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In hindsight making her own chocolates might have been a bad idea. Then again, she hadn’t meant to burn down the dorm kitchen it just… kinda happened?
Zoe had been busy planning the making of her own version of valentine’s chocolates. For all of her friends, not for any blond-haired boy, she stood no chance with because he was as good as engaged to his very pretty girlfriend in particular.
Her plan had been perfect, make a bunch of nasty flavors for the rest and give Ezreal some nice ones. So that when they all said her chocolate was disgusting, he would have to disagree and tell them he thought it was nice. Again, the perfect plan to get him to like her, maybe.
She had gotten up super early on February 13th to go shopping for all the ingredients she needed. It was a Friday the thirteenth, which should have been a sigh but boy was Zoe good at ignoring signs, even if they were right there in her face.
“Why am I driving your car again?” Kayn said as he gripped the steering wheel of Zoe’s purple tesla. In the past year, he had actually been driving Zoe’s car, which she lovingly called her space dragon, more than she had.
“So, I can make a list, duh. I still don’t know what I wanna put into the chocolates yet. What do you think about guacamole and shrimp? As in like together inside of the truffles.” And because I know that you love driving but can’t afford a car, I let you drive mine, but she didn’t say that out loud.
“Absolutely disgusting, Zoe that just sounds vial. Why would anyone do that?” Kayn glanced over at her for a second to show her how disgusted he was by that.
“Perfect.” Zoe grinned mischievously back at him. The only thing missing from the picture was her rubbing her hands in an evil manner. But her hands were filled with a notepad and a pink feathery pen as she checked off another combination on her list.
“Just so you know, I am not going near any of your chocolates. Don’t even try and make me taste test them. You are lucky that I am even coming along on this little adventure of yours.” He said as he watched the stoplight turn green.
“Yeah, yeah I know. I am so lucky to be in your presence oh mighty shadow reaper.” Zoe theatrically acted out as she glanced at him at the mention of his old nickname. His ears turned red as soon as he had realized it.
“Tell me, what was the name of your band again? The Order of the Dark?” Zoe kept her tone casual, but Kayn knew she was teasing him.
“Oh god, I wish Zed had never told you about that.” And then quieter between his teeth he pressed out: “Order of the Shadow.”
“Right. That’s what it was.” Of course, Zoe knew that. She could never forget the pictures Kayn’s older brother had shown her when his family had come up to DU to visit Kayn. The band had been somewhere between emo and metal, and they had looked so edgy and too cool for life that the image of Kayn wearing black wristbands had been burned into her brain.
“Anyway, what do you think about horseradish and condensed milk? So that it looks like a nice truffle but then… bam, disgusting.” Zoe happily prattled on, Kayn just pulled a face at the thought.
“Why can’t you make something nice for once? Like no pranks or jokes, just nice?” Kayn said pleadingly.
“Please, I would lose my place in the friend group,” Zoe said without thinking too much about it.
“Hm? What do you mean?” Kayn immediately shot back at her, giving her a worried look.
“You know everyone has a role in a friend group.”
Kayn raised his eyebrow at the comment, so Zoe elaborated.
“Okay so, take Taliyah for example. She is the crystal, green witch we never knew we needed. She knows our birth charts and when what planet is in retrograde. Then there is Jinx, who comes up with the craziest ideas and always knows everything about the new tech stuff. Lux is the token preppy one. Ekko is the laid-back one who reminds us to relax every once in a while. Ezreal is the surfer-boy cute one, you are the edgy, emo, hot one and I am the trickster who brings the jokes. You see... we all have roles to fill. So, if I can’t bring the pranks and shenanigans, what use am I to you guys?” Zoe said casually as she went through her list again.
The silence in the car was shifting from comfortable to suspiciously quiet. Zoe glanced over to Kayn to see if a cat had finally gotten to his tongue. He was sitting there one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his face as if he was holding his mouth shut.
