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Community Center Class: Baked Baking [Tuesday 3/14]

"If you guys don't already know what these are," said Summer, holding up a handful of fondue forks and gesturing toward the fondue pot, with a grin that she couldn't quite keep off her face right now and her cheeks glowing a little pink with a blush for some reason, "then you're in for a treat, because today, we're going to be talking about fondue.

"And," she added, in a way that did nothing for that smirk and that blush except make them incorrigibly worse, "not even gross fondue."

Stark let out a very soft snort at the word gross and smiled down at the floor for no reason at all. "Not gross at all? Sometimes a little gross is good," he said quietly.

The way he was avoiding eye contact today might seem different to observers than the way he had done in the past. Less terribly embarrassed and more simply…shy.

"Although I've never had fondue. But I do like cheese." He dared a quick glance over at his co-teacher before ducking his head again. "Maybe a little gross is good there. But it's better not to be too gross in here, I think."

That quick glance over from her co-teacher sharpened the smirk that had been on Summer's face the whole time. "There's chocolate fondue, too," she said, "so there is probably a lot of potential for gross if you want to get really weird with the combinations. For the most part, though, in addition to just a basic cheese and a basic chocolate, we've also got recipes for a pizza fondue and a breakfast one, as well as a lot of stuff to get creative with what to dip into it. For example, I am absolutely planning on taking these little mini slider hamburgers and absolutely drowning them in the cheese one."

"Everything is better with chocolate," Stark said. "Wait. No. Almost everything." Not, say, shrimp. "The others sound good too. Nothing gross at all. Maybe we should start dipping things in other things then."

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Cheesily!

In case you were wondering why they didn't go with the obvious choice of pies for the class today….what do you think Summer is? A fucking nerd? Please.

You've got several different fondues to work with, and an endless supply of moddable things for dipping, and if you don't get at least a little weird with it, you're seriously doing the class wrong.

If they stop acting like ridiculous awkward teenagers at each other long enough to let you.

Also, nor'easter means SNOW DAY!

What was the narrative even talking about? It was totally normal for Summer to be smirking to herself this much as she loaded up sticks with things to dip in cheese or chocolate (or maybe both). Pffft.

Stark also had no idea what the narrative was talking about. He was almost always like this!

Although perhaps he didn't sneak quite so many glances at Summer normally when he wasn't quite ready to look her in the eye.

And each one of those little stolen glances that Summer managed to catch were only acknowledged by maybe a slight duck of her head, a failed attempt to bite back more of a grin, and a little rush of heat to her face, while she focused (or tried to anyway) on her own fondue and maybe a few teachable moments here and there with the students (because this was a class where people learned things from teachers, after all!).

For a while, anyway, until it seemed like everyone had mostly gotten into their fondue groove, and she leaned a little over the counterspace to dip a strawberry into some of the chocolate one.

"So," she ventured, oh-so-casually, lifting the strawberry out and giving the dipping fork a careful turn to let the excess drip off a little, "any plans for after class?"

And then the timing for eating that strawberry and swiping her thumb in the corner of her mouth to wipe away any chocolate that hadn't made it and then slowly licking that chocolate off her thumb was clearly just coincidental. Mmm, might have been some on her fingers, too, better get those as well...

Connor Temple

Stark watched that strawberry disappear and kept watching before letting out a barely audible whimper when Summer started licking her fingers.

He cleared his throat. "No plans," he said. "None. I...did make a pie."

Which he could eat alone, or bring to the bar tomorrow. Or throw at Leroy if necessary.

What a terrible waste of a pie.

"Yeah?" asked Summer, finishing up making sure all chocolate had been taken care of on each of her fingers on that hand, and she considered egregiously doing the other hand that had gotten no where near the chocolate, but that did seem a bit much. "What kind?"

Stark had not taken his eye off Summer's mouth.

Was this better or worse than not being able to look at her? He thought it was better.

"Pink," he said, licking suddenly dry lips. "It's pink. Pink seemed like a good idea."

He had had a lot of pink on his mind for the past few days.

"You know..." Summer said, oh-so-blithely, "pink is actually one of my favorite colors."

She smiled a bit, at this big reveal of such little-known personal lore.

