Let's get one thing straight. I can't cook.

        I mean, it's not from a lack of trying. I've attempted an innumerable amount of dishes, ranging from the frozen boneless Buffalo wings my mom stores in the freezer with the instructions on them and everything, working my way up to far more thought-provoking recipes, like omelets. Okay, but seriously, nobody ever told me that you're not supposed to try to flip the omelet over because the gooey egg part runs down the sides.

        And don't get me started on how unclear the instructions on that box of chicken wings were.

        My mom and younger brother aren't exactly award-winning chefs either, making learning the culinary arts prove to be a bit of a challenge for someone as inept at cooking as me.

        The thing is, my dad is the cook in our family. He can do all sorts of magic in the kitchen, like his infamous French onion soup with a thick layer of white cheese melted on the top, or his spicy fajitas that sizzle happily until your mouth is reduced to a melting Popsicle. And I could go on and on about  his steaks that he grills in the summer.

        But unfortunately, his job isn't exactly the kind that involves him being gone for eight hours during the day and then returning later in the evening to delight our family with his God-given cooking abilities. Actually, on average, his job allows him to come home twice a year. For only about two weeks each visit.

        I guess you could say it sucks having a dad in the military. And if you did, I wouldn't argue with you. It's hard. When I was younger, before my dad got promoted to a higher position in the army, we moved around. A lot. Texas, Florida, Virginia . . . you name it, I lived there. But then we moved to a small town in Georgia, and my dad told us that if things went as planned, that would be our last move.

        Seven and a half years later and here we are, still in Georgia.

        Although it's only the beginning of January right now and my dad won't be home until Spring Break in April, I figured now was as good a time as any to learn how to cook, so that when he comes home I can make him the home cooked meals for once, and he can relax. Which is why I figured taking the Foods I course at my school might be a good idea. And not only for my dad, but I'll be in college in several months, and it's good to have some cooking expertise under my belt so I'm not relying on the cafeteria food, ordered pizza, or takeout for every meal.

        It only made sense that I should take the class at school that teaches all the basics to operating and manning a kitchen.

        Apparently, however, I was wrong.

        "What's the difference between a dry measuring cup and a liquid measuring cup?" I ask the two unlucky souls who got stuck with me in their kitchen group, scrunching my nose up and furrowing my brows in confusion as I scan the contents of the recipe sheet. "Aren't they the same thing?"

        Graham Rivers, a tall and relatively skinny guy in my grade with wavy blonde hair and big brown eyes glances up at me and frowns. "The little metal cups are for dry ingredients; you'll find the measurements on the handles. That big clear thing over there with all the graduated red lines is for liquids and—actually, you know what? How about I'll gather all the ingredients and you just melt the butter awhile, okay?"

        I purse my lips and nod stiffly, using every fiber of mental strength I can scrounge to refrain from protesting in annoyance. After all, this is his grade, too. It's not fair for him to let someone as blatantly hopeless at cooking as me have more responsibility than I can handle, resulting in a surefire way for our kitchen group to end up with a bad grade, even though I really hate when other people take on the leadership position and I'm left with no choice but to string myself along.

        I rummage through the cabinets and extract a small silver dish that seems like a good place to put butter and dump our carefully measured half stick inside before sticking it in the microwave that hangs above the oven at our group's kitchen station. After a couple seconds of debating, I decide to set the timer for two minutes, figuring that's enough time for a stick of butter to melt.

        While I wait, I lean back against the counter and watch Graham as he carefully scoops ingredients into measuring cups, a calculating expression on his face as if it's some kind of science. His fingers are long and slender and move with ease while he works and I wonder if he's ever considered playing the piano.

        Graham Rivers has lived three houses down from me ever since middle school when his family moved here, replacing the Johnson family, dysfunctional clan of kids and all. He wore glasses back then and had a twig-like physique, unlike me, when I had to spend the bulk of my middle school experience as a pudgy preteen, much like many of my other classmates. I've long shed those excess pounds since then, filling out into something desirable enough to make the guys in my grade notice me, especially in the latter half of my sophomore year.

        If I'm being completely honest, I used to have a crush on Graham. I still remember waking my best friend, Laney, up at seven in the morning the summer before freshman year so we could "go for a walk" each day for what I claimed to be part of our morning workout regimen, even though Laney already knew that I did it to catch sight of Graham when he ventured outside to retrieve the morning paper for his dad.

