**not edited**

Chapter 64 | Icing

Isabella:

It has been two months since new years and I have slowly begun easing back into my plan on 'getting back on track'. It has been a struggle, I'll be honest with you, but I'm getting there and I'm determined not to give up.

The first week of January had surprisingly been good, probably because I had been the most motivated having it been the first week of the new year and all, and I had managed to eat one full meal a day, 4 days in a row.

The second, third and fourth week however, hadn't been as great. I had only managed 1 day each week which plummeted my mood significantly but that hadn't lasted long. Mia, Grace, my family and Lucas refused to let me wallow and had been quick to remind me that I was still doing well and that 1 day was still progress regardless of how little I thought it was.

Then by the first and second week of February, I had managed 2 days and by the third and fourth, I had managed another 4. Although to me it still didn't feel like enough, I was still somewhat proud for what I had achieved. Anything was better than how I had been those last couple of weeks of December.

Since the new years, I had also fallen into an odd daily routine in regard to my other resolutions.

Fixing my sleep schedule turned out to be harder than I thought it would have been, I still found myself going to bed at 1 am at the earliest but regardless every morning, no matter if it was the weekend, Lucas would call me at 6 am sharp to make sure that my ass got out of bed and to make sure that I wouldn't sleep in until I had 10 minuets to get ready for school or until it was 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.

He was persistent I'll tell you that because often enough I would decline the calls but Lucas would still continue ringing and ringing and ringing until I picked up and would continue to be relentless until I tugged my curtains open and physically showed him that I was out of bed by looking at him through my window.

Lucas would greet me with a wave and a cheesy ass motivational poster stuck to his window frame and I would return with a middle finger and a sign telling him to fuck off. It was sweet really.

I honestly felt bad that Lucas had to endure with grouchy morning me but I don't think he seemed to mind because even after mumbling obscenities to him on the phone and then further mouthing them through the window, he would still be there to remind me to stand in front of the mirror and recite affirmations to myself which he had researched and found was supposed to help with 'self love' or some shit like that and also remind me to mediate and journal to help clear my head.

I had been reluctant at first with doing the whole affirmations thingy because I thought it was a little corny but Lucas, of course, was adamant that I should continue and honestly, I think it was working, I mean it's too early to know but as of recently I haven't felt like punching the mirror every time I look at it so that's something.

Another part of that new and odd daily routine, that yet again somehow includes Lucas, had been receiving little handwritten notes from Lucas everyday. It had started off that night in the balcony on new years, where the note he had given me had been a simple:

hi izzy, happy new years beautiful :) you look really stunning today. that dress looks really pretty on you and your hair looks really nice curled.

seeing you smile so much tonight when we were all talking in the kitchen made my heart warm and when you were laughing, i swear i couldn't take my eyes off of you. your laughter is literally so infectious and i absolutely love how you slap your knee and sometimes even snort when something is really funny. i love even more how after you snort you then pause and look around and to see if anyone heard you and hope no one did before resuming on your laughter again (don't worry i notice when you snort when you laugh and i think it's really fucking cute ;))

anyways make this new year your bitch - lucas :)

p.s please ignore ignore the ugly ass handwriting, the kitchen is dark and dylan keeps trying to peek over my shoulder and is nudging me in the process so it's going all messy :( okay bye now, see you tomorrow!

And after that, more notes started to follow daily.

Some days the notes would be short and sweet, others would be longer and on most occasions what would be written inside would be super fucking cheesy and cliche as hell (but I lowkey was fond of those ones the most).

I found myself anticipating when and where Lucas would decide to give me the little slips of paper, whether it be in the morning on the days he offered to drive me to school, or whether he would decide to sneakily pass them to me in class or in the hallway or give them to me at lunch or after school - regardless of where and when, I found myself excited to see what each note would say and it easily became one of my favourite parts of the day.

