Chapter 15 Misty
MISTY
“I’d still have sex with you too. Don’t be upset, Gumdrop.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You just put out virgin vibes.”
“I don’t need you to categorize everything you think is wrong with me.”
“Considering you won’t let me do my actual job, I figure I’ll just moonlight as your life coach. But while you’re here, can I get a refill?” He holds up his coffee cup.
I snatch it. “You have to pay for that.”
He pulls out a hundred-dollar bill and makes a big show of sticking it in the pocket of my apron. “Keep the change, Gumdrop.” He winks.
If I wasn’t still Austen’s number one fan and didn’t believe in hired guns, I’d almost say it was attractive. I plate another three bowls of the pasta and grab Talbot’s coffee.
I feel his eyes on me as I work my shift, helping out on the grill when we get too slammed with orders.
Usually, I can just lose myself in the zone of “Merry Christmases,” “How many in your party?” and “Is the patio okay—we have heat lamps.” Except today, I almost spill the waters, I forget the bread not once but twice, and I almost drop a hot chocolate on Lucy, who’s today’s bus girl for extra cash.
“I need that table,” I finally snap at Talbot. “You need to leave.”
He salutes me with the empty coffee mug and buses his own table.
“Thank god he’s gone,” I mutter, fanning myself after seating a happy pregnant couple at his table.
“Um, your boyfriend? He’s still here.” Lucy bats her eyes. “Granny Keagan is making him unload the butter shipment.”
“Oh no he’s not.”
Talbot’s unloading the huge blocks of butter and ferrying them in his pickup truck.
“No, no, no, no!” I race out into the alley.
Cocoa is in the bed of the truck, supervising and barking at the alley cats.
“The cool granny said I need to take these to your house for the cookie-decorating party tonight.” He hooks a finger in her apron front. “Christmas cookies. How unexpectedly wholesome from the likes of you, Maplewood Falls’s most unassuming mob wife.”
“Hey!” I poke his broad chest while he smirks. “I am a good person.”
“Are you? Even if we ignore the fact that you accidentally on purpose paid to have your ex axed, you still paid someone for sex. I think there’s a special circle of hell just for people like you.” He taps the tip of my nose.
“That wasn’t me.” I lower my voice. “That was my granny. She was the one who asked for the extra-special Christmas special. I just want to date a nice guy who can carry a conversation and doesn’t wear an ankle bracelet.”
His hand’s on my arm as the heavy metal door to the alley opens.
“And Brielle is going around telling everyone this is a fake relationship. I’m telling everyone that I caught you two about to hook up in the alley.” Granny Keagan snaps a photo.
“Gran, no. Grandma Pam will have a fit.”
“Gumdrop, you can’t let Spamelot dictate your sex life.”
I want to slap the lazy smile off his face.
“Damn right! Your mom called,” Gran informs me. “She wants you on cookie duty ASAP. Mystery Meat is talking shit about her cookie-making skills. She’s getting ready to start making those nasty Santa’s Kitchen Sink cookies, the ones that sent your father running off to New Zealand.”
“I think it was the fact that he didn’t want to have any responsibilities, but I agree—those cookies are revolting.”
The smoke alarm is blaring. We can hear it from the porch, the shrill wail slicing through the frosty December air a warning siren before the apocalypse.
Smoke billows out of the kitchen. A pot of something bubbling and toxic is flaming away merrily on the stove while my mother rushes from the fridge to the recipe book to my stand mixer that is spewing batter onto the ceiling.
In the middle of it all stands Grandma Pam, wineglass in hand, silk blouse immaculate. She’s not helping; she’s here to judge. Loudly.
And she has an entourage.
“It’s such a shame,” she says, her voice rising above the alarm, “that women these days have completely forgotten the fine art of homemaking. Back in my day, a woman took pride in creating the perfect home. That’s how she showed appreciation for her husband’s hard work and financial support.
A man shouldn’t be expected to work all day and come home to this madness. ”
The WAGs nod in synchronized passive-aggressive harmony, swirling their oversized glasses of pinot grigio in their matching candy cane–striped pajamas as they smirk at my mother.
