Chapter Ten
Gunnar
Even though we had started dating, I wasn’t ready to give up my role as Secret Santa.
I wanted to keep it going, to keep him surprised, and it was getting difficult to figure out things to give him that I wouldn’t have learned he might be interested in because of a date or a phone call.
I ended up sticking with items I found on online lists such as Christmas socks, a little blue Christmas tree for his desk, a blue apron.
I kind of got stuck on the blue thing. It personalized the less personal items in my mind.
I kept waiting for him to bring them up, but so far, he hadn’t.
Then again, I hadn’t mentioned to him that I’d started to get some Secret Santa gifts myself.
I also hadn’t been feeling right about opening them and had been stashing them in my closet.
I didn’t know why it felt like I was being disrespectful to him if I opened them.
I didn’t feel that way about him opening gifts that I got him, but sometimes it was best to go with my feelings.
I wasn’t going to think about that now because today was our cookie-making-and-decorating day.
I was so excited, I could burst. I had a collection of cookie cutters that had been my grandmother’s, a good number of them Christmas-themed, ready to go.
I’d recently learned a trick via YouTube about rolling the dough on a silicone mat, pressing the cookies out, and pulling the excess dough away.
I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to work, but it didn’t matter because I was spending the day with Vaughn.
He’d told me that he hadn’t done it before, and it was kind of cool being the one to teach Daddy, not that he was my daddy, but I couldn’t keep my mind from going in that direction.
I didn’t even feel bad about it because we both knew going into this that age play was part of any relationship either of us would want.
We just hadn’t officially said that he was mine, and that was okay. Rushing things never worked.
I went back and forth on how easy to make our cookie date.
Should we do a few different kinds of cookies or just the sugar cookies?
In the end, I decided to do the sugar cookies and, while they cooled and got ready to be decorated, bake some slice-and-bakes I’d prepare the day before.
I used a recipe an old coworker had given me that included gelatin.
They were absolutely delicious and made a ton, so the timing would work out correctly.
When he arrived, I had everything ready to go.
“This looks complicated.” He scanned the counters.
“Not complicated. Fun.” At least, that was my hope. “I laid out the ingredients so we don’t have to hunt them down. It’s going to be fabulous.”
I showed him the box of cookie cutters and asked him to pick out the ones he liked.
He took his role very seriously, looking at each one, asking me what a few of them were.
For some of them, I had no answer. A couple looked full-on phallic, and I was pretty sure my grandmother wasn’t into that kind of thing.
Or if she had been, I didn’t want to think about it.
I was going with there being a reasonable explanation for them, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“I thought this was going to be more tedious than it is,” he said after we put the final batch of cut-outs in the oven.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. There are fancy ways to decorate them, but I figured we would just do frosting and sprinkles.”
This was where the real fun began. The cookies were the work needed to get to the decorating.
We whipped up a batch of homemade buttercream and divided it into smaller bowls, mixing colors until we had a fun variety of Christmas hues to choose from.
Vaughn took the lead, daddying the process by leading the color mixing.
“Perfect.” I grabbed a cookie. “I’m doing this one first.” It was a deer, and I held it up a minute later. “What do you think?”
“He needs a nose.” Vaughn grabbed a Red Hot and popped it in place. “Now, he’s perfect.”
“Too perfect to eat?” Because we’d made a lot of cookies and, so far, I’d managed to eat none.
“No, perfect for eating.”
At first, we were pretty fancy with our decorating. Daddy even made a candy cane with stripes. But, as we got to the end, the stars were just one color with glittery sugar as the only topping. Glitter makes everything pretty, especially cookies.
“Not half bad,” I said. “Here, hold these two up to your cheeks so I can take a picture.”
He held one up to his cheek and pretended to eat the other as I snapped away.
“Now, your turn.” He gave them to me, and I bit off the cookie reindeer’s antlers mid-shot.
“Wait.” He reached over and wiped some frosting from my upper lip. That one simple touch had me craving more. Instead of asking for what I wanted, I shoved the cookie at him and said, “Try it.”
He took a bite. “Too delicious.”
The timer buzzed, and I grabbed the last of the Jell-O cookies out of the oven, sad that our decorating was nearly over.
“I’ll get the dishes started.” I walked toward the sink.
“I can do those,” he said.
“Or we can do them together.” I liked the sound of that much better.
I’d never thought of doing dishes as a fun activity, but, standing at the sink, him washing and me drying, both of us talking about what we were going to do with the massive number of cookies, was one of the funnest activities ever.
It had nothing to do with the cookies or the sugar rush and everything to do with Vaughn.
He made everything we did together merrier. Maybe he was Santa Claus.