Chapter 30
Lauren
“You want to bake what with me?” He looks at me as if I had told him that cats have two heads.
“Speculoos,” I repeat, though it sounds more like a question. “I have no idea if I’m pronouncing this right,” I admit while rummaging in one of my drawers, trying to make space for one of the stoneware pots I brought from my L.A. apartment.
In my attempt to find a proper space for it, I stumbled over the cookie forms I bought at a Christmas market in Germany three years ago.
They caught my eye, so I couldn’t walk past them.
It’s basically a block of wood with a detailed carving of a Christmas tree, presents under it, baubles hanging from branches, a little star on the top and all.
Supposedly, the cookies will show every single detail.
I honestly doubt it’s going to work, but I’m a sucker for fancy cookies, so I have to at least try.
Maybe it would have been more useful to start baking the gingerbread we’ll need for the Christmas market. However, I don’t have any honey or comparable ingredients, and we don’t have the cutters here either. I guess wonky hearts have their own charm, but I’d rather have pretty and uniform ones.
“Okay, hold on.” His eyebrows furrow, creating an adorable crease between them as he picks the wooden block up and turns it in his hands. “I’ve never seen this kind of cookie form before. I’m not even sure how it’s even supposed to work.”
“Which is why the two of us are going to watch a tutorial,” I declare, standing next to him, our arms touching, as I pull my phone out of my pocket and search for a video.
“Okay, okay, wait,” he says after the first minute and reaches over to stop the video. “She said the dough needs to cool. We should get that out of the way and into the fridge before watching the rest.”
“I admire how confident you are that we will manage to make this work.” I point to the form on the counter. “Okay, let’s do it!” I push my phone into his hands. “Tell me what we need, chef!”
“Flour.”
I saunter over to my cupboard, take out the flour container and my kitchen scale. “Here you go.” I set them down in front of him. “What’s next?”
“Butter,” he says. I walk over to my fridge and glance at him over my shoulder before I open it.
“Eggs too?”
He nods. I take them both out and bring them over to him. He’s already weighing the flour by the time I set them on the counter.
“Sugar,” he continues absentmindedly, gently patting the container, making only a dusting of flour fall into the bowl. “And then we need a bunch of spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.”
“On it,” I say in a singsong voice and grab them.
When I turn back, I find him focused, brow furrowed as he cuts chunks of butter into the bowl. For some reason, it’s the most attractive thing I’ve seen him do all day.
“Do you want to knead it?” he asks, pointing at the bowl, oblivious to how much I want to jump him.
I blink at him, fluttering eyelashes and all. “You know…” I stammer and wring my hands, pursing my lips. “I can crack the egg in there, but I’ll leave kneading to the pro.”
“The pro?” He rolls his eyes, chuckles and sprinkles a good amount of cinnamon into the dough. “You say that as if I knead all my dough by hand and don’t have two giant machines in my kitchen to do it for me.”
“I have a KitchenAid,” I tell him confidently. Then I sag into myself. “In one of the ten yet-unpacked boxes upstairs. If you’d prefer to search for it- ”
“I’ll knead it.” He measures out some clove powder, then adds a pinch of nutmeg. “Always putting me to work,” he mutters under his breath, pouting as he trudges past me to wash his hands. “She only wants me for my skills.”
“Hey,” I say softly and pull on his shirt until his eyes meet mine. “I also want you because you’re hot.” I wink at him. He rolls his eyes, pretending to be annoyed, but I can see a hint of blush creeping into his cheeks.
I purse my lips for a kiss. He leans over and obliges before returning to the bowl, trying to fight a grin, and digs his hand into it.
“What the- Caleb! Holy biceps!”
I lean on the counter, propping my elbows on it and cradling my chin in my hands, as I watch him knead the dough. It’s not as if he has to put a huge amount of strength into it, nevertheless, it makes his biceps bulge, and my tongue flicks out to wet my lips.
“It’s like a personal peep show. Yes, give it to the dough.” Maybe I do get the appeal of thirsty baking content.
