Logan woke to the unusual aroma of cooking food. Usually he did all of the cooking, mainly because Max didn't know how to. Although she had picked up a few cooking tips since meeting him. He rolled over and found the other side of the bed empty as usual. He put on a bathrobe and went to investigate what was going on in his kitchen.
It had been decided by all parties that Jondy should stay in Seattle for a week after giving birth to the twins. She had been a bit wobbly on her legs for the first day understandably, so she wouldn't even consider trying to drive her children back to San Francisco. Three days later, there she was cooking breakfast using one hand and holding her son with the other.
"Morning." Logan walked over to where Max was sitting holding her niece. "Did the twins wake up early?" He bent down slightly to kiss Max good morning.
"Happy Birthday." Max grabbed the sleeve of Logan's bathrobe and pulled him back down for another kiss. "The twins aren't up early. You're up late." Being Saturday, she hadn't needed to go to work.
Logan glanced at the clock. "Hell, I have a meeting in an hour." He saw the annoyed look on Max's face. "What?" He smiled down at the baby girl who had wrapped her tiny hand around his finger.
"You're working on your birthday?" Max exclaimed. "You couldn't take one day off of saving the world?" Most people used any excuse to get off work, but Max had to have a boyfriend who used any excuse to go to work.
"I'll only be gone a couple of hours." Logan protested. He hadn't thought it would be a problem. "I promise we'll do something fun when I get back." He mumbled against her neck.
Max rolled her eyes. "Fine. It's your birthday. If you want to waste it working, that's up to you." She still managed to look considerably annoyed.
"Why don't you shower and change. I should have breakfast finished by the time you're ready." Jondy smiled over her shoulder at him.
Max waited for the bathroom door to close before grinning at her sister. "Do you think I over did it?"
Jondy giggled. "And the award for best actress goes to Max Guevara." She waved a pair of tongs at Max. "You know he's going to spend the entire meeting trying to think of fun things to do with you to make this up to you."
Max pouted at her sister. "I'll make it up to him. It's lucky Bling gave us the heads up on this meeting he's going to. Do you think I can really pull this off. You know cooking isn't my strong point."
"Don't worry. I'll help you out." Jondy placed a plate of bacon on the table in front of Max. "I've already called Alec. He's going to take the twins and myself to visit Joshua. I checked with Original Cindy and she's happy for us to stay with her for the night."
Max smiled gratefully. "You don't have to move out for the night." She started setting the table one handed.
"It's fine." Jondy carried a plate of eggs over. "It'll give you and Logan some much needed alone time." After setting a plate of toast on the table, she picked up her daughter off of Max and took her children into the guestroom to feed and change them.
Logan sat down at the table and watched Max, while he dished out some food onto his plate. "You're not still mad at me are you?" She looked so damn sexy sitting there sulking, wearing one of his shirts.
Max shrugged her shoulders and played with her food with her fork. "It's your birthday. It's up to you what you want to do." For a moment she was worried that she was doing too good a job of appearing to be pissed off. Logan actually looked as though he was going to cancel his meeting.
"I promise I'll make it up to you." Logan wondered if he should cancel his meeting. It wasn't as though they had spent much time alone lately. Not that he minded Jondy being there. Most of the time she was so quiet that it was easy to forget she was there.
Max looked over at him. "Ok." She took a mouthful of egg. "You'd better eat up or you'll be late." She smiled at him. "My sister didn't slave over a hot stove to make up a birthday breakfast, just so that you could let it go cold."
Jondy stayed out of sight until she heard Logan yell goodbye to her. "So how about we clear the breakfast dishes before you start your assignment." Jondy joked with her sister. "Bling should be here with the ingredients by the time we're finished."
Max frowned at her sister. "You want to clean up the kitchen, so that I can mess it up again." She looked around the kitchen. "I suppose it won't take long." She started gathering up the dirty dishes. By the time Max had rinsed everything and stacked the dishes in the dish washer and started the machine, Bling had arrived with the groceries.
"You really going to attempt to make Logan a birthday cake?" Bling chuckled when Max nodded. "Want me to stick around with the fire extinguisher?" He saw Jondy out of the corner of his eye, trying not to laugh.
"No thank you." Max replied annoyed. "Jondy's going to help me and for your information, the twins are strapped into their car seats incase we have to leave in a hurry." Even the two babies seemed to be laughing at her.
"Ok. Good luck. Let me know how it goes." Bling headed for the door. "Call me if you need anything else. "You're staying somewhere else tonight, right?"
Jondy gave a short, sharp laugh. "As if I would stay here when Max gives Logan his birthday surprise." She looked up at Bling. "I foresee furniture getting broken and not in anger."
"Smart move." He kissed her cheek. "See ya later." Bling waved goodbye to Max and walked out the door closing it behind him.
"Alright. Let's get started." Jondy pulled the cook book off of the shelf that she had found a simple recipe for chocolate cake in. To make it easy for Max, she had asked Bling to pick up all of the ingredients in the recipe plus some candles.