“You, okay?” Zoe asked a little annoyed. Like, what was his issue now? That’s when she noticed the blush on his rather pale complexion.
Immediately she reached out to touch his forehead. She could feel that it was a reasonable human temperature before her hand was swatted away.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if you are sick. Jeez, Kayn, you went pale and red. You looked like you were having a fever. Are you sure you should be driving?”
Kayn swallowed twice and looked out of the front window. “I’m fine. Stop spewing nonsense. Get your list ready, we are nearly there.”
Zoe rolled her eyes at him but did as she was told while she thought about her soon-to-be-famous combination of chili chicken chocolate.
“And you are absolutely sure you need ten pounds of chocolate?” Kayn said as he pushed the cart a little closer for Zoe to dump yet another armful of chocolate into the cart.
“Duh, what if I ruin a batch? Or drop it on the floor?”
“You are making it inedible anyway, why do you care?” Kayn retorted as he was eyeing the decoration aisle. Kayn had never really made… well any kind of treats by hand so he was overwhelmed by the number of sprinkles, little hearts and flowers, edible glitters, and little figurines that you could buy.
Too bad that Zoe was set on making horrible chocolates, otherwise with all this stuff they might have actually turned out cute. Not that he would ever admit that, but this could have been a fun Friday afternoon.
He was currently crouching down while looking at the many different little heart decorations that would definitely be on clearance in two days. Suddenly there was a chin resting on his shoulder.
“Whatcha looking at?” Zoe’s voice was comically stretched out and meant to be annoying but as it was so close to his ear it still made the hairs on his arms stand up. Good thing he was wearing a black hoodie otherwise that would have been the second time he was embarrassed by Zoe invading his personal space today. He had to keep his cool, otherwise, he would start looking suspicious.
As casually as he could he held up the box of decorations for Zoe to see and regretfully told her: “Too bad you are making abomination chocolates, otherwise they might have been actually nice for once.”
Zoe’s hand reached over his shoulder and looked at the gold and silver chocolate hearts in the tacky red box. “Just because I want them to taste bad does not mean I want them to look bad. We can make them look pretty.”
And with that, she was off him, raiding the decoration aisle. Within ten seconds her arms were filled with various sprinkles, decorations, and… you guessed it, glitter in all the colors of the rainbow.
“We?” Kayn raised his eyebrows at a very preoccupied Zoe, “I hope that you, not even for a second, thought I would help you with this.”
“Sure, Kayn, whatever you say.” Zoe didn’t pay him any mind as she continued to pluck decorations off the shelf. It was moments like this that Kayn was always painfully reminded how different the two of them were. After all, Zoe was probably holding a hundred dollars’ worth of decorations in her arm while he had to contemplate if he could afford anything other than ramen to eat.
It sure was strange having rich friends, especially in college. Kayn had always thought himself to have a bunch of equally broke friends in college, but instead, he was standing here with groceries in a cart that cost more than a month worth of food for him, and it was all for a joke.
No matter how often Zoe would say that her parents are rich, and she isn’t, she still was. This was the epidemy of rich people shit. But hey, at least he had a fun and free Friday-afternoon activity.
Twenty minutes later when he was carrying four bags of stuff back to the car he was already contemplating if this was worth it. Why did Zoe need to live on the fourth floor again?
“You know I can carry them myself, right?” Zoe asked as she was currently sucking on a lollypop that she had grabbed last minute at the checkout.
“And have me listen to you complaining about how heavy they are? No thank you. Plus, this is a free workout.” Kayn said dismissively as he carried the bags dutifully up the eight half flights of stairs.
On the last flight, he resentfully commented: “Please tell me you are getting an off-campus apartment next year. As Juniors we don’t have to live in the dorms anymore, right?”
“Awww, but then how would you maintain your perfect body then? Oh, wait… all the walking you would do to my place.” Zoe said teasingly as she rolled her eyes. Who was complaining now? She thought to herself.
