Chapter 9
HOLIDAY
I’ve barely slept all week.
Every time I’ve closed my eyes, I see the look on Lucas’s face when I told him he reminded me of my ex-fiancé.
The way you’re acting reminds me of him.
The words echo in my head on repeat.
I said them, hoping he’d understand what I went through, even if the words were cruel. As I lie in bed at four in the morning, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars Lucas helped me put up when we were sixteen, I think about my words. He needed to hear them, even if they were the ugly truth.
My phone sits on the nightstand. There are no texts from Lucas. Not that I expected any. He may have unblocked my number so we could discuss our baking sessions, but he hasn’t gone out of his way to reach out to me. He won’t.
I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, letting the hot water wake me up. By five, I’m dressed and driving to the bakery, the mid-November air biting at my skin. I can’t believe it’s already Saturday.
The week has passed by in a blur of sold-out cookie trays and curious customers trying to get details about the new romance in Merryville.
Monday, I saw Lucas’s truck in the parking lot when I arrived.
My stomach did a stupid flip, but he was nowhere near the bakery.
It was hard to focus on my work. Tuesday, he walked past the bakery windows twice.
Both times, our eyes met through the windows.
I didn’t look away first; he always did.
Wednesday, Bella asked if everything was okay between us because she could feel the tension.
Thursday, I caught him watching me from across the parking lot while I loaded cookies into a customer’s car.
When I looked up and met his eyes, he didn’t turn away.
We stared at each other for a long moment before I broke contact and walked back into the bakery.
Friday, I didn’t see him at all. The bakery was slammed with pre-Thanksgiving orders, and I didn’t have time to think about anything.
This morning, I’m exhausted but determined. We need to discuss our presentation for the contest and work on other recipes. We’re running out of time. We have exactly one month and haven’t made a batch of edible cookies. That’s a fact.
The bakery is chaotic. We sell twenty-five hundred cookies by two o’clock, which is a new record.
Bella and Wendy handle cleanup while I prep dough for tomorrow’s batches.
Pre-prepping and the two extra ovens Emma had delivered a few days ago have made us more efficient.
We can now bake twenty-five percent more cookies.
“You should go home and rest,” Bella tells me around four. “You’ve been here nearly twelve hours.”
“I’m fine. I’m baking tonight with Lucas anyway.”
“Go home and take a nap beforehand,” she says. “Two hours will do you some good.”
“I doubt I’ll sleep,” I tell her, knowing I won’t.
“Then rest with your eyes closed,” she says. “You can’t keep going at a hundred miles an hour. We’re not halfway through the season yet.”
“I know. Thank you,” I say. My feet pound as I drag myself to my car. The two-mile drive goes fast, and I pull up to my parents’ place. As soon as I take the stairs to my bedroom, my phone vibrates with a text.
I walk into my room and sit on the edge of my bed.
Lucas
Still good for 6?
Holiday
Yep.
Lucas
Meet me at my house tonight to bake. Too many wandering eyes at the farm.
Holiday
Not a good idea.
Lucas
Then fuck off. I’m not baking at the shop.
It’s short and to the point. Nothing like the texts we used to send each other.
I set an alarm on my phone and somehow drift to sleep.
It feels like only minutes pass, but really, an hour and a half goes by. I drag myself out of bed and change into some comfy jeans that make my ass look awesome and a soft sweater.
At five fifty, I head to Lucas’s place. I could drive there with my eyes closed.
I make my way to the farm and turn off onto the gravel loop where all the Jolly family houses sit.
I pass Hudson’s place first, and it’s all lit up, then turn onto Lucas’s long driveway.
My headlights illuminate his two-story home, which sits at the back of the property, exactly where he told me it would go.
Each of the brothers inherited land as a part of their legacy. They each built their forever homes on the same loop where their parents and grandmother live.
I park next to his truck and walk up the porch steps. The house is hardly decorated, with a lone garland wreath on the front door. Icicle lights partially hang from the eaves, like he gave up halfway through.
Before I lift my hand to knock, the swing door opens.
Lucas is wearing jeans that hang low on his hips and a heather gray T-shirt that’s been worn soft.
It stretches across his torso, accentuating his chest and arms. That’s when I realize he has tattoos on his arms. His hair is slightly damp, and he smells like he just showered.
There’s a shadow of stubble on his jaw, and he looks tired but good. Too good.
