HOMEMADE

The usual disclaimers apply here. Lee and Amanda and their colleagues, friends, and families don't belong to me. This is purely for fun.

This one's for Miriam on her birthday. I hope there's cake somewhere in your grand day!

None of these were right, she thought, as she flipped through her recipe book. Angel food, devil's food, red velvet, lemon chiffon…. They were all good cakes but none of them were the cake. This cake had to be perfect.

Amanda could bake a good cake in her sleep. She'd baked dozens of birthday cakes for people she loved. For Dotty, for Phillip, for Jamie, for her father and yes, she'd even baked a bunch for Joe. But she'd never baked a birthday cake for Lee.

She'd baked him a pie, she'd taken a chocolate cake to his apartment once and ruined a date (though she'd been trying to save a date, she told herself, even if that was only a half-truth and everyone knew it). She'd taken him plates of Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas cookies. But he was kind of weird about birthdays.

"Kind of weird?" she said under her breath, as she flipped past her Aunt Lillian's favorite, coconut, and the cake that had ruined things with Randi — she laughed at herself and dog-eared the page for future reference.

No, he was very weird about birthdays. She'd asked him once how he liked to celebrate and he'd grunted and said "with a bottle of scotch." The expression on his face had made her drop the subject but it had also made her endlessly curious, and she'd tucked the question away for another eleven months (and two weeks) and asked him again. They knew each other better by then — they were firm friends — and he'd given her a little more to work with.

"Birthdays weren't a thing in the Colonel's house," he said.

Of course, she knew by now that Lee and his uncle were masters of miscommunication, determined to paint each other in the worst light, and she strongly suspected his dislike of anything celebratory was really attached to the two people who were never around to share in those celebrations.

But things were different now, in several ways. He'd faced a few demons and mended some fences. And so she was taking a risk and baking him a cake, trying to show him how she felt, just as she'd have shown her mother or the boys. With sugar, butter, and flour.

She flipped through the cookbook again, an old family favorite whose pages were stained with drops of batter or smears of chocolate. Phillip had drawn a mustache on one of the author photos.

Vanilla cake, she read.. She stared at the photo of perfect white buttercream sandwiched between airy layers of pale sponge, golden around the edges.

"Vanilla with buttercream? You can't," she said aloud.

"Can't what, dear?" her mother asked, on her way through the kitchen.

"Oh, nothing, Mother," Amanda chirped. "Just thinking about baking a cake for a friend at work."

"And why can't you?"

"It was more why can't it be vanilla," Amanda explained. "But it can be."

"Of course it can be. And you make a lovely vanilla cake. Remember that one you made for the school bake sale a few weeks ago?"

"Mm-hm."

Amanda ducked her head. Her cheeks flushed with heat. What she remembered was cutting two slices, which were abandoned because she and Lee had finally been alone, the stars had finally aligned and, well, not to mix her metaphors but they'd been drawn to each other like two magnets.

And then Dotty and the boys had rolled in, and she and Lee had managed one quick kiss on the patio.

She'd taken him the cake the next day, on a paper plate covered neatly in plastic wrap. "You didn't have to," he said, but she could see from the dimple on his cheek that he was thrilled.

"Well, you know." She shrugged. "I had to explain why I'd cut two pieces anyway, and…." Her voice had trailed off as she watched him lift the plastic and swipe an index finger through the frosting. "And I know you almost never eat breakfast…."

He tasted the frosting and grinned at her. "It's delicious. I wish I'd gotten to have it last night."

His gaze had drifted behind her, to the closed door of the office, and she knew he was weighing his options. She strained her ears, listening for voices, or footsteps, or the rustling of clothing. And then they were leaning together again, over the plate, and his mouth touched hers and she tasted buttercream and him and it was perfect. As sweet as the night before — as sweet as kissing your best friend probably could be — but with a layer of heat that turned her insides molten.

Since that slice of cake she'd had plenty of opportunities to test her theory about kissing your best friend, at work and in his apartment (she hadn't seen a single one of the movies they'd rented in their entirety for weeks) and occasionally, if they were feeling especially brave, by her car in a parking lot outside a movie theater or the diner he liked.

"Friend" was the wrong word.

I mean you don't spend half an hour kissing your friend goodnight, she thought. Or your partner from work.

But the week before last he'd made a strange little speech in the Q-Bureau after the end of the Martinet case, and while she'd listened and really, been thrilled that he was finally signaling that he absolutely, for sure wanted to make the leap from… whatever they were to… something else, the speech itself hadn't been necessary. She'd been all in for a while now, and she'd thought he understood that. Hadn't she been clear, with all those intimate dinners at his place and those long goodnights? Such long goodnights, kisses that lasted long enough she'd joked about him setting an alarm on his watch so they didn't stay there all night.

