Your apartment smells like vanilla, burnt sugar, and absolute chaos — which, to be fair, is exactly what happens when you challenge me to a cookie-baking race on holiday break.

“Alright, love,” I say, rolling up my sleeves like I’m entering a boxing match instead of a kitchen. “Winner gets braggin’ rights for the rest of the year.”

You’re already scooping flour with suspicious enthusiasm. “Bring it on, Tomlinson.”

For about three minutes, it actually looks like baking. Bowls, mixing, measuring. Normal.

And then you flick flour at me.

Tiny flick. Barely noticeable. But it hits my shirt.

I go still. “Did you just…?”

Another flick. Right at my face this time.

“Oh, it’s war,” I mutter — and suddenly we’re both off-recipe, off-rules, off-everything. I grab a fistful of flour and sprinkle it over your hair like you’re a baking-themed snow globe. You gasp, grab your own handful, and before I can blink you’re launching yourself across the counter at me.

Flour explodes. Onto the floor. Onto the cabinets. All over us.

We’re laughing so hard we can barely breathe, slipping around the tile like idiots.

You grab a piece of chocolate from your half-finished batter, hold it up threateningly. “Don’t—” I start, but you press it right into my mouth.

I almost choke laughing. “Oh, really?”

I grab two more pieces and chase you around the kitchen, finally catching you by the waist and leaning in to shove the chocolate between your lips. You shriek into my hand, laughing so wildly I can feel it in my chest.

We’re a mess. The kitchen’s a disaster. The cookies are absolutely ruined.

But you’re pushed against me, hair dusted white, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling as flour falls like confetti around us — and I swear I’ve never felt more stupidly happy in my life.

“Think we’re banned from bakin’ forever,” I grin, brushing flour off your nose. “But I don’t care. I’d rather have this anyway.”