“Shut up,” was the intelligent response Kayn came up with.
Zoe did feel victorious for a second. After all, she loved it when she won the banter but then relief settled in. He hadn’t said that he would not come over anymore or that he was glad to get rid of her.
Sometimes she was sure the only reason they hung out so much, even outside the regular friend group meetups was that they lived in the same building. And the fact that Kayn’s roommate constantly had someone over and Zoe had scored a single room.
Zoe held open the door to the dorm kitchen that was located next to her room. This would have been super convenient if Zoe would have ever used it, but as she had an unlimited meal plan, she had never used it until today.
Soon Zoe had pulled pots and pans out of the gray plastic bags Kayn had set down on the kitchen counter. Within five minutes the previously tidy kitchen looked like a reality tv cooking show had just exploded all over it. Water was boiling in one pot while Zoe was chopping the chicken into fine pieces as powdered sugar was covering most of the kitchen counters.
Kayn had pulled a chair into the low-budget version bay window of the dorm kitchen and was half reading his physics book half watching that Zoe didn’t accidentally kill herself with a kitchen knife. To think that her mom was a professional chef with a world-renowned restaurant chain.
“You know you have to cook that, right?” Kayn said as he turned the page of his book.
“Hm?” Zoe turned as she was making small balls of sweet chili chicken. Her head turned over her shoulder revealed a smear of chocolate already on her face.
“The chicken, you can’t leave it raw. That might give us all food poisoning.” Kayn casually stated.
“How? I mean, you can eat raw fish, how is chicken any different?” Zoe honestly asked. It baffled Kayn a lot how someone as smart as Zoe could be so clueless about life.
“Salmonella, cooking the chicken will kill the bacteria. You want this to be disgusting, not traumatizing.”
“Oh, shoot yeah you are right,” Zoe said as she grabbed another pan and put it on the stove. It was already covered in powdered sugar, but Zoe didn’t bother cleaning it. After all, the chicken was going to be submerged in a dark chocolate bath later anyway.
“Let the pan preheat until it's hot and then put in some oil and the chicken so that it gets hot enough on the inside.” Kayn lectured as he pretended like he was solemnly focused on his book. His pleased expression let Zoe know he was thoroughly enjoying lecturing her. So much for not wanting to help.
Zoe went back to the cookbook on the table to check on what the next step of chocolate making was. Right, tempering the chocolate, so it would get glossy and hard.
Minutes went by as Zoe kept checking on the temperature of her chocolate, stirring it constantly, and preparing the rest of her recipes of disaster.
“Did you put the chicken in yet?” Kayn asked as he watched Zoe stir the chocolate a little too intently.
“Yes, I was just about to,” Zoe said, clearly not just about to cook some chicken. Quickly she grabbed some oil and poured it into the pan while still having her attention on the chocolate.
Immediately, with a loud explosion, a flame shoot into the open above the pan. Zoe was lucky she had been standing on the other half of the stove or the flame would have burned off her hair and eyebrows.
With a scream, Zoe jumped away from the stove. Unfortunately, the handle of the pan got knocked up by the movement and she spilled the hot oil and sugar mixture all over the gas stove and the powder-sugar-covered counter.
Immediately half of the kitchen was bursting into flames.
Zoe watched the flames dance as her heart hammered in her chest. Her brain kept telling her to move and do something, anything really, but she was frozen in place. This was gods’ punishment for her wasting good foods to pull a stupid prank, she just knew it. And now she would die because she had to make chili chicken chocolates.
Then something collided with her and moved her out of the way. It was cool and solid compared to the flame and it pushed her against the door.
“Whatever you do, don’t open that door until I tell you to. You understand me?” Two hands were on her shoulder and two amber eyes looked at her so seriously that Zoe forced herself to nod.
