Page 20 of A DIY Christmas Miracle
“Hello?” I pouted at him, pushing out my bottom lip in mock indignation. “I was trying to warn you. It’s not like I’m a catastrophe in the kitchen. I’m just not good at it.”
Will nodded and sighed, his shoulders slumping a little more, which made him look a little like a lost puppy. A flour-dusted lost puppy.
Fuck. I hadn’t wanted to make him sad.
I wished we were back in the living room, decorating the tree and singing Christmas carols. That’d been fun and sweet and it hadn’t made him sad.
“Want to know a secret?” I blurted. Fuck, I just couldn’t stand seeing him looking so defeated any longer.
“A secret?” Will raised his eyebrows, scrunching up his nose. “What kind of secret?”
“Well, like I said, I’m not good at baking. So, the truth is, whenever we’re baking at school, I usually ask for parents to volunteer and help out. Up until now, I’ve always managed to man the decorating table or help with the cookie cutting. I’ve never actually had to make the dough.”
Will perked up a little, a half-smile forming on his lips. Shaking his head, he raised his finger at me, gently scolding me. “And there you are, acting like you’re so much better than me!” He gave me a little shove before peeking into the mixer. “I know I don’t know anything about baking, but… don’t you think we’ve got enough flour?”
Oh fuck.
I quickly dropped the spoon and looked at the lump of dough in the bowl.
It looked… doughy. Not like a dry, floury mess, but close.
“Looks good enough, doesn’t it?” Will critically eyed the lump as I dumped it to the counter. The cloud of flour had its good side, after all. I hadn’t had to dust the counter with flour.
“Mhmm,” I said and began rolling out the dough. It was quite firm, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was supposed to be. Maybe the fact that there was butter in it and it was quite cold here factored in.
“If you finish cutting and baking the cookies, I’ll start cleaning up,” Will suggested. “But… I think I need to get changed first.”
I smirked. “Unless you want to spend the whole day sweeping up after yourself, you should definitely do that.”
Will nodded, waving at me before leaving the kitchen.
Finally, I was able to breathe freely. Being so close to Will was joy and torture at the same time. I mean, it’s not like these feelings were new to me, but I’d never spent so much time alone with him. Well, any, really, and I found suppressing my feelings for him a lot harder if I didn’t have anyone besides him to focus on. But it was also a joy because I was getting to know a whole new side of him. He was like a completely different person here.
He was wearing sweatpants, for god’s sake!
He was still the nerd I knew and loved, but a much more relaxed version of him.
With a sigh, I shook my head, exchanged the rolling pin for a cookie cutter, and started cutting out little Christmas trees before placing them on a baking sheet.
“They look good.”
I flinched. I hadn’t heard Will returning, but there he was, right behind me, a broom in his hand.
“Let’s just hope they taste good, too,” I answered, carefully eyeing the beautiful cookies in front of me.
They didn’t.
They didn’t taste like vanilla at all — and since they were supposed to be vanilla cookies, they were a fail. The other problem was that the cookies didn’t taste sweet. Instead, they reminded me of… flour pressed into the shape of a small Christmas tree with a slightly sweet aftertaste. But you were only able to taste the sweetness if you really wanted to.
I looked at Will, who was chewing and chewing and chewing bravely, until he finally choked down his bite of cookie.
“They’re… good,” he said, giving me a kind smile.
Instead of answering, I spat the tiny bite of cookie that’d somehow managed to multiply in my mouth into the kitchen sink and shuddered.
“Liar! They’re terrible. Disgusting. Anabomination.”
Will shrugged and avoided meeting my eyes while a blush crept up his neck. “They’re not that bad,” he mumbled.