Max was completely out of her element. "Where do I start?" She looked at the contents of the grocery bag she had unpacked.
Jondy put the cookbook in front of Max. "First, why don't you get dressed. Then measure out all of the ingredients as it says in the book and I'll go and pack myself a bag for tonight and then we'll see how you're going."
"Sounds easy enough." Max muttered to herself. Apart from a small accident opening the flour packet, she had all of the ingredients measured out and in separate bowls in no time. She looked over at the twins. "See, Aunty Max can do this."
Jondy walked back into the kitchen glancing at her children laughing at their Aunt. She raised an eyebrow at the flour all over the floor, but on looking over the measured ingredients, everything seemed to be accounted for. "It looks good. Just follow the instructions. I'll put the left over ingredients away. That way there should be nothing left on your bench, once all the measured ingredients have been added together."
"Follow the instructions, huh. You know this isn't so hard." Max was humming to herself as she sifted all of the ingredients. She was having so much fun that she didn't notice Jondy head back into the guest room to pack a bag for the babies.
Jondy set the bags by the door and picked her daughter up, who had grown tired of watching her Aunt's baking attempts and starting crying. Jondy patted her daughter's back and rocked her, as she looked at the mess Logan's kitchen was in. "So tell me, did you actually get any of the ingredients in the bowl?" She burst out giggling. "This cake had better turn out great, cause Logan's going to kill you when he sees this mess." Jondy had a feeling though that Logan might forget about the state of his kitchen, when he looked at Max.
Max's normally dark hair looked almost gray with all of the flour coating it. She had smudges of cocoa down one cheek and smears of cake mixture on her chin and nose. Her clothes were covered in a combination of flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Max grinned. She was actually enjoying herself. "Ok, now what do I do?" She dusted off the cookbook and read the instructions. "It's got two temperatures in the book. Which one do I use?" She held the book up for Jondy, so that her sister didn't have to venture into the mess.
Jondy glanced at the oven and then pointed to the correct temperature in the book. She glanced at her watch while Max poured the mixture into a greased pan and put it in the oven and set the timer. "You'd better hurry. Logan's due back in five minutes."
Alec let himself into the apartment and immediately saw the bags by the door. He knew where Jondy kept the keys to her car, but he stopped short when he saw the state Max was in. A cheeky grin crossed his face. "If only I had a camera. This is a picture perfect moment." His grin widened when Max looked as though she was going to punch him.
"You know where the keys are Alec. Go and load the car." Jondy scolded him. "I'm just going to help Max clean up the kitchen and then I'll be ready to go."
Alec saluted her before going to fetch the keys to Jondy's car and loaded the bags into the car. Logan's car pulled into the car park as Alec was shutting the boot to the car.
"Alec." Logan called out. "What are you doing here?"
"Playing chauffer for Jondy and the twins." Alec walked back over to the lift with Logan. "By the way, Happy Birthday."
"Thanks." Logan frowned. He guessed Jondy had told Alec that it was his birthday. "She wants to take the twins to visit Joshua, huh?"
"Yeah." Alec waited for Logan to walk out of the lift and then followed him. He knew Jondy and Max probably had the kitchen tidied up, but Alec wanted to see the look on Logan's face when he saw Max covered in flour and cocoa. He wasn't disappointed.
Logan's jaw dropped. He had expected to come home and find Max still mad at him for working on his birthday. The powder covered Max before him was a huge surprise. "Sorry, I'm late." He finally managed to stammer out."
The timer on the oven went off shattering the silence. Jondy walked over to where the twins were strapped into their car seats. "I think that's our cue to leave Alec." She handed Alec one of the twins and shoved him towards the door. "Don't forget to take your cake out of the oven, Max." When Alec took a step back inside to make a cheeky retort, Jondy grabbed the lapel of his jacket and dragged him away, pulling the door shut with her foot.
Max opened the oven door and used a towel to lift the freshly baked cake out of the oven. "Wow." She was impressed with herself. The cake actually looked quite good. "I think it worked." She just hoped the cake wouldn't stick to the pan.
Logan looked at the cake and then looked back at Max. "You made me a birthday cake?" He looked as though she had preformed some sort of miracle just for his birthday. He dampened the towel and gently wiped the cake mixture off her face. "Thank you, it looks great." It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for him.
Max looked doubtful. "I wouldn't thank me until you've tasted it." She ran her hand through her hair creating a cloud of dust. "You know baking wasn't exactly one of the things they had us master at Manticore." She took a candle out of the packet that Bling had brought and poked it into the middle of the cake, which was still in it's pan and lit the wick. "Make a wish."
"I have everything I could wish for." Logan whispered against Max's lips.
"Make a wish anyway." Max was thrilled that Logan like the cake. She watched as Logan blew the candle out. "What did you wish for?"
"If I tell you, it won't come true." He pulled her closer and kissed her, not at all concerned that the flour and cocoa on her clothes, was getting all over him. The last thought going through his head, was that this was the best birthday he had ever had.
The last thought going through Max's head was 'maybe I should try cooking more often'.
THE END
