Page 45 of Stay this Christmas
His eyes lit up at how I’d echoed his teasing. Putting on an apron, I told myself not to make anything of it. My heart shimmied away, not listening.
He slipped on an apron, too, and I gave instructions over his shoulder as he mixed the dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. I’d chosen a simple sugar cookie recipe so we could frost them and add sprinkles when we were done, to get the full Christmas baking effect. It happened to be the same recipe we’d made together several times back in the Before days, whether we acknowledged it now or not.
“I slap it all in the mixer now, right?”
Offended by the very idea, I was about to scold him, but I caught the twist of his lips. “Only if you want me to practice my MMA moves on you some more.”
A smile curled along his mouth as he alternated wet and dry little by little, the mixer spinning between us. Careful not to splash the wet ingredients or dust the dry everywhere, he demonstrated a meticulous streak I didn’t really remember from high school. For as much as he’d grumbled about my list for him, he sure gave the cookies his full attention.
Standing so close to him, I devoured him with my eyes. The stubble on the angle of his jaw. The mark on his earlobe from when he’d gotten one ear pierced at fifteen and immediately regretted it. Curls at the back of his head still wet from his shower. Friends probably wouldn’t look at each other quite this intently, but I couldn’t look away.
Warm eddies drifted through me like the last of a fire after it’s gone out. Or maybe one that’d just rekindled. With only the whir of the mixer to keep us company, my breath sounded weirdly loud. Too breathy. Too excited.
“We’re missing something.” I grabbed my phone and thumbed around. Calling up my latest playlist, Kelly Clarkson started singing about waiting for her love underneath the tree. I set it back down, giving us a little more space than I had a moment ago. I needed it.
Sam shot me a dirty look.
“It’s part of the Christmas cookie-making experience,” I told him.
“It’s cheating, is what it is. That’s two Christmas things at once.”
“It’s not like you don’t hear Christmas music everywhere you go already. It’s kind of unavoidable.”
“You bend the rules, I’ll bend the rules. It’s kind of unavoidable.”
Naturally, Eliza’s saucy suggestion to combine getting out of town with…kissing under the mistletoe sprang to mind.Notgoing to make that suggestion. Not with the way I was already burning up in here.
Once the ingredients were fully incorporated, I switched off the machine and pulled out the paddle. “We need to chill the dough for half an hour before we can roll out the cookies.”
“We have to roll them out, too? When will it end?”
I laughed at his put-upon tone. “I think you’ll survive a little Christmas cheer.”
Slipping the mixing bowl into my fridge, I wiped my hands and pulled off my apron. “Do you want something to drink while we wait? I could make hot cocoa.”
He groaned, but it turned into a laugh at the end. “No mulled cider? Wassail? Wait, let me guess—you’re going to offer me figgy pudding next.”
He could joke around all he liked, but Ihadcommitted to showing him some holiday spirit. Why not go all in?
“You know, I think I will make hot cocoa. With marshmallows.”
“You and Georgia should get together. Tag-team to make sure you’re really driving the Christmas magic home.”
“Is Georgia tormenting you with cocoa, too?” I poured milk in a pan, set it on the stove, and added cocoa powder, sugar, and chocolate chips.
“Wait, are we talking about your mom’s special hot cocoa?” Sam asked, his eyes fixed on the mixture as I whisked it. “On second thought, I would like some, please.”
His eyes shone like a little boy begging for a toy. I smiled to myself, tallying his desire for hot cocoa as a small win in my quest to un-Grinch his heart.
“With Georgia, it’s not always cocoa,” he said, returning to my question. “She works at that little bookstore coffee shop on Second, and she’s got about a dozen varieties of themed drinks in the house. Spiced this, pumpkin that. Her house is even more festive than yours.”
“Well, we still have to get my tree.”
He threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Of course we do.”
“Georgia’s been at the bookstore a long time, hasn’t she?” She’d been there as long as I’d been back, but I wasn’t sure how much before then. She and Eliza were the same age, so she had to have started working at the shop pretty soon after college.
He straightened, his eyes on the mixture in the pan as I whisked the last of the melting chocolate chips smooth.