***

"Oo I wonder what's written in this one," I say, once I'm seated in the passenger seat of Lucas' car after school on a cold March Friday. He lets go of my hand after doing his little ritual, the skin on the inside of my wrist tingling from where his lips had pressed a soft kiss there only seconds ago.

"I think you'll like this one." Amusement flares in Lucas' eyes as he meets my gaze and his lips curl into a crooked grin.

I raise an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He snickers before gesturing to my hand. "Now open it."

He leans back against his seat, his head turned to the side so that he is still facing me as he watches me unfold the slip of paper.

I clear my throat before reading. "When you answered that really difficult question in biology," I begin to say out loud, eyes scanning the familiar scrawly handwriting. "You sounded so intelligent it made me hard."

I've barely managed to finish saying the end part of the sentence before Lucas bursts out in laughter and my eyes fly up to meet his as my mouth falls open in utter incredulousity.

"Lucas!" I exclaim. "What is this?"

"Told you that was a good one," he wheezes, slapping my knee. "Mr Bailey almost caught be writing that note in class."

I slap his shoulder back in retaliation. "That is not a good one!" I gape, staring down at the paper in my hand in disbelief. "How did you even come up with that?"

"Hey! I have to switch up compliments once in a while, yesterday's one was extra long and nice so this one had to be short and sweet," Lucas protests, still laughing. "And I came up with that note because it happened duh."

"I hardly think this counts as a compliment," I deadpan.

"Yes it is look here," he points his index finger on the note. "I complimented your smartness."

"By saying you got hard."

"My dick doesn't stand up for other people's smart answers."

I give Lucas a blank look. He blinks innocently back at me.

"Fine," he huffs after he sees that I'm not as amused as he is before trying to make a grab for the note, his laughter finally coming to a halt. "If you don't like it, I'll write you another one. I just thought you'd find this one funny," he sulks. "This is your type of joke."

Eh he's kind of right, dick jokes are kind of the epitome of my humour.

Yanking the note away from out of his reach after a moment of hesitation, I sigh. "No it's fine," I say, folding the paper back up and tucking it into the pocket of my jeans. "I'll keep it."

Both of his eyebrows fly up in surprise. "You're keeping it?"

"Yes," I warily nod my head before flailing my hands in the air. "Now can you hurry and drive please, I have to get home fast."

Lucas gives me a knowing look, smugness drawn across his features. "I knew you'd like it," he says in a sing song voice, nudging me with his elbow and causing me to roll my eyes.

"Can you please chop chop I'm really in a hurry."

"Mhm." Lucas wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and turns back to face the front, strapping in his seat belt and turning on the ignition.

"No, I really do have to get home quickly today!"

"Sure."

"I do! I have to bake abuela's birthday cake before she gets home from Patty's." I glance at the clock on the dashboard and groan. "And that's in an hour."

The car begins to peel out of the school's parking lot and Lucas drives back into my main road, the heavy rain pattering down on the windows as he does so. One look outside at the grey which clouds loom the already dreary looking sky tells me the weather isn't going to clear up anytime soon but I like the rain so I lean back against the seat and turn to look at Lucas as he starts to reply.

"Is an hour even enough to bake a whole ass cake, don't you need to ice it too?"

"I know," I whine. "I was supposed to do it yesterday night but I had to do homework then I fell asleep. Ugh, do you think I should just buy a store bought cake instead?"

"Wait how long will it take to make it?" Lucas side glances my way as we pull up into a red light.

"I don't know like 2 hours? My perfectionist ass takes time when baking."

"Do you wanna just come over to mine to bake it? That way you can take more time on the cake too."

I raise my eyebrows at Lucas' offer. "You dont mind?"

He shakes his head. "No, plus I can help if you want, I'm free this evening."

"You sure?"

"Yes," he chuckles. "Just don't scream at me if I do something wrong."

"Er...I can't promise that." I respond before waving my hand dismissively. "But it's fine you can just make the icing, you can't really go wrong with that."

Lucas chuckles nervously. "Like you can't promise not shouting at me, I can't promise that I'll do the icing right."