Brielle’s leading them all in the catty judgments and ignoring the fact that the house is about to burn down.
“You’re so right, Pamela,” one of the D-men’s bleach-blond girlfriends simpers. “If your mom didn’t teach you, then how are you even supposed to learn?”
“Exactly,” says a winger’s wife, twirling her hair. “It’s so sad when that kind of feminine knowledge just gets lost. Like, what are we even doing as a society?”
“You mean like the feminine knowledge of not being a rude guest?” Oops, didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“Don’t!” I yell over the indignant noises of Brielle and the mean-girl WAGs as my mother reaches for the pot filler, about to introduce water to whatever flaming-oil death trap she’s conjured on the stove.
I grab the baking soda, dump it onto the blaze, yank the tray of blackened cookies out of the oven, and chuck them into the sink.
Talbot waves a kitchen towel at the smoke alarm while I fling the back door open to let in the cold air.
“Why don’t you all get set up at the breakfast nook?” I call over my shoulder with a forced smile, voice an octave too high.
“Oh, we’d help,” Brielle says, delicately adjusting her scarf. “But your mom said she had everything handled, so we didn’t want to, you know… intrude.”
My mom’s shoulders are tense as she drains her wineglass.
Then she gives me the look. The one that says, Smile. Don’t make a scene. Don’t question Grandma Pam in front of the guests.
I nod. I learned my lesson last Christmas when I’d suggested we let the boys clean the dishes and got scolded like I’d spit on Norman Rockwell’s grave.
“Nod and smile and bake the cookies.” I head for the pantry.
Mom glares at me then turns to the WAGs. “Girls!” She hurries into the breakfast area surrounded by glass windows that look out over the snowy yard. “We have all these decorations. Let’s plan out our photoshoots for the PR posts. Misty, where is the icing? You’re making the icing, right?”
“Yep! And ten thousand cookies.”
“Breathe in, breathe out,” I tell myself. “I love Christmas. Baking is my happy place. I’m not going to scream at people to get out of my kitchen. However, I am going to tune them out.” I pin my cookie list on the bulletin board and neatly lay out my recipe cards.
Parchment paper? Check.
Ingredients? Check.
Christmas music? Check.
Hitman… check?
Ugh.
Talbot dumps armloads of butter on the counter and peers over my shoulder at the recipes. “What are we starting with?”
“We aren’t doing anything.”
“You’re not going to bake all those cookies by yourself, Gumdrop.”
“Granny Keagan will be here soon.”
“You seriously want to banish me?” he asks, stacking ingredients beside me. “You need me.”
“Talbot,” I warn, “I swear, if you so much as touch my rolling pin—”
“Did you even put it in the freezer? It looks warm.”
“I don’t need you to mansplain Christmas cookies to me!”
He tosses my rolling pin in the freezer. “I’m not mansplaining. I’m just judging your setup. It’s amateur hour in here. Also, is this European butter or did you buy it from Costco?”
“Go away. I have a checklist.”
“For The Great British Bake-Off: NHL Edition.”
“Are you making keto cookies?” Mason, followed by the noisy bunch of sweaty hockey players, appears holding a gigantic, leaking bag of chickpea flour. “A lot of the guys are trying to eat clean. I have almond flour too. Somewhere. I think.”
“There’s flour everywhere, Mason,” I sigh. “Why is it not in a sealed bag?”
“I just bought it—”
“Then stop walking around with it! Oh my god—”
“Cocoa Puff!” he cries, plopping the bag down in a big, white rancid-smelling cloud and opening his arms. “Come to Uncle Mason!” The corgi hides behind Talbot.
“I have jerky,” Mason bribes. She launches herself into his arms and gobbles down the treat.
“Where’s Cocoa Puff’s Christmas outfit?” my two younger brothers cry, racing in.
“She needs her Christmas sweater.” The boys all pet the dog.
“You can’t get those boys a Rottweiler or something manly?” Grandma Pam thrusts her glass out to my mom for a refill.
“They drool, Mom,” Ryan says with a sigh.
“And the corgi