And now she was thinking about what kind of birthday cake to make him.

That cake had sold first at the bake sale and netted her two kisses. She was definitely making that recipe again. Amanda picked up a pen and wrote in the margin: 10/10, universal acclaim.

She'd already told him she was going to make him dinner that night. She'd thought about surprising him but then she remembered Leslie O'Connor — or O'Connell, or whatever her name was — breaking in and making him dinner. And after the whole dress fiasco she really didn't want to remind him of that woman in the least. So she'd said to him, matter-of-factly, that she was going to use her key that Tuesday night to make him a birthday dinner.

"You don't have to do that, Amanda. We can just go out somewhere." But he didn't sound excited about it. Because he was weird about birthdays.

"I want to make you dinner," she said. "You pick, and I'll make it. Whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" His interest had been piqued, then. She had to laugh a little because she had a feeling he'd choose steak and baked potatoes.

"Mm-hm," she'd said. "And Mother already thinks I'm working overnight, so…."

"Maybe I don't want anything, then," he'd joked. Then he'd dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Surprise me," he'd said. "I like everything you make, so surprise me."

So she was making roast chicken with wild rice and stir-fried vegetables, baby carrots and tender broccolini. It was quick and easy and the nice little market near his apartment had everything she needed. Roast chicken in June might be a little much, but she knew he'd eat it all week.

Gosh, that wasn't very… Randi… of her, planning his leftovers. She shuddered a little at the thought of him telling people she'd given him a whole roast chicken for his birthday.

She couldn't even claim to balance out the practicality with an exotic dessert. Vanilla cake wasn't a sexy dessert, either. Though she had to admit watching him lick that frosting from his finger had given her mother's romance novels a run for their money.

If she hadn't been sitting down her knees probably would have wobbled just thinking about it.

Maybe vanilla cake was fine.

The sweet, homey smell of the cake filled the room as she stood at the sink cleaning up. The last time she'd made this cake, she'd stood and washed dinner dishes right there with Lee. Shoulder to shoulder, talking about the Stephen Sallee case as he washed and she dried, like regular people talking about regular jobs at the end of a regular day.

They weren't regular people. She was more regular than he was but they weren't regular. Regular people didn't have to sneak a kiss on the patio, did they? And they usually introduced their mothers to the person they were seeing. Eventually.

"That cake smells heavenly, Amanda," Dotty said, as she came back through the kitchen again, this time dressed to go out. "You should have baked two, like usual."

"I did bake two," Amanda admitted. "You and the boys can have some tomorrow while I'm working."

"I'll be lucky if they let me have a piece," Dotty muttered. She smoothed her skirt over her hips. "Not that I need one."

"Oh, Mother." Amanda rolled her eyes and planted a kiss on Dotty's cheek. "You're perfect."

"I'm perfectly late, is what I am." Dotty picked up the car keys from the counter and settled her purse on her shoulder. "I'm going, I'm going! I'll be back at seven."

While dinner simmered on the stove, Amanda put a crumb coat on Lee's cake. Normally she didn't bother, because Phillip and Jamie didn't give a hoot about what cakes looked like. "It's where it ends up that counts," Phillip told her once, "and what it tastes like on the way down." But this was a special cake and special cakes deserved crumb coats.

She stood at the counter and scraped frosting over the cake and thought about the entire Martinet case, and how he'd spent every spare minute trying to kiss her. And she'd spent every spare minute trying to kiss him back. She could almost hear Francine's eyes rolling.

They really were unprofessional sometimes, she thought, laughing a little. Maybe if they had more actual time alone —

"What's so funny, Mom?" Jamie asked.

"Oh. Nothing. I didn't know you were home, sweetheart. How was your day?"

"Fine." Jamie shrugged and eyed the dessert she was working on. "Who's that for?"

"A friend at work."

"Ugh. It's always for someone else. A friend at work, a bake sale, the new neighbors," he groaned as he shuffled off towards the stairs, dragging his backpack behind him.

Amanda chuckled as he disappeared up the stairs, backpack thumping against each step. She'd surprise him with the other cake tomorrow. Or Dotty would, she supposed.

She'd be long gone by the time they got home from school, eating a slice of cake somewhere else. With a friend from work, she thought, and laughed again.

If they only knew.

His apartment smelled like roast chicken.

Lee stood in the open doorway for a moment, trying to figure out what it meant, and then remembered that it was Tuesday and Amanda was making him dinner.

Had made him dinner.