        That was back before I started dating the most popular guy in our grade, though.

        To Graham's left, Vanessa Reyes, a Latina sophomore who has barely said two words since we got to work, watches Graham with captivated interest, and I find myself smiling slyly. She totally has a crush.

        "Hey Ayla, didja get me those papers at the softball meeting yesterday?" a friend of mine from softball named Hannah asks from the next kitchen over, breaking me out of my daze.

        I look up and nod. "Yeah. I'll give 'em to you after class."

        "Sweet. Thanks, vergüenza," she says, making me grin at the mention of one of our old inside jokes from the previous softball season, when a Hispanic girl on the JV team told us the Spanish word for embarrassment, which we have since proceeded to call each other, as a joke, of course.

        I turn and direct my attention at the illuminated red numbers on the school clock that hangs high above the doorway and stifle a sigh, ready for the school day to be over with.

        "Why do I smell something burning?!" my teacher's frantic voice suddenly pierces through the air, snapping me out of my trance.

        Everyone looks around the room with wide eyes, silently praying that they're not the culprit who screwed up already, and I'm no exception. And that's when I finally remember—the butter!

        I quickly thrust the door to the microwave open and a thin cloud of steam hisses its way out into the open air, the smell of burning metal escaping with it. I can feel heat rising to my cheeks, and I try not to cringe as my teacher, Mrs. Webber, marches over to our kitchen station, using a hand towel to air the unpleasant fumes out.

        The room gets oddly quiet. Everyone is looking at me, their faces a mixture of relief since they're safe from a lecture and amused because I, the ever cool Ayla Collins, did something that was, well, uncool.

        "Ayla, why on earth would you put a metal dish in the microwave? You could have set the whole thing on fire!" Mrs. Webber exclaims, bringing a hand up to her temple and rubbing it. "Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Put metal in a microwave."

        "Oops?" I say with a sheepish smile, though my face feels like it's facing the aftermath of what would've happened had I left that metal dish in the microwave for just a little while longer. The muffled snickers bouncing around the room do nothing to help my case. "It won't happen again, I promise."

        "It better not, Miss Collins," she says threateningly, an undertone of warning laced thickly in her voice. "I hope you realize you could have done some serious damage to the microwave. You need to be careful if you're going to be cooking in my room." She shoots me one last glare, just to make sure I understand her point, and I nod stiffly before she strides away to help another group. Slowly, everyone else fizzles back into conversation, releasing some of the inevitable tension.

        I relax a bit, though I can't shake the feeling that I'm already on my teacher's bad side, which, given my academic performance thus far in my high school experience, is practically unheard of.

                As soon as Mrs. Webber is gone, Hannah bursts into laughter in the kitchen group next to mine and I roll my eyes. "How do you not know that you don't put metal in a microwave?" she asks between cackles, her eyes lining with tears from laughing so hard.

        I glare at her, but there's no denying that I find humor in the situation too, if the twitching of my mouth is any indication. "Shut up. It's not my fault I never got the memo that metal doesn't go in the microwave."

        "Everyone knows that metal doesn't go in the microwave," she retorts, an amused grin plastered to her face.

        "Well I don't," I mutter defensively, reluctant to turn and face the imminent wrath of my kitchen group.

        Graham is chewing on his lip like he isn't sure what to say as he tries to recover from the damage I've already done, meanwhile Vanessa looks downright annoyed as she helps Graham pour the slightly overheated butter in with the other ingredients.

        I feel a pang of remorse. It's not like I was trying to sabotage our assignment. Quite the opposite, actually. It just comes naturally when I'm within a two foot radius of any functioning kitchen appliance.

        "I really am sorry, guys," I say apologetically.

        Vanessa shrugs and turns away, refusing to offer anything more than that.

        Graham offers me a small smile. "It's okay. You'll get the hang of it eventually."

        Let's hope so, I mentally reply.

                                ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

        "Who puts metal in a microwave?" my best friend since moving here, Delaney 'Please just call me Laney,' all but howls between bouts of laughter as I recount the traumatic incident from this morning, earning a few curious glances pointed our way as we wait our turn in line for a serious game of Indian Baseball. Why the gym teachers insist on calling it that when all it really is is regular baseball played inside the gym with mats used for bases and a dodgeball used in lieu of a baseball, nobody can truly say.

        "Aren't girls supposed to be good in the kitchen?" Wyatt butts in with a smug expression, stringing an arm loosely around my shoulders.

