I can’t believe I only have a week at home before I go back to Northwestern and they just left.”

I think about the power of the whipped cream, and what it might have led to if Harley and I had kept eating it instead of having the world’s most epic dairy battle. The truth is, I’m not in a hurry. I’m hungry to do more with Harley, but I also want to savor every bit of this.

Tess clears the bowl off the kitchen island. I see now that they were nominally eating the whipped cream on top of French toast, but there are only a few bites out of each piece. “At least we can hang out, right?”

“Yeah.” I switched out of a few shifts at work, so I’d have free time while she’s home. “What sort of thing are you feeling up for?” I ask tentatively, aware that thanks to my whipped cream I might be about to walk headfirst into my sister’s very private private life.

“Nothing?” She shrugs. “Nothing sounds good.”

Watching Tess rinsing out the last clingy bits of whipped cream, a question rises like the water steadily filling the sink. What if her not dating isn’t a sign that she’s picky, or busy, or into something she wants to keep secret?

Tess could be asexual.

Aromantic, too.

First thought: My sister is a rainbow!

Second thought: Wait, I’m the resident rainbow. How did I not notice this sooner?

I’ve always been sad when she didn’t hear or see or understand something about me, but what if I’ve done the same thing to her? I groan as I slide a few bites of cold French toast into the trash. Honestly, assuming that she wants a partner at all is just as bad as when we were younger and Tess assumed I would fall for a boy just because everyone was so invested in calling me a girl. In some ways it’s worse. I’m older now than she was then. Plus, I should know better.

Tess sets the bowl upside down on the drying rack, then looks back at me, like she’s waiting for something.

What do I do?

What should I say?

Because this is me, I want to throw my arms around her, throw a party. I want to mix up some don’t-be-afraid-to-talk-to-your-dumb-but-loving-sibling cookie dough and let her eat the whole bowl.

Because this is Tess, I want to give her plenty of space and not suffocate her with enthusiasm.

There are so many resources about how to come out to your family, what to do if they’re not understanding or accepting. But what about when you’re the queer one knocking on other family members’ closet doors? Can I come right out and ask my sister if she’s considered that she might be aroace? Do I let her figure this out in her own way? Do I just keep leaving space — like Harley does in our conversations — and wait for her to tell me?

There are a few things I know I can do. I can make it really, really easy for her to say it. And I can make sure that Tess knows she doesn’t have just me — she has an entire community in her corner.

I slip my feet into flip-flops and head for the door, which banged open a little in the wake of our parents’ exit.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s do nothing, but with muffins.”

 

1 carton heavy whipping cream (Yes, heavy cream and whipping cream and heavy whipping cream are all basically the same thing. Don’t freak out, just grab whatever your grocery store carries.)

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 to 4 tbsp fine sugar (Either superfine granulated or powdered sugar work here. If you use powdered sugar, you can sift it first to make sure there are no clumps. I use organic powdered sugar and it never seems to be a problem.)

That’s it.

No, really.

There are no other ingredients.

Most people don’t understand why it’s worth making their own whipped cream. They can’t see past the tubs of vile Cool Whip in their freezers and the spray cans of fluffy topping that actually tastes okay but leaves a layer of slime all over your mouth.

Congratulations! Very soon you will no longer be one of those people.

You can — and should — put this on top of pies, cakes, bread pudding, even your morning waffle. You can slap it on ice cream, add generous glaciers of it to your hot cocoa.

If you live in a hot place, or it’s summer in your temperate place, stick the bowl and the whipping attachment of your mixer in the freezer for about ten minutes. I like using a hand mixer, but you can absolutely use a stand mixer; just know the whipping process will go much faster.

Dump the cream into the frosty bowl. Make sure it has high sides, otherwise your kitchen is going to look like a dairy-related crime scene. Start beating on low, working up to a higher setting, until it’s spinning so fast it’s like a carnival ride in your kitchen! If you’re using a hand mixer, this will probably be the highest setting you have. If you’re using a stand mixer, it probably won’t be.

When the cream starts to visibly thicken, mix in the vanilla and sprinkle in a tablespoon of sugar. Keep mixing, add another tablespoon of sugar, then taste again. Do this until you’ve reached the desirable level of sweetness and . . . whipped-ness.

If you’re into the spray-can style, you can throw in more sugar and keep mixing until it froths and peaks. But if you want my advice? Whip until you can stick a finger in and have the mixture just hold. And a whisper of sugar is all you really need.