Burning Heat

Chapter 1

Andy's POV

I pulled the hot tray from the oven with my sunflower-dotted mittens and placed it on the counter to cool down a little. After pulling off the mittens, I pierced two of the twelve cupcakes on the tray, and once the pin came out dry, which means the whole inside of the cakes is baked good into perfection, I grinned and praised myself in my head for doing a good job this time.

Baking was the furthest thing for being straightforward, and each time I tell someone I'm studying to become a baker and the person groans in jealousy before adding in the absurd fact that my course was one of the most accessible courses in school, I've always felt like smacking them over the head with my spatula. If only they knew how extremely hard it is to get the measurements of a cake without fucking it up.

If the measurements are slightly over the top or too tiny, the cake wouldn't turn out well. It's either the cake bakes the wrong way and the butter would end up melting on the tongue from the cake in the wrong way, or worse, the cake wouldn't rise and would end up getting burnt in the same size it was before being placed in the oven.

A scene of the first real cake I baked in school on the day we were all to do a public practical surfaced in my mind, the burnt cake in front of my table among my course mates' good looking cakes mocked me throughout, and I shuddered in horror before pushing that scene out of my head almost immediately.

I cleaned the kitchen thoroughly and washed hundreds of bowls I used in mixing the ingredients for the cake before putting the washed bowls, along with the remaining ingredients away. I always tend to mess up the whole kitchen each time I bake, but I always ensure to clean up after myself since I hated procrastinating my work, and also because my best friend and roommate, Ash, was a neat freak.

Ash would be back from classes in a few hours, and I promised him I was going to be baking cupcakes for the both of us because I wanted him to help me with something and also to cheer him up a little as best as I could. Ash and his girlfriend got into a fight, and his girlfriend confessed to cheating on him; in her defense, she claimed it was because he was always never there each time she needed him, which made her seek attention elsewhere.

I knew he was hurt by what happened even though he kept reassuring me that he wasn't, which was why I offered to bake him one of his favorite pastries and also because I was going to use the same opportunity to practice my baking skills once again.

I went back to the cupcakes, and once they had completely cooled off, I carried them to the far end of the counter, which is out for eating meals at, where high chairs were arranged on each side since there was not enough space for a dining room in the two rooms apartment Ash and I rented when we got into college, a few months ago.

I pulled open a cupboard and dug out my icing sugars, colorings, and the spray can before arranging them beside the cakes and finally perching on one of the high chairs to get to work. I picked up my iPhone and went to Ash's playlist, and I compiled it together before placing it on shuffle and getting to work on the cake.

In a few hours, I'm done with decorating the cupcakes- yes, hours. Decorating Pastries takes me long hours since I was a very indecisive person who tends to spend a lot of time deciding what color I will choose before moving to the other thing to repeat the whole process all over again. I pushed myself to my feet and stretched my arms out before checking the cake out once again; the rainbow-colored stripes on the cupcakes didn't look as beautiful as they looked while I was decorating it, and I gnawed on my lower lips as I wondered just if my queerness was peaking its head too much into this particular situation.

Yeah, I am a homosexual person.

I came out at the age of fifteen even before I presented as an Omega, only that my queerness wasn't just about my sexual identity; it surrounded my everyday lifestyle, the way I dressed, the way I do things, the way I talked and at the moment, the way I decorated Pastries.

Ash and I met here at college on the first day I resumed, and somehow, we just clicked.

I was staying with my cousin Emma who was in her first year too. Emma was sharing an apartment with her best friend then, and I was only staying with her for a little period of time because I was at that moment looking for whom I could rent a house with since I couldn't afford an apartment by myself, and also because I find living alone weird.

I remember telling Ash that I was gay on the first day we met. The both of us sat at the cafeteria after classes, discussing our desires to rent a house together and how he didn't need to worry about me coming unto him since I was never interested in straight men and also because my friends don't do it for me. Ash had laughed and said he was cool with it since he also has a few gay friends, and also because he could tell I was gay the moment we started talking; by the way I looked, talked, acted, and even walked.

I could remember flushing red in embarrassment before shrugging it off as we continued to talk before finally exchanging numbers and going our separate ways. Two days later, we both officially moved into the house. Five months down the lane, we've gotten close, closer than I'd ever been with anybody in my life, and one night I told him that he was my best friend. He had shrugged before saying he guessed I was right since I was the closest friend he'd ever kept in his whole life.

Ever since then, we've been officially best friends.

The only problem was that I was attracted to my best friend and not in a friendly way.

Surprisingly, despite how I had claimed not to be into straight guys, I had ended up shamelessly getting attracted to him, and I was most definitely going to carry that piece of information to my grave.

I knew I wouldn't be able to fight the attraction, ever since the night we both officially moved into this apartment and spent the night in our various rooms: my wolf has been restless that particular night after taking a whiff of Ash's woody scent mingled with arousal from my room. I had to convince it that my roommate was completely straight and in a happy relationship, which means he was totally off the list.