“I feel violated,” he jokes, turning the bowl in his arm as he kneads it with his other hand.
“And those shoulders,” I tease, bursting into a giggle when his ears turn red. “Don’t be embarrassed.” He shoots me a sharp look over his shoulder, a tint of pink on his cheeks.
He quickly changes the topic, holding out a tiny bit of dough. “I have no idea what the flavor is supposed to be. You’ll have to be the taste tester.”
“A heavy burden I’m willing to bear,” I say, and lean over, putting lips around his finger, scooping up the dough with my tongue.
“Mmm.” A happy hum escapes me when the flavor of cinnamon, butter, nutmeg, and clove hits my tongue. I open my eyes, catching his heated gaze.
“A little more cinnamon, I think,” I say, tapping my lips.
He tries a tiny piece himself, nods, and then adds more, giving the dough another good knead. “Like this?” He holds out another piece for me to try, and I lean in, taking it from his fingers with my lips.
“Yes, that’s perfect.”
“Good.” He slides the bowl over to me. “Put it in the fridge, and we’ll figure this wooden cookie-form thing out.”
He washes his hands again as I wrap the dough in clingfilm and place it in my fridge.
When I’m back at the kitchen island, he stays behind me, his chest rising with each breath against my back, as he watches the video over my shoulders.
His arms cage me against the kitchen island, his breath feathering against my neck.
“Okay. Getting the dough in there, I understand,” he mumbles, and my breath hitches. Fuck. I didn’t pay attention to the video at all, I'm way too distracted by his sheer existence. “But how the fuck are we going to cut the rest of the dough off and get it out?”
“I think we’re going to need a lot of flour,” I mumble, sensing him nod behind me.
"Maybe with some kind of string?"
“Okay,” I think out loud and nod. “I’ll take the drawers on the left side; you take the right. First one to find something that works gets a kiss and triumph.”
He chuckles and pulls open random drawers on his side. I sigh, already missing his warmth against my back.
Now, let’s see if I own anything that proves useful for this.
But there’s nothing in my drawers. Only cutlery, a bunch of random cookie cutters and cake pans I bought on a whim but never needed. And some cute oven mitts that aren’t particularly effective, but I couldn’t bear to throw away.
“Found something.” I whirl around. What in the ever-loving hell could he have found?
“Oh wow. Sure, I said to search, but never in a million years did I think you’d actually find anything,” I say in awe as he holds up kitchen twine.
“Look at you, having useful stuff.” The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Okay, we have a plan. The dough needs to chill for another hour, and then we can start.” He sets down the string and slowly walks towards me, laying his hands on my hips when he comes to a stop, close enough that I can smell the oak scent of his shampoo.
“What shall we do in the meantime?”
“I have an idea.” I bite my lip, but it doesn’t help in the slightest to contain the wide grin that tugs at the corners of my mouth.
“Oh no,” Caleb says amusedly. “I know that look.”
“You and me, Caleb,” I say, voice barely louder than a breath, sliding my hands up his arms, my fingers interlacing in the back of his neck. “We are going to romanticize the fuck out of Christmastime. You can’t escape.”
“Oh God.” He buries his face in his hands.
“See? You put up a Christmas tree, and you didn’t turn to ash,” I declare, grinning proudly. “Maybe there’s still hope of converting you into a Christmas lover.”
“This is so wrong.” He eyes the still bare, artificial tree with an expression somewhere between awe and disgust. “I mean, really? Plastic?”
“Says the guy who hasn’t had a Christmas tree at all in how many years?” I arch my eyebrow, side-eyeing him. God, I can’t wait to decorate the tree.
“Fifteen,” he grumbles, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “But at least when I did, they were always real ones.”
“Oh, by all means.” I gesture toward the window. It’s snowing again, though it’s not falling quite as thickly as yesterday. “If you’d prefer, please, go out there and get me a real one.”
“Do you have an axe?” he asks, narrowing his eyes as if he’s seriously considering it.
