Cassie and Jordan had both decided on chocolate chip cookies, knowing they would definitely be a crowd favorite at school. When he finished putting Jake to bed, he entered Cassie’s kitchen rolling up the sleeves of his light blue tailored shirt—which she thought he looked amazing in and really made his eyes pop—ready to get to work.
Jordan clapped his hands together, indicating he was ready to start the process. “All right! What do you want me to do?”
“You can plug in the KitchenAid,” said Cassie.
“Where’s that?” he asked, and Cassie didn’t look shocked by his question.
She laughed and answered, “It’s over in the corner next to the stove.” Cassie pointed to the dusty, pink cooking device. “You obviously don’t do a lot of baking in Miami.”
Jordan pulled the mixer out from the corner and plugged the power cord into the wall socket.
“Between games, training, and the gym, I don’t get a lot of time to cook, but I’m not that clueless in the kitchen; I know a little bit,” he said. “So what’s next?”
Cassie cocked one eyebrow. “That’s funny. I just assumed you would use the microwave most of the time.” She gave him a playful shove.
Jordan gently pushed her back. “Well, I do that too, but I can cook some meals. I’m not completely incompetent when it comes to using a kitchen wisely.”
“We’ll see about that,” Cassie murmured to herself, then said aloud, “We simply pour some flour, eggs, oil, chocolate chips, butter, and a little bit of milk into the mixer and let it work its magic. My KitchenAid is a real lifesaver; it does almost all of the hard work for me.”
Together, Cassie and Jordan combined the ingredients into the mixer and then turned it on, waiting until it was combined into a doughy ball so they could make smaller balls of the concoction. Cassie sprinkled some flour across two colorful cutting boards on the island countertop, while Jordan whipped the dough out of the mixer. Then he placed the two large mounds of the mixture in equal proportions onto the cutting boards.
Before getting started with her half, she tied her hair loosely into a ponytail and a flowery-printed apron around her middle while watching Jordan dive straight into rolling the dough out, proving to be good with his hands…like she remembered.
He realized she was watching him intently, and he paused mid-roll with a questioning look on his face. “Am I doing something wrong?” he asked her.
Cassie shook her head, biting down on her bottom lip. “No, you can’t really make a mistake rolling cookie dough. You’re doing fine. I was just thinking I should probably take a picture of you actually doing some form of cooking as proof that you can actually do it,” she said teasingly, letting out a little laugh.
Jordan forgot how good it felt to hear his former girlfriend laugh. She was always so gorgeous when she was laughing, despite not being very funny at the moment.
“Ha. You think you’re so funny,” Jordan stated sarcastically. “You’re laughing at me.”
Cassie stuck out her tongue. “Oh, but I think I am. I’m hilarious. This situation is funny.”
She had him there, and Jordan liked that they were learning to relax in each other’s company again. It reminded him of the old times they shared together six years ago. He missed that the most about Cassie, and despite the regrets and everything else that had happened since then, Jordan could not forget everything good about his past spent with her. After all, she did give him a wonderful and kind-hearted little boy. He had to thank her for raising their son as best as she could on her own. She was doing an admirable job as a single parent.
He nudged her light-heartedly in her side. “I like this.”
Cassie rolled up the sleeves of her button down shirt. “You like what? When I tease you? I like that too. See? I told you; I’m hilarious.”
Jordan gave her a grin, rolling his eyes. “You did always think your jokes were a ball of laughter. I think you were the only one too, but I like being able to be myself around you.”
“You mean up until now, you weren’t being yourself? I’m utterly shocked,” she joked, grabbing bits of dough and rolling them into balls, and then placing them on a prepared baking tray. She suddenly turned serious. “But I do know what you mean. I like it too. It is a good feeling.”
“It’s like nothing’s really changed between us.”
“Except that it has,” Cassie could not help but say. She knew she couldn’t be the only one thinking it. There was definitely a presence of an elephant in the room now. Things had changed between them, their whole dynamic. They went from being a high school couple to parents of a five-year-old boy. They were not together, and Cassie needed to make sure Jordan knew they could not go back to the way they were, even if they could still have fun together. “And right now, we’re baking cookies for our son’s school. Things have changed, and I don’t think we can really go back to the Jordan and Cassie we and everybody else knew six years ago. It’s like another lifetime ago, and we’re not the same people anymore. We’re two very different people who live different lives.”