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“What are you doing?” Tamara walks out of her bedroom and sees what she believes to be a catastrophe of a mess in the kitchen. The shock expression on her face deflates and quickly turns to amusement at the sight of Timothy Bradford in an apron. “What - “ She tries to stifle a laugh but ends up bursting out into a fit of laughter so hard that she almost falls. “Never in a million years would I think I would see you wearing an apron.”
“You’re hilarious.” Tim rolls his eyes and stares at her. “I need this to be perfect.” He bends down and stares into the oven. “It’s almost ready.”
“What - “ Tamara takes a closer look at what is displayed on the kitchen counter, more so what kind of mess did this man make. She sees bowls of semi looking batter, confetti sprinkles opened, flour, salt, sugar, chocolate and broken egg shells everywhere. “Are you baking?”
“No.” Tim glares at her. “For someone who promised to help me bake a cake if I gave her $50, she slept in for a long time instead.”
Tamara avoids eye contact. “I had a long night.” College party with friends but Sergeant Bradford doesn’t need to know that. “Did you follow the recipe?”
“What recipe?” Tim stands up, alert and confused. When Tamara lifts the cake mixture box towards him, he silently curses to himself. “No! I followed this stupid recipe that I found online and then I think in the midst of everything, I did two recipes at once.” Tim sighs out loud. “This birthday cake surprise is going to suck.”
“Yeah.” Tamara can’t even find an excuse for him. It doesn’t help either that she somewhat feels bad that she didn’t fulfill her end of the promise. “On the bright side?” She pauses. “It’s for Lucy and she’s like the kindest person in the world?”
It’s the exact reason he was worried about. Being the way Lucy is, she’s probably going to lie and say that she loves the cake when it’s obviously going to be the oddest thing she’ll eat. The ding sound from the timer goes off and Tim hurriedly puts on oven mitts on to take the cake out. Just as he reaches for the cake, he hears click! click! sounds going off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Cakeford.” Tamara laughs as she snaps another picture for her collection of blackmail. “I am changing your name to Cakeford on my phone.”
“You’re going to delete those photos immediately before I arrest you for blackmailing!”
“How are you going to arrest me if I haven’t even used it for blackmailing yet?” Tamara sticks out her tongue and giggles as she skims through the photos. “This could be lock screen worthy for Lucy too!” She jumps up and down. “This could be my birthday gift for her!”
If he wasn’t so worried about the cake’s life right now, he would’ve chased after Tamara. The nerves in his body beat him and he carefully stands up and places the cake onto the counter. “When should I take it off the tin?”
“When it cools down.”
“How long does that take?” He checks the time on his watch. There’s not enough time. Lucy’s about to wake up and they both work today. There’s so many things he had planned for her special day. “Fuck it.” He unlatches the tin from the cake, his patience is next to none.
Tamara feels as if she’s hallucinating at the moment. Before she even had time to sense what he’s doing, she watches as Tim takes a can of frosting and starts smoothing it onto the piping, hot confetti cake. “No!” The frosting immediately melts onto the cake. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I can’t believe it either.” Tim mutters.
The sound of the bedroom door creaking silences the room and Lucy, with her hair disheveled and a face of concern shows up. “What is the ruckus?” She rubs her eyes and yawns. Once her vision starts clearing up, the image in front of her becomes more evident. She glances at Tim dressed in her apron with flour all over his face and oven mitts that are obviously too small for his hands. “Hold on.” She walks back into the bedroom without saying another word.
“See? She hates it.” Tim shakes his head, he ruined a perfectly good birthday - the first of many that he’ll share with her but he wanted this one to be absolutely flawless.
Click! Click!
Tim turns his attention back over to Lucy’s bedroom and scoffs in disbelief at his girlfriend snapping endless pictures of him. “I hate you.”
“And I love you for doing this.” She laughs so hard that her stomach is actually about to burst open. Lucy runs toward Tim, gleefully showing the pictures of him. “Don’t you look cute? This is so darn adorable! You’re a hot mess dressed in my favorite cow print apron!” Lucy gasps. “Cakeford!”
“That’s what I said!” Tamara laughs along with Lucy.
“Hey.” Tim suddenly says sternly. The voice change takes a turn for both Lucy and Tamara, causing them to stop laughing and instantly feel bad for teasing at how cute he looks. As soon as he knows he has led them to believe that he’s angry, he takes two handfuls of the confetti cake with his hands and smears it all over their faces.
“TIM!” Lucy laughs and tries to take some of the cake off her face. “It’s still hot!”
Tamara doesn’t care and takes a piece off to taste some. Her eyebrows arches from surprise and smirks at Tim. “Hey, this isn’t half bad.”
“Really?” Tim smiles. “There’s nothing Bradford can’t do then.”
“Love the confidence.” Lucy laughs. “Let’s see you have a taste.” She gives Tamara a look and with her help, they faceplant Tim onto the rest of the cake. When Tim stands up and shakes his head at them, Lucy looks down. “Now, that’s a very handsome cake.” His whole face imprint was practically on it.
Tim frowns and looks at her. “I had this planned out in my head better. You know I don’t like celebrating birthdays but I wanted to make sure - “ he stops when Lucy grabs hold of the apron to pull him closer. He smirks and takes that as an invitation, leaning in to give her a soft kiss.
Lucy pulls away. “Hm….”
“If you say that name, I swear - “ Tim doesn’t get to finish his sentence. His smile widens when Lucy leans in for another kiss. “Happy Birthday.”