My brows knit together, and I cock my head. “Why would I have an axe?”
“One, because you have a fireplace,” he says slowly, pointing at it. “And second, if you want an actual tree in here, you’re going to have to chop it down yourself. Which is traditionally done using an axe.”
“The cool thing about living in the twenty-first century is that I can order firewood online. And when I do, I can pick whether you want logs or have them cut down to fireplace size,” I explain to him slowly, enunciating every syllable the way you’d explain it to a child.
Then I grin. “Or I go all damsel in distress and ask Kieran to chop it for me.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise.” He narrows his eyes, without a doubt imagining Kieran missing the log and accidentally chopping his bones instead. “He seems like the kind of guy who’d send an axe flying.”
“Only if he wants to.” I shrug. “You’d be surprised, though. The wood-hacking TikToks are his best-performing videos. If you think about it, I’m actually doing him a favor when I ask him to chop wood for me.”
“Honestly? I don’t even want to know why he would post wood-chopping videos.” He shakes his head. “Come on, let’s make your strange cookies.”
“Yay,” I say, hopping toward the kitchen.
Jenna and Taytay are busy exploring the new object in the living room. I can hear the plastic branches rustling as I take the dough out of the fridge.
“Oh God, that’s stone hard.” I tap against it.
“Give it here, I got it,” Caleb quips, dusting some flour on my counter. “Do you have a rolling pin?”
“Yes,” I say, carefully pulling open a few drawers until I find it. “Ha! There it is.” I pass it to him.
“I’m going to give it a quick knead before we press it in there,” he says, and does just that with a quarter of the dough. Once it’s somewhat malleable, I hand him the form.
He sprinkles a good amount of flour into it, then taps and turns the form, until the flour is in every of the tiny nooks.
“Okay, I’m going to press the dough in there,” he explains, nodding towards the string. “I’ll hold it in place while you cut through the dough by placing the string on the wooden block and pulling it right through the dough.”
“Yes, chef.” I salute, earning myself an amused head-shake, and cut some string off.
The first attempt is a disaster. I can’t get a good grip on the string without cutting off blood circulation in at least one of my fingertips, so we switch for the second try.
I keep my hand flat on the dough and keep the form in place, while he pulls the string through the dough.
And we almost make it. Then I lose my grip on the form, and it almost flies off the counter.
“Okay.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “Almost. We’re getting there.”
This time, he helps me keep the form steady by pressing his thumbs against the sides.
“What the—?” His gaze suddenly drops to his calf. “Why are you climbing up my leg?”
“Jenna,” I scold, knowing it’s futile with this cat. She’s an adorable, tiny people-climber. And it appears she’s now trying to climb the mountain that is Caleb.
“I can’t blame her, to be honest,” I add. An adorable pink creeps into his cheeks. “Just ignore her.” He looks down at her one more time before he continues carefully pulling the string through the dough.
“Yes!” I smile when he makes it through and I can take the top of the dough right off.
“Don’t celebrate too early,” he mumbles, putting the string aside. “Turn the form around. I wonder if it will come out.”
At first, it doesn't move an inch. Then, I gently tap the narrow side against the counter, watching the upper part of the cookie drop from the form.
“Well, that kind of works,” I mumble and do it again.
Slowly but surely and with a lot of patience, the future cookie drops out of the form. Finally, it lands on the counter, and my eyes widen.
“Oh my God, that’s pretty.” I stare at it in awe. It’s just as detailed as the form, every bauble, every crease of the star on top clearly visible, thanks to the flour.
“Get it on the baking tray,” Caleb instructs. “I bet it’s going to be a bitch to get out once the butter softens, so let’s knock them out.”
“Okay, chef!”
I glance up at him, seeing that Jenna is now sitting on his shoulder.
“Oh my God, that’s adorable.” I giggle and lift my hand to stroke her forehead with my finger. “How is she not falling down?”
“Her claws in my shirt and skin, presumably,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Come on, let’s do this.”