Page 7 of The Christmas Cookie Crush

The problem is,not moving homeisn’t much of a life plan. I guess knowing what I don’t want to do is useful, but I’d feel better if I could figure out what Idowant to do.

I’m the odd one out in my family who doesn’t have a grand plan already. Ty’s been into art since he was a kid, so him going into graphic design was no surprise to anyone. Sarah’s always loved the shop as much as Mom and Dad do, and it’s been her dream to take over since she was a teenager, taking that option off the table for me. While Icouldstill come back and work there, Idon’t want to just be an hourly employee. It’s fine as a backup plan, but the kind of backup plan you only use for emergencies. Even Dylan had figured out what he wanted to do by now. Not as early as our other siblings, but pretty early in his college career. And he’s been working toward that goal for years and is killing it now.

Then there’s me. I didn’t declare a major until my sophomore year, and then I only picked psychology because the intro class I took as my social science credit was more interesting than most of the other things I did. And since I was late declaring my major, I signed up for the fast track version of the degree, which means a packed schedule every semester plus summer classes. Because of that, I’m on track to graduate a year early. Fat lot of good it does me, though, since I don’t want to continue with another degree, and what do I do with just a Bachelor’s in Psychology? At this point, getting a random office job seems like my best bet, but that doesn’t sound appealing. Neither does grad school, though, and those are basically the options.

Sighing, I stand with my hands on my hips and look around the area, realizing that Mom and Austin have finished talking and Mom’s gone. She must’ve gone to meet Dad and head home. At least that means I just have to go change in the locker room, then I can meet Sarah and her friends for a drink.

Between today’s slate of screaming toddlers and another encounter with Austin Stanton, I definitely need it.

His throat clearing makes me aware that Austin is still standing there. He holds out the pastry bag again. “Like I said, I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I brought a peace offering.”

My eyes narrow, skepticism flooding my veins. I scoff. “Please. I remember the kinds of ‘peace offerings’ you liked to give me when we were kids.”

His brows crimp together again, and he shakes his head. “Sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Licorice?” I prompt. “Warheads?”

His confusion slowly clears as the memory obviously returns, dissolving into what can only be termed asdelight.

The ass.

“Oh my god.” He covers his mouth with his hand, as though that adequately covers the irrepressible smile on his face. Which some part of my brain catalogs as hot, but I shut that thought up as soon as it enters my head. There is no universe in which I think Austin Stanton is hot. I can think of a number of other adjectives I’d use to describe him, but never, everhot.

“God,” he breathes again. “I’d forgotten all about that.” His hand drops, letting free that beautiful smile.

No!I scold myself.Not beautiful! Not hot! This is Austin! Dylan’s shittiest best friend ever! You hate him! You swore you’d always hate him! You do not find him attractive!

My friend Miranda always talks about how even hot guys seem ugly to her when she knows they’re assholes. I’ve never really agreed. I mean, a guy can be objectively gorgeous even if I’d never date or even want to be in the same room as him. But this encounter with Austin is putting that theory to the test.

Even if Austin Stantonisobjectively gorgeous, Ido notwant to view him that way. At all. Ever.

When he moved away, he was in that awkward adolescent stage of existence. And he has glowed up very nicely.

And I hate that I can’t stop noticing.

“You were such a little shit,” he murmurs, and I nearly choke on my own spit.

“Excuse me?Iwas the little shit?”

He nods, still grinning. “Yeah. You’d never leave Dylan and me alone. You were always up in our business, begging for candy. Your mom’d tell us we had to be nice, so …” He shrugs. “We were.”

My eyes practically bug out of my head. “I’m sorry, you werewhat?In what world were you ever nice to me?”

He proffers the little white bag in his hand. “I’m trying to be nicenow.”

“Suuuure,” I scoff. “Like you were ‘nice’”—I make air quotes with my hands, a practice I despise, but no amount of sarcasm fully conveys how I feel about his use of that word—“when you fed me licorice until I puked?”

He shrugs. “You asked for it. Like I said, your mom told us to be nice.”

“You laughed at me!”

A chuckle bubbles out of him. “It was pretty funny.” The ass. He’s not even pretending to be apologetic now.

Not that you’d believe him if he did.

But that’s not the point!

“And the Warheads.” The words come out dripping with venom. I wish I could inject it directly into his bloodstream so he’d slink off to whatever rock he crawled out from under and leave me alone forever. The last ten years without him in them have been so much more pleasant than the ones before.

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