Then she watched as Kayn grabbed the fire extinguisher and blasted the flames with white foamy stuff aimed right at the oil spill. The flames calmed down, but they did not die down completely.
“Now, GO!” Kayn yelled as he kept a steady grip on the aimed hose.
Zoe stood there, not frozen in place anymore, but she still didn’t move.
“Are you crazy? Go.” Kayn yelled again as he had glanced at the door, but Zoe shook her head.
“No, I’m not leaving you,” Zoe said as she stupidly took a step towards Kayn.
Before Kayn could yell at her to leave again. The fire alarm sounded off and the sprinklers completely drenched Kayn, Zoe, and the flames.
As the fire extinguisher put out the oil fire the water from above did its job at extinguishing all the burning powdered sugar. Within a minute the whole thing was under control and Kayn dropped the extinguisher and pulled Zoe out of the door.
They stood in the hallway and watched through the glass of the fire prove doors as the flames died down.
Kayn was holding Zoe at arm’s length with one hand on her shoulder and the other protectively behind her head as their breaths evened out. He took another deep breath and touched his forehead to hers and his thumb soothingly rubbed at her cheek.
“Next time I tell you to go, you go.” His voice was shaky from all the adrenaline running through his veins.
Zoe pulled away from him and looked right into his worry-clouded amber eyes. She started to nod but then shook her head. There was no way she would ever leave him alone in danger. He could tell her to leave a thousand times, but she still would not. He would have to leave her.
She wanted to say something, but everything that came to mind was too much. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug.
Moments later, they heard voices in the hallway that made them break apart.
“We should get out of here,” Zoe whispered barely audible over the still ringing fire alarm. Kayn was already pulling her by the arm down the stairs. Where they were greeted by a mass of people hurrying down the stairs.
Outside the firefighter were just pulling up and some people had started passing out blankets to all the wet people outside.
“God, I hope your insurance covers kitchen fires, you little arsonist,” Kayn said as he pulled a blanket over his shoulders. The water dripping out of his hair was leaving dark spots on the rough material.
Zoe groaned. Insurance, that meant she needed to tell her moms. She looked for her phone to call them, but she could not find it. Just as she started to pat herself down Kayn wordlessly held his phone out towards her.
Gladly Zoe accepted the phone. “What would I do without you?” She said equally grateful and teasingly.
“Burning to a crisp in a kitchen fire, but that’s just a wild guess.” Kayn shrugged but could not hide his grin.
Zoe gave him a stink eye and watched Kayn laugh at that.
“Too soon?” he got out in-between chuckles.
“Mhmm, who has the damage does not need to worry about the mockery, or what was it?” Zoe said annoyed as she punched in the numbers of her mom on Kayn’s phone.
Only a few rings later the face of Diana greeted her. She looked genuinely confused for a second but then realized that her daughter was outside, drenched to her bones in a gray rescue blanket.
“Oh honey, what happened? Are you okay?” Diana’s usual cool demeanor had completely changed.
“Yeah, I’m fine don’t worry, just a little kitchen fire. But I am safe now.”
“Kitchen fire?” That was Leona’s voice that cracked with worry as her other mother hurried to press her face into the small frame of the video call.
“It was an accident; I didn’t mean to,” Zoe said defensively as she pulled the blanket tighter around her. “Plus, we had it under control. It's not that big of a deal.”
“Don’t scare me like that dear, you know how dangerous kitchen fires can be. We nearly lost one of my sous chefs once because of a grease fire. How often do I have to…” Leona was half yelling at her as Diana interrupted her with a gentle touch to the shoulder.
“We know the story, love. They are fine now. See.” Diana moved the phone for Leona to have a closer look. Leona, in true middle-aged mom fashion, squinted her eyes at the screen and inspected Zoe thoroughly.
“Okay fine, now let me see Kayn. I have to make sure he still has his eyebrows.” Leona said completely seriously.
Zoe obliged with a slight eye roll and pointed the camera to Kayn. “Mum wants to know that you are fine too.”