"It's icing," I deadpan. "You can't go wrong with icing."

***

"You're making the icing wrong!" I cry, rushing over to Lucas on the other side of the counter and shoving him out of the way. "This is way too watery!"

"It's fine!" Lucas protests, dropping the icing spoon in shock and steadying himself against the counter after I had pushed him away from the bowl. "I'll just add more icing sugar."

I shake my head vigorously. "But then there will be too much icing left over, that's just wasting ingredients!"

Lucas narrows his eyes and covers his ears with his hands. "Hey you said no shouting!"

"I didn't promise that!" I narrow my eyes back and jab a finger into his chest.

"Well I didn't promise that I won't mess up the icing!"

"It's icing! How can you mess up icing?"

"Izzy its fine!" He grabs the finger poking him and levels me with a steady look. "I'll eat the left over icing so it doesn't get wasted, no big deal! Now calm down."

He rolls his eyes playfully when I still have an irritated expression plastered across my features. "If it makes you feel better, I'll just sit in the corner and let you finish off the icing."

"Okay." I sigh, pulling my finger away from his grasp. "Just watch the cake and make sure it doesn't burn." I then put my hands on my hips and throw him a look. "Or will you do that wrong too."

"I can't mess up watching a cake cook."

"I wouldn't guarantee that," I shoot back. "You'll somehow manage."

Lucas crosses his arms across his chest and narrows his eyes at me. "Shut up or I'll talk extra loud on the phone when I call you tomorrow morning."

I roll my eyes and begin pouring more icing sugar into the icing bowl. "Just watch the cake please."

He nods and moseys over to the oven where the the red velvet cake is baking. It's been about 15 minuets so far and we have another 15 minuets left for it to bake. It had taken me about 20 minuets to make the batter and whilst I had been doing that, Lucas had made the cream cheese icing for the middle, which he somehow hadn't fucked up unlike the icing he had made later that we needed to ice the top of the cake and write 'happy birthday with'.

I was excited to see how the cake would turn out. Red velvet cake was my speciality, I've baked it so much that I have the recipe and exact measurements of each ingredient ingrained in my mind.

I've always had a passion for baking, it has always been therapeutic for me. I used to bake all the time with abuela when I was younger and even continued by myself when we went to London.

Even at the height of my E.D I still made baked treats often and would give it to my family and school friends to eat even if I didn't. As odd as it sounds, it always felt good being around food when cooking or baking. Being able to be around it and not feeling the urge to eat it made me feel controlled and I liked that feeling a lot.

Today however, it didn't feel that way because I planning on having a slice of this cake later, even if it's a little bit. I surprisingly wasn't even feeling particularly shitty about the prospect of eating it either.

This entire week I've managed not to restrict so I was going to try and push myself to eat something that is not deemed as 'healthy' because I think I can manage it today.

"Hey Izz, are you free the whole day tomorrow." Lucas' voice cuts me out of my thoughts and I pause on my mixing.

"Sorry?" I ask as I grab the red food colouring from across table top and begin dropping two small drops into the icing batter.

Lucas moves away from the oven and takes a seat at the island in front of me. "You free tomorrow?" He repeats, cocking his head to the side in question.

"Erm yeah, why?"

"Is it alright if we hang out? I kinda have something planned."

My eyebrows draw together as I mull over his question over. "Planned like what?"

"It's a surprise," he clicks his tongue. "But trust me, it's something you'll thoroughly enjoy."

"Enjoy how?" I ask suspiciously, especially because his lips are curled up into a sly grin.

"Not saying," he smirks. "But trust me, you'll have fun."

"If I say yes," I narrow my eyes. "You have to agree to wake me up at at least 8am tomorrow, not 6."

"No," he shakes his head, still smiling. "You wanted to fix your sleeping schedule so that's what I'm helping you doing."

"But I miss sleeping in on Saturdays," I groan, continuing to mix the icing, watching it as the white turns to a reddish pink colour. "I'll only say yes if you agree."