"Maybe," she then said, leaning in just that little bit more, and making it very evident that she had no problem looking him in the eye right now, "you could bring it over."

"I've heard that," Stark said softly, ducking his head. "About you and pink."

He lifted his head a little so he could look at her wrist.

"And I could bring my pie to you."

He lifted his head more, glancing at her face again.

"If you're still hungry?"

Obviously, Stark would find exactly what he was looking for on Summer's wrist. Especially tonight.

"Oh," she decided, without even needing to think about it, "I could definitely still eat."

Even after last night's Tinder hookup?

Stark saw the bracelet, grinned a little, and ducked his head again.

"So could I." Maybe because he hadn't actually had any fondue yet? Or maybe that was completely unrelated.

That had really been more of just a snack, really.

Or maybe a palate cleanser.

"Then that settles it," Summer said, lifting her chin almost victoriously, her cheeks threatening to start aching soon from how much she was smirking. "You'll come over, and we'll have some nice...delicious...tasty pink pie."

Seriously, though, who let these two be around food right now? Really.

Who let these two be around each other?

"I'd like that very much," Stark said, daring another look up.

"Do you think I should have something else to eat first?" He might need fuel, after all. "Maybe a...snack?"

Or maybe he could just lean over and kiss her in front of everyone in the room.

And completely obliterate all of Summer's nice, cozy, comfortable plausible deniability to dismiss any speculation as the result of vague radios and the lovesick ramblings of a heartbroken squirrel? Gasp.

"Well, I don't know," Summer lightly lifted a shoulder. "Aren't you worried it might spoil your appetite?"

"Summer."

Stark shook his head. "I don't think there's any danger of that. Not at all. Not even a little. We're very safe there."

Ugh Stark saying her name like that wedged a faint little groan out of Summer and made her almost want to take plausible deniability and throw it right out the window after all. Like, it was a pretty small class. And one of them wouldn't even see anything, and he hadn't even pinged in yet. So she was left looking at Stark's mouth, knowing that his lips were moving, obviously, but not hearing a word of what he was actually saying as her mind whirled with constructing a pros and cons list.

"Well," she finally managed, hoping it would make sense in the context of whatever it was that Stark had said, "maybe a little snack wouldn't hurt."

Then, a pause, as she felt a sudden flash of her own cowardice flare up and pull her back from what she really wanted to do in that moment. It was one thing, being brazen and bold in the privacy of her own bedchamber (....and living room....and kitchen....), but she was painfully aware, all of a suddenly, that they weren't exactly there right now.

"We...do have a lot of food right now," she hastily added, dropping her gaze to send it out across the broad spread of fondue options.

Stark hadn't quite caught on, yet, to the full effect of what saying her name in certain tones did to Summer. That was going to be dangerous knowledge when he did.

"We do. What's best covered in cheese?"

A pause and another look, directly at Summer, that didn't last very long. "And what's best covered in chocolate?"

Ooh, that was a close one. Summer almost had a brief moment of clarity and reflection on all of this just then, but, thankfully, it was quickly chased away on the heels of how that eye contact shifted preceding that question, and her eyes lit up at the perfect opportunity to seize onto something that allowed her keep riding all this without having to, you know, think about any of it too much.

"I still totally vote little mini sliders as the MVP for the cheese," she declared. "As for the chocolate..."

She trailed off, just a little.

"I might have a few ideas. Nothing we've got here,though."

But it did look like Summer mag have figured out a good way to check 'Bathroom' off the list of rooms in her apartment that had been...properly utilized since Saturday...

Edited 2023-03-14 22:04 (UTC)

Oh, Summer was interested in riding all this, was she?

"Tiny versions of food are good," Stark said. "I'll try the tiny burger in the cheese. Good idea."

He nodded, glancing over at the chocolate fondue thoughtfully.

"I'm sure we can think of something for the chocolate. Maybe I'll start with fruit. The strawberry looked...tempting."

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Community Center Class: Baked Baking [Tuesday 3/14]

Sign In - Baked Baking [3/14]

Listen to the 'Lecture' - BB [3/14]

Get Bak--ing, er Melting? [BB 3/14]

Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

OOC - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Sign In - Baked Baking [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]

Re: Talk to the Teachers - BB [3/14]