My mouth falls open, and I quickly close it. This is the first time I’ve seen him in normal clothes. No long-sleeved flannels or hoodies.
“Hey,” he says, unamused.
“Uh, hey.”
We stand there for a second too long, and I can feel the tension from last week still hanging between us.
“Come in,” he finally says, stepping aside.
I walk past him and stop in the entryway.
The open floor plan, with vaulted ceilings and exposed beams, is exactly how he once described it to me.
A stone fireplace is the showpiece of the living room with a thick wooden mantel that’s been stained dark.
The kitchen has tons of counter space, an island with barstools, and professional-grade appliances.
“Wow,” I say, moving forward, noticing the windows overlooking the woods. “This is a dream kitchen.”
“I know,” he says.
“This house is exactly like we talked about. The layout, the windows, even the fireplace.” I turn to look at him. “You made it happen.”
Something flickers across his face. “Almost.”
The words hang between us, weighted with everything we’re not saying.
He follows me farther into the kitchen, breaking the moment. “You want a tour?”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
He shows me around the first floor—the living room with built-in bookshelves, filled with thrillers and books about tree cultivation.
His office has a large oak desk that faces the windows.
The half bath has the subway tiles he’d always loved.
I follow behind him as he leads the way upstairs, and I try not to stare at the muscles that cascade down his back.
He shows me all three bedrooms, along with the suite that has a king-size bed and vaulted ceilings. He even has a gas fireplace up here. There’s a gigantic walk-in closet and a bathroom with a big shower and a deep tub.
“You have a lot of space,” I mutter.
“Built it for a future that didn’t happen.” He shrugs, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. “Anyway, this is it. We should get started.”
Back in the kitchen, he removes ingredients from his pantry that’s tucked away in the corner. The tension is noticeable, but it isn’t unbearable.
I wash my hands at the farmhouse sink, a style I always loved.
It’s not lost on me that this is my dream kitchen, not his.
“I read the contest rules. We have to bake at the Christmas Festival contest area, and each team will have its own oven, sink, and prep area. It all has to be done in front of the judges. We have to bake fifty cookies without rushing. I think three hours is plenty of time.”
“Good.”
“I was thinking we could try a different cookie. What family recipes do you have memorized?” I ask.
“Gingerbread, which we can’t use because Emma and Hudson used it last year to win. And my favorite of Mawmaw’s, a chunky chocolate chip with pecans.”
“Make the dough for the chocolate chip pecan ones. I have an idea.”
His brows furrow, but he doesn’t argue. Lucas seems indifferent today.
We fall into our rhythm. He measures flour and sugar while I melt chocolate in a double boiler. The kitchen is smaller with him in it, which means we keep bumping into each other. His arm brushes mine when he reaches for the vanilla. My hip bumps his when I move over to his stand mixer.
“Sorry,” I say after the third collision.
He ignores me.
We work in silence, mixing the two separate doughs—my fudge cookie base and his chocolate chip with pecans. His movements are confident. Out of everyone in Merryville, he’s actually the best baking partner for me because he pushes me to be better.
I watch him fold chocolate chips gently, and I’m impressed. It makes me think about all those summers we used to bake together just for fun.
He glances at me, and there’s almost a smile. I wonder if he thinks about those times, too. Probably not.
Once our doughs are ready, Lucas plops them down on the tray. I scoop some of my fudge dough and place it in the middle of his cookies and place them on the baking sheet in neat rows.
Our hands keep almost touching, but neither of us jerks away quite as fast anymore.
“Remember when we tried to make snickerdoodles at Mawmaw’s and you forgot the cream of tartar?” I ask.
“That was you who forgot it.”
“For some reason, I remember it definitely being you.”
We’re lost in our thoughts for a few seconds.
He shakes his head, but he’s almost smiling. “You’ve always been impossible.”
“Oh, big same.”
We slide the trays into the oven, and I set the timer. Lucas leans against the counter, tattooed arms crossed, watching me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. You’re the one staring.”
“Um. It takes two to stare. I just didn’t realize you were tatted up like…”
His brows raise, and he smirks as he lifts his shirt. Abs for days and more tattoos.
“How many do you have?”
“Lost count,” he says and clears his throat, looking away.
The timer ticks in the silence between us.
“You want a drink?” Lucas asks. “I’ve got whiskey.”