        I frown and squirm out from my boyfriend of nearly two years' arm. "Not all girls are good in the kitchen. That crap is harder than it looks!"

        "Oh, come on, it can't be that hard," Wyatt says with a smirk.

        "I'll remember that next time you're over at my house and you ask me to make you something, idiot."

        "Ooooh. Burn!" Robby, Wyatt's brown-haired best friend, exclaims, extending a hand to high-five me.

        I return the gesture, and our hands smack together with a resounding clap!

        "Ayla Collins, you're up to bat!" Mr. D, one of the two gym teachers, yells, effectively letting our conversation die.

        "Hit me a homer, babe," Wyatt says with a wink.

        "Don't call me 'babe,'" I mutter, sending him a terse scowl before turning to go. I'm not as amused by his antics as the other girls in my grade would be if they were the ones receiving his flirtatious smiles and words of encouragement. Whenever he says those kinds of things, I can't help but feel like he's doing it to degrade me, and I don't tolerate boys who try to make me feel inferior, just because I have two X chromosomes and they don't.

        Especially when I can kick most of their butts at nearly any given sport, namely baseball.

        "Ayla Collins steps up to the plate. Let's see what she's got," Mr. D says in his best announcer voice, reeling me back into the game and earning a few laughs on his account.

        I turn to shoot him a threatening look before turning back around and rolling my eyes, though if I'm being honest, I secretly like the fact that my gym teacher likes me enough to joke around with me. Not that I would ever admit that out loud or anything.

        Bending down, I pick up the large wooden bat, my fingers curling around the base while I straighten myself out and set my feet shoulder width apart, bending my knees a little and narrowing my eyes at the other team's pitcher. The boy who is currently undertaking the role as pitcher tosses the crusty red dodgeball in the air lazily from several feet away, waiting for the right moment to chuck it down the plate.

        He squints at the boy who plays catcher behind me before finally winding up and releasing the ball, hurtling it toward me with all his might. A wave of satisfaction travels inside of me, knowing full well that he usually goes easy on the girls and gives them light and easy tosses. I like the fact that he considers me a strong enough competitor to throw the ball like he would for any of the athletic guys in our gym class.

        I keep my eye on the ball as it whizzes toward me and then use everything I have to send the bat barreling toward the ball at a high velocity. The familiar feeling of the bat and ball connecting makes my heart leap in pleasure.

        This is my niche.

        As soon as the ball begins arcing away, I let the bat clatter from my hands to the floor and begin sprinting after everyone else on my team, making sure my foot touches each base. It isn't until I'm rounding second that Mr. D blows his whistle, an indicator that the teams are switching sides and I'm fielding now.

        "Did I hit it above the stripe?" I ask with furrowed eyebrows as my friends join me in the middle of the gymnasium while the other team organizes itself in a line against the wall. A basic rule in this game is that if the batter hits the ball above the large blue stripe that runs horizontally across the wall opposite of the side where the batter hits, you get an automatic homerun.

        "Yeah, you did, ya little show off," Laney quips with an eye roll, giving me a playful shove. "God, if only I was half as good at sports as you."

        "Nah, you have the whole girly thing going for you," I counter.

        While I'm pretty much notorious at our school for being the athletic one, Laney is widely known for her runway-worthy fashion taste. We make an unlikely pairing, but somehow our contrasting personalities mesh perfectly, and we've been inseparable for years. My seemingly unbreakable exterior matched with Laney's soft-spoken femininity makes us the perfect pair or, as Wyatt jokingly calls us, the Deadly Duo.

        Wyatt used to joke about how Laney would lure people in with her pretty looks and inviting personality and I would scare them away by acting tough and feisty. But then I punched him in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise and told him to shut up, and he hasn't brought up this theory since.

        I tune back into the game just in time to see Graham Rivers move up to bat, standing at the makeshift plate looking gawky and out of his comfort zone. Wyatt and Robby snicker beside me and I frown, resisting the sudden impulse to stand up for the poor guy. Instead I sigh and keep my mouth shut, hoping he'll redeem himself without any assistance on my end by making a decent hit.

        The pitcher decides to show some mercy, obviously aware of Graham's lack of natural athletic talent, and gives him a fairly easy toss. Graham swings, but he's a split second too early and the ball floats to the catcher behind him. I find myself staring as his eyes drop to the floor and I swear I see a tinge of pink creeping up his neck.