Kayn pulled the blanket tighter around him and gave a smile and a little wave into the camera. Leona from the background and Diana still holding up the phone gave a smile back. As Diana mouthed thank you at Kayn Leona said: “We are glad you are okay.” He gave a curtsy nod to that as Zoe turned the camera back on her and moved over a little.
“I called because I need our insurance number.” She continued to walk away from the mass a little. They all didn’t have to know her insurance details.
Leona told her she would go and get it as Zoe stayed on the call with Diana. Quietly, to make sure Kayn would not hear it she asked: “How did you two know Kayn was with me?”
“Oh please, honey you are always with him,” Diana said dismissively.
“T-that’s not true, we are not always together.” Zoe pouted back at her mom like a kid that had just been caught with her hand in a cookie jar.
If she had been looking at the screen instead of away to hide her embarrassment, she would have seen her mom’s mischievous grin.
“Zoe there is one thing I am absolutely sure of.” She said trying to stay as serious as she could.
“That would be?” Zoe asked partially curious partially annoyed.
“On the day you get married me and your mom will be sitting there, watching you two stand up there, at the altar.”
Zoe went as red as the flame in the kitchen had been a few minutes ago. “Mom, I- I….” She pressed out flustered.
“As your bridesman of course,” Diana smiled at her wickedly and Zoe realized she had fallen right into her mother’s trap. “Or what were you thinking about?”
“Firefly, don’t let your mom bother you, she saved his number the last time you called from his phone,” Leona said as she reappeared in frame with some documents in her hand.
She gave Zoe the information she needed and as Zoe saved it in the notes on Kayn’s phone she stalked back over to him.
“Thanks, guys. You are the best. For like, not getting mad at me.” Zoe smiled gently at her parents.
“Don’t worry, we will be plenty mad at you over spring break. But for now, we are just glad you two are okay.” Diana commented offhandedly.
“You heard that, right Kayn darling?” Leona yelled out to make Zoe pan the camera over to him again.
“Yes, thanks Mrs. Twilight.” He said as he raised his hand as a goodbye.
“We will call you later, firefly, now just make sure you two don’t get sick. Love you.” Leona waved at the camera.
“Bye.” Zoe and Kayn said in unison as they waved at the camera screen.
Even though the air was still littered with sounds of people talking and siren noises a silence settled between the two of them as the adrenaline rush started to wear off and the exhaustion kicked in.
Zoe finally gave in to the urge to rest her head against Kayn’s arm as they watched the chaotic scene they had caused.
She felt him chuckle before she heard it. “So, firefly, hm? I didn’t know they had arsonistic tendencies.”
“Oh god no. I am too tired to deal with this.” Zoe groaned but kept her head on his arm.
“No, no, it fits you. You are very sparkly and have a tendency to set things on fire. Plus, you buzz around a lot. I like it.” He smiled down at Zoe who looked up at him with her cheek pressed against his arm.
Her wet hair was messily pressed to her temple, she looked utterly exhausted and there was still a smudge of chocolate on her cheek but despite all of that her eyes still shone brightly against the gray February weather.
Even if he would have to put out a hundred more grease fires and sit through hours of bad ideas, he could never get tired of seeing those two mismatched eyes staring up at him.
Zoe watched the exhausted amber eyes soften as she looked up at him and she knew Diana had been right.
On February 16, when all the madness had died down, Kayn came home from a gym session. As he was about to throw his gym bag on his bed when he noticed a small blue box with a yellow bow. There was a note tucked underneath the ribbon.
As he unfolded the note, he knew that Zoe had put effort into writing it because Zoe’s handwriting for once neatly say: “Don’t worry, they are store-bought, I just decorated them with chocolate I melted in a microwave. <3”
In the box there sat thirteen chocolates decorated with silver and gold chocolate hearts.
Only one of them was filled with chili and chicken.