A birthday dinner. It wasn't just Tuesday, it was his birthday.

Lee looked at his watch. It was just after eleven and he knew Amanda was long gone. He'd talked to her at ten to six, between briefings, while Billy waited in his office, foot tapping.

"I'm so sorry," he'd said. "This came out of nowhere, and now I'm stuck here for who knows how long, and…."

"Mm-hm," she'd said, and he wondered if she was buying a word of what he was telling her. Did she know it wasn't about the birthday, it was about not seeing her?

"I was really looking forward to —"

"Oh, Lee." She'd laughed. "I know. It's fine."

"It isn't fine," he'd muttered. "I don't care about my birthday, but I wanted to spend the evening with…." He trailed off as Francine floated past.

He'd felt even worse after they hung up. More miserable, if it had been possible. Their free time was at a premium and work had elbowed its way in. He'd spent the entire day avoiding talking about his birthday plans because they'd been the best birthday plans he'd had in years, possibly ever, and then they'd gone up in smoke.

Lee kicked the door shut and tugged at his tie as he wandered into the living room. It looked as if Amanda had never been there, which was somehow worse than if she'd left a trace of herself in the place.

And then he turned toward the kitchen, and spotted the note on his table. I left you a plate in the oven. Happy birthday. xo

A plate in the oven. Well, that sounded good, even if it had been sitting for a while.

He wandered into the kitchen, and that was when he saw it — a cake, sitting safely under the glass dome of Amanda's cake stand, waiting. Slathered in white frosting. He knew it was homemade, because he'd seen a cake just like it at her house a few weeks ago.

A vanilla cake he'd never gotten to eat because….

The corner of Lee's mouth lifted a little when he thought about how he'd hustled out the back door, cake forgotten, Amanda following. How he'd caught her, finally, and decided to follow through on the promise he'd made himself.

She'd brought him the slice of cake the next day, the kind of thing she'd done before, with other things. Food or socks or filing his reports. Little kindnesses that said she was looking out for him, making his life a little easier and more comfortable.

She was always so thoughtful. That's what he'd been thinking when he'd kissed her in the office, the slice of cake balanced on a plate between them. He'd felt this rush of affection for her, the kind of thing that hit him more and more often and seemed to get more intense every time, and he'd taken his chance and done what he'd wanted to do the night before.

He didn't know what he'd thought would happen, but he hadn't expected his heart to try to beat its way out of his chest.

He wondered if that cake was a sign of some kind, or if she'd just made it because she liked it.

Either way, the sight of it made his throat ache. She'd spent time on it. On him. He wasn't sure he could remember the last time someone had done that. He'd been given gifts, sure, but not like this.

After a moment he lifted the glass cover and thought about cutting a slice. He could eat it with the dinner she'd left. It was a poor substitute for having her there, though. If she'd been in the room with him, cake would have been last on the list of priorities. Well below roast chicken, or birthday presents, or telling her about his day, or talking at all, really.

They'd done so much talking. He'd never talked to another person as much as he'd talked to her. And he loved every minute of it — she'd baffled him at first, sure, but she was the most fascinating person he knew. Brains and kindness and humor all wrapped up in this gorgeous, dark-haired package.

He set down the glass cover and opened a drawer, rooting around for a knife. A knock at the door interrupted him, and he frowned and pushed the drawer closed.

Amanda stood in the hallway. She lifted her hand in a small wave when he opened the door. He felt his world slide back into place; all the disappointment he'd brought home with him evaporated at the sight of her smile. "Hi."

"How did you know I was home?"

"I called The Agency and Mr Melrose told me you'd left at eleven." She paused. 'He said to wish you a happy birthday whether you wanted it or not."

Lee chuckled. "Slid it just under the wire."

She shut the door behind her, then leaned in to catch him by the tie. "Me too," she said, standing up on her toes to press a kiss against his mouth. "Just under the wire. I'm sorry the whole thing didn't work out."

"It's not a total loss." His hand moved to rest at her waist, and he stood breathing her in. "You're here now and there's still…."

"Twenty-eight minutes."

"Twenty-eight minutes left."

"Did you eat your dinner?"

"Not yet." He didn't make a move for the kitchen. "I saw the cake."

"You mean you ate the cake.".

"I didn't, I promise. I thought about it, though. And then you knocked on the door." He nuzzled her cheek, still reluctant to let go of her. "I thought you'd have turned in by now."

"Well, I almost did." Amanda tipped her head back to look at him, her dark eyes shining. "And then… well. It's your birthday."

"And?"

She laughed, and he knew from the way her arms slid around him as she spoke that she was teasing now. "And I wanted a piece of cake."