Page 139 of Don't Puck His Best Friend
"Let me try." I grab one and bite into it. It's warm and chocolate-y and actually delicious. "Okay, I'm impressed."
"You should be. I worked very hard on these."
"How many batches did it take?"
"That's classified information."
"Three," Finn says. "She burned two batches before these."
"Traitor," Harper mutters.
I laugh and pull her closer. "I'm proud of you for not setting off the smoke alarm."
"The bar is so low."
"But you cleared it. That's what matters."
After Finn retreats to his room with a handful of cookies, Harper and I are left alone in the kitchen. She's cleaning up, and I'm leaning against the counter watching her, thinking about how domestic this all is. How normal. How right.
"What?" she asks, catching me staring.
"Nothing. Just thinking about how good you look in my kitchen."
"Our kitchen."
"Our kitchen," I correct.
She sets down the dish towel and walks over to me. "You're being weird. What's going on?"
"I'm just happy."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." I cup her face, running my thumb along her cheek. "I'm really fucking happy, Harper."
She smiles, and it's the smile that made me fall for her in the first place. "Me too."
"Want to take these cookies to the bedroom?"
She raises an eyebrow. "Why would we—" Then understanding dawns, and she laughs. "Are you serious right now?"
"Dead serious. We've got cookies, we've got whipped cream in the fridge, we've got a perfectly good bedroom..."
"You have crazy ideas."
"And you love me."
"I do love you." She grabs the plate of cookies and the whipped cream from the fridge. "But if you get crumbs in the bed, you're washing the sheets."
"Deal."
We don't leave the bedroom for hours. The cookies end up everywhere—on the sheets, on our skin, on the floor where Rex will probably find them later. The whipped cream is even worse. But Harper's laughing, and I'm laughing, and somewhere between the mess and the sweetness and the ridiculous fun of it all, I think about how this is what I want for the rest of my life.
Not the cookies specifically. But this. Her. Us. The easy way we fit together even when things get messy.
Later, when we're cleaned up and lying tangled together in fresh sheets, Harper traces patterns on my chest.
"I'm glad you and Liam made peace," she says quietly.
