Deepa and I had already set up just about everything around my kitchen. We had it down to a science. Diffusion paper covered my windows year-round, muting the natural light that came through. Usually I had my shutters down anyway, but I liked the consistency of leaving the paper up. That and I was lazy.

My camera was set up to capture the island and the stove, highlighted by two soft light boxes set up on opposite ends. One was on the left and one was on the right, tipped down at forty-five-degree angles toward where I usually stood. We’d already checked the LAV microphones to make sure the audio was good.

I’d made sure my camera batteries were charged, and from the look of Deepa standing by my laptop, she was double-checking the memory cards to make sure they weren’t full. Even though I’d already warned her who was coming, she still seemed to jump a little bit, and I knew I wasn’t imagining that her smile was bigger than normal when I introduced her to CJ and Amari. They were both polite to her. Trevor… whatever. I’d tell her about him later.

I ushered my guests toward the kitchen, realizing how small it looked with both of them in it. We’d roll with it. Knitting my fingers together, I brought them under my chin and said, “I’m so happy you’re here. Really. Thank you.”

It was Amari who said, “You’re welcome. My mom’s gonna love it. Can I say ‘hi, Mom’ on it?”

“Yeah, your whole family. Whatever you want.” I bounced up to the balls of my feet. “So, I’m not sure how much time you have, and I can work around you. I don’t want to take up more of it than necessary. Do you want to do one with all three of us at the same time? Do you want to do one each? I have four recipes ready we can do. I got the ingredients for all of them. Sometimes we can knock out a video in an hour, but that’s really, really rare, and sometimes it takes three or four hours depending on if we have to start and stop.”

I’d come up with the idea to have four different recipes ready at nine o’clock the night before and had to make a last-minute run to the grocery store. What if they didn’t like peanut butter? The peanut butter Rice Krispies treat idea wouldn’t work in that case. Or what if they would rather make a meal? I bought shit to try and wing some crispy sweet chicken. I’d been thinking about a key lime cheesecake bite idea for a while too.

It had gone downhill from there. I didn’t want to ruin this happening by asking or being picky, so instead, I prepared. Either way, I was down for whatever the guys said they wanted to do. One video. Two videos. Half a video. Whatever. Peanut butter Rice Krispies treats. Key lime cheesecake bites. Crispy sweet chicken. Or pound cake. My sweet tooth was kicking in this week.

“What do you think?” I asked them both, trying to give them my most easygoing smile. “Whatever works for you, works for me. You can still back out too. My feelings won’t be hurt.”

“I want to, but I warned you I’m no good in the kitchen unless it involves the microwave,” CJ said.

Amari shrugged two perfect shoulders. “I’m not in a rush. Whatever you want to do works for me.”

“Whatever you guys want. We already checked three microphones, but we don’t need to use them all.”

“Say we do one together now and it isn’t bad, could I do another one later?” CJ asked.

I didn’t even try and hide my excitement. “Any time you want,” I told him.

Trevor yawned again as he stood off to the side in my kitchen. He’d been so quiet I forgot he was in there, but he was standing right beside Deepa while she did whatever she was doing on my laptop. “You film cooking videos?” he asked.

If he wanted to simplify it that much… “Something like that.”

“For a living?”

CJ sighed, but I nodded. “It isn’t my full-time job yet, but it will be. You can look up The Lazy Baker if you want.”

The older man raised and dropped his eyebrows, suspicious, I could tell, but he still reached into his pocket for his phone. I wondered what the hell he was thinking. That I was lying? But I would never know because he asked, “Hm. Is there somewhere I can sit and wait?”

“In the living room is fine,” I answered him before focusing back on the two men. “So, you guys want to screw up a recipe then? Together?”

Amari grinned. “Let’s do one together. If it’s bad, I want CJ to throw up too.”

My smile melted off, and I squinted at both of them. “Look, that happened one time.”

But when we all laughed, I knew this was going to be good.

Five hours, several pounds of frozen wings, and eight biscuits from a box later, I was sprawled out on my couch.

Alone.

CJ, Amari, and Trevor had left half an hour ago, thanking me for inviting them to participate. Well, at least, CJ and Amari had. Trevor, who I’d caught watching us pretty intently, had muttered a goodbye that sounded almost genuine—especially after I’d given him the rest of my strawberry-flavored frozen yogurt. And after he’d read through the release form that I had asked CJ and Amari to sign.

And they had promised to come back and make another video “whenever I wanted.”

Deepa left ten minutes after they did. She’d given me a hug and told me she still couldn’t believe they had come over and participated. I couldn’t either.

We’d cleaned out my freezer following the twenty minutes it had taken them—because I’d basically stood by monitoring CJ and Amari in action—to mix the ingredients together, drop the “batter” for the key lime cheesecake bites into the muffin pan that CJ had set liners into. Then we’d stood around the kitchen for the twenty-five minutes it had taken to bake them, forty-five minutes for them to cool, and then another hour—that should have been more like four, I realized afterward—to set them in the fridge to chill.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

During that time, I’d heard Amari’s stomach grumble and had asked if they wanted to eat. I hadn’t been surprised even a little bit when they’d nodded. Deepa and I always took a lunch break while things baked or once we were done if it was something fast. What I had been surprised by was Trevor perking up at the mention of food. I knew there had been a reason why I’d bought the jumbo family pack of frozen wings when they’d gone on sale.

It really had been a good day.

And now I was editing the video of us a little and debating whether or not to try and squeeze another one in. It was a lot more work—and a lot riskier—to film without Deepa helping me, but she’d seemed pretty fidgety, so I’d told her she could go home. Plus, it wasn’t like I really had anything else to do. And all the equipment was still set up, so I’d just need to make a few adjustments before I could get started.

I’d give myself another ten minutes before really deciding whether or not to do it despite what time it was in the afternoon. I mean, I had makeup on already, I’d ironed my clothes the night before just in case, and I had the ingredients.

Yeah, ten more minutes. I started the video again from the beginning.

“Hello, Lazy Bakers. We’re back at it again today with two very special guests.” On the screen, I drum rolled my hands on the light-colored granite counter that was about three seconds away from looking way too small.