"How about I wake up up at 6:30 instead?"

"7:30," I try to negotiate.

"7?"

"7:15?"

"6am."

"Lucas," I shoot him a dead look and he laughs.

"Fine, 7:15," he agrees. "But don't start swearing at me when u see that I called you at 7:00 instead because the clocks in my house are fast."

"7:15." I tell him firmly.

"Oh look the cake is done!" He springs up from his seat mere seconds before the cake timer goes off. I bash my head against the counter top and huff knowing I'm going to get his call at 6:50 tomorrow instead of 7:15.

"Should I check if the cake is cooked?" Lucas asks me as he takes the cake out of the oven whilst wearing oven mitts that are a ridiculous shade of hot pink. "By sticking the knife thingy into the middle of the cake?"

I nod and Lucas places the cake tins down on the counter top before checking. When the knife after being pulled out comes out clear, I transfer the cakes onto a cooling rack before putting it in the fridge to let it cool for 15 minuets.

As the cake does it's thing in the fridge, we both clean up the kitchen and I simultaneously use this time  try to prise some information about what her is planning to do tomorrow out of Lucas (he doesn't budge).

When the cake has finally cooled I begin putting a layer of cream cheese icing on the tops of each cake and then assemble it before putting white icing all around and making sure that it's smooth.

Once I'm satisfied, I write happy birthday with the red icing and then ice some little hearts all around too.

Lucas asks to do one heart at the back and I let him, watching him as he pipes the icing carefully, his face scrunched up in intense concentration. He smiles proudly once he's done, pointing to the wonky heart that is slightly larger than the rest and I give him a congratulatory pat on the back before slyly fixing the ugly heart when he isn't looking.

After the cake is done completely, I slide Lucas the bowl with the leftover icing so he can go to town and watch him as he stick his finger in the bowl before licking the icing off.

"What?" He asks with an eyebrow raised as he catches me staring.

"Hm?" I blink repeatedly and snap my self out of my daze.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The corner of his lips quirk into a smirk and I feel my cheeks begin to warm.

"Oh nothing. Is the, er, icing nice? I forgot to try it." I quickly say, directing the conversation elsewhere.

My frankly flustered answer only causes Lucas to chuckle and he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "It's very nice," he responds, before pushing the bowl towards me. "Try it."

I nod and dip my own finger in the bowl, taking a little bit of icing before tasting it.

"Yeah its good," I agree. "Sweet but not that sweet that it'll be overwhelming with the cake and the cream cheese icing."

"Mm," Lucas nods. "It'll taste good with the red velvet flavour. Also you got icing sugar there," he adds, pointing to my cheek.

"Where?" I say, wiping my face in the area he had pointed at. "Did I get it?"

He shakes his head. "Nope, it's more to your left."

I wipe my cheek again. "Now?"

"Ah nope, let me just get it for you." Lucas leans over the counter and wipes my cheekbone with his thumb. After he pulls back slightly, he clicks his tongue. "You got some on your other cheek too, let me get that aswell."

I furrow my eyesbrows, surely icing sugar can't have gotten that much everywhere.

As I wait for Lucas to brush the sugar from my other cheek, what I don't notice is him secretly dipping his left index finger into the icing bowl until seconds later I feel cool liquid smeared across my face.

My mouth falls open when I realise what he's done. "Lucas!" I gape at him as he steps back and begins to laugh.

He barely has time to blink before in reflex, I reach into the bowl and grab icing with my entire hand before chucking it at his face. Lucas is close enough so most of it lands on his hair and face and only little ends up on the counter top.

My eyes immediately widen as I watch icing drip from his forehead all the way down to his chin, realising the extent in which I had gone to  in retaliation when Lucas had only put a smidge of icing on my cheek.

There's a moment of silence and it's filled by my nervous chuckles. "Lucas, you, er, got a little something," I wave my hand in the general area of his head, "there."

Lucas narrows his eyes at me from underneath the icing. "Hey