Title: Little Moments
Author: angellwings
Sub-title: She Was Just About to Cry
Rating: K+
Genre: Romance/Humor
Pairing: Ryan/Kelsi
Summary: Kelsi tries to bake Ryan a birthday cake. Set in the not too distant future.
Little Moments
She Was Just About to Cry
Ryan & Kelsi
2/5
Well, that's just like last year on my birthday,
She lost all track of time and burnt the cake.
Every smoke detector in the house was goin' off,
And she was just about to cry until I took her in my arms,
And I tried not to let her see me laugh.
Yeah, I live for little moments like that.
Kelsi was running at a million miles per minute. She had a lot to do before six P.M. rolled around. Ryan shook his head as he watched her. One thing he had learned about Kelsi Nielson that he hadn't known in high school was that she was almost as Obsessive Compulsive as Taylor (especially when they were expecting company). His entire family would be coming out to Long Island to have dinner with the newlyweds on Ryan's birthday. They had a quaint house in Long Island. It was the only place that was close enough to the city, and yet far enough removed that they could get away from it during their down time.
"Kels," He said with a sigh. "Let me help."
"No," She said adamantly. "It's your birthday. You shouldn't even be in here. I'm working on the cake!"
"Kelsi, you are running around like a rabid raccoon. You can't do everything you think you need to do by yourself."
"Everything I think I need to do?" She asked him in an offended tone.
He held up his hands in defense, "All I'm saying is that neither one of our parents are going to stress over whether or not our laundry is done. I doubt they'll be going through our hamper. And, for the record, I don't think they'll be checking our windows for that special Windex shine either."
"I cannot have them over here with our house looking the way it does, Ry. I just can't," Kelsi said as she slipped the two round cake pans into the oven.
"Then let me help you," He pleaded.
"No!" She yelled in frustration. "No work on your birthday! That's the rule!"
He quirked an eyebrow at her, "Since when? Because I can honestly say that I have NEVER applied that rule, and YOU certainly haven't either."
"You know, you make it impossible for someone to do something nice for you," Kelsi sighed as the buzzer on the washer went off.
"Well, It's stressing me out to watch you stress out. So if you won't calm down, and I'm not allowed to help…then I'm going to watch the baseball game," He told her as she walked away from him and toward their small pantry sized laundry room.
"Good! That's what you should have done to begin with!" She called behind her as she walked away. He ran a hand through his hair and chuckled at his wife. She could occasionally be a little too selfless, and most of the time he was able to talk her into letting him help but this time it seemed she wasn't buying it. He turned and headed back toward the living room to watch the game. He yawned as he sat down and realized how tired he actually was. He had drifted off to sleep before he had even seen the score.
He awoke suddenly to the smell of smoke and the sound of yelling.
"You have GOT to be kidding me! Oh, this is just PERFECT! Damn it, can I not do ANYTHING right today?"
Ryan jumped up and sprinted to the kitchen just as the smoke detector in the kitchen began to go off. A few seconds later the detectors in the living room and the dining room began to go off as well. He coughed as he ingested a little bit of the thin layer of smoke spreading through their house.
"Kelsi? Is everything okay?" He asked.
"Okay? OKAY? Does everything LOOK okay to you?" She yelled with frustrated tears.
He stared at her blankly, "You tell me."
"NO, Ryan, everything is NOT okay," She cried. "First I accidentally bleached out our colored towels, THEN I left a red sock in with the whites and turned our whites PINK, after that I spilled Windex all over the counter and onto the floor-"
She pointed out every mistake to him as she spoke. She held out their once blue bathroom towels, and their once white socks and underwear, and then she pointed to the paper towels that covered the floor and the counter. Ryan quickly brought his hand over his mouth to keep from smiling in an insensitive manner. He couldn't help it though. He had never seen Kelsi this flustered. She was about to have a heart attack because of minor little things that no one would have noticed anyway, and that amused him. It was very cute and charming to him.
"AND last but not least," She said with a sniffle and a gulp. "I charcoaled your cake!"
The smoke detectors continued to go off, but Kelsi merely began to sob over the noise.
"You have no birthday cake because I can't BAKE!" She wailed. Her arms hung by her side loosely and her shoulders began to sag as she leaned over the counter. Ryan once again had to resist the urge to chuckle. He didn't care about his birthday cake. All he cared about was having her there with him. He could tell she was about to really start crying, and swiftly made his way over to her. He wrapped his arms around her and grinned fondly into her hair. She held on tight and took several deep shuddering breaths before pulling away from him.
"I'm sorry," She whispered.
"For what?" He asked cluelessly.
"For ruining your birthday," She said quietly.
"Ruining my birthday? Kelsi, a burnt cake, bleached towels, and pink underwear do NOT qualify as ruining my birthday," he told her honestly. "My birthday would only be ruined if you weren't here with me."
"But I wanted everything to be perfect," she admitted softly.
He chuckled, "In my world THIS is perfect. Imperfect and insane is MY perfect."
She smiled lovingly at him and gave him a lingering kiss on the lips. She sighed as she pulled away and then dumped the cake pans into the trash before turning back to him.
"Do husbands in this imperfect world of yours turn off smoke detectors? Those things are driving me insane!"