        The catcher throws the ball out to the pitcher and Mr. D tells Graham to try again. He does, but this time he can only get a piece out of the ball and it shoots straight up in the air, allowing the catcher to easily get under it and make the catch.

        My fingers twitch and I ball my hands into fists at my sides to fight the urge to go show him what he's doing wrong. After all, it's only gym class.

        Mr. D lets Graham try one last time and he finally cuts a weak grounder, looking slightly lost and out of his element as he begins running toward first base.

        I turn to watch as Wyatt scoops up the ball and hurtles it at the eagerly waiting junior covering first when Graham is only a few feet away, and it's like what happens next plays in a slow-motion sequence of events, like when they show the replay in a football game.

        Graham lands on first base at the same time the first baseman extends his arm to tag him out, and as he tries to dodge the ball, his foot catches on the mat and begins sliding out from under him, sending him face-planting on the squeaky gym floor below him, the sound from the impact making me cringe in secondhand embarrassment.

        Wyatt snorts and there's an almost palpable amused energy reverberating off the walls and tremoring around the gymnasium as people stifle their laughs. I, however, am not amused. I feel bad for Graham as he picks himself up and begins his walk of shame to the other side of the gym, head down to avoid looking at all the people who think his failure is funny. Like none of them have ever been embarrassed about something before.

        I don't have the right to laugh. After all, that was the exact position I had been in last period, and he didn't laugh at me when I was the one who had screwed up.

        When he's about to walk past where I'm standing with my friends, Wyatt and Robby begin making mock whooshing noises and reenacting Graham's fall with their hands, snickering at each other. Graham gives them a slight nod of acknowledgment as he walks past and I watch helplessly as he makes his way to the side.

        He slinks down against the bleachers next to a dark-haired guy on the soccer team named Owen who I vaguely recognize to be Graham's best friend from observations made at lunch and in the hallways.

        In my defense, I like observing everyone at our school, not just Graham.

        As the next kid goes up to bat, I can't take it anymore and march over to the sidelines, where Graham and Owen are sitting.

        "All right, listen, Rivers," I say, resulting in both boys' necks snapping up to look at me. I notice Owen smirk the slightest bit as he elbows his friend, and Graham just stares up at me with a blank expression. "You're not athletic."

        Owen snorts and Graham looks down in shame, compelling me to continue.

        "And I can't cook," I hastily add. "But you can. So I have a proposition for you, and I think you should hear me out because this is actually a good deal. If you teach me how to cook, I'll teach you how to play baseball well enough to make the school team this spring."

        Graham finally looks up at me and narrows his eyes. "That's a terrible deal. Why would I want to be on the baseball team?"

        "Because," I supply, "it's your senior year. Your last chance to say you played a school sport before you graduate. Do you really want to have to tell your kids someday that you went your whole high school experience without playing even one sport?"

        "I dunno," he mutters, staring down at the ground with a pensive expression, like he's considering it, which is enough for me.

        "Bro, do it," Owen encourages beside him. "You need to at least try participating in a sport.

        "But—"

        "He'll do it," Owen promptly cuts in, smirking at his friend. "He would love to teach you how to cook if you teach him how to play ball."

        Unabashed by his potential innuendo, I smile brightly at the two boys. "Great. I'll come over to your house after school."

        Graham continues blinking at me, looking like he's having a bit of a difficult time processing what's going on, before the reality of the situation finally hits him full force and he springs into objection. "I never agreed to—"

        "I'll see you later," I cut him off before turning and walking back over to where my boyfriend and friends stand, my lips spreading into a satisfied smile as I hear his groan resound behind me.

Author's Note:

So I'm still working on Axis and slowly getting back into Broken Glass, but both of those stories have themes that are a little darker and more serious, so I wanted a light and fun project to work on as well, hence this story was created. And honestly, I made the cover for this story when the idea came to me months ago and I'm really proud of it and wanted it on my profile because, like, I made that and I want people to see my creation because usually I suck at making covers, and plus this story should be fun and easy to write so maybe I'll update more frequently  (don't hold me to this) (actually do hold me to this, the more excited I see you guys are about my writing, the more I push myself to update).

Also, just a sidenote, but the part where Ayla put a metal dish in the microwave and almost set the microwave on fire...yeah...that happened. To me in my fundamentals of food class last year. I didn't know okay so don't judge me.

Comment whatcha think and all that good stuff and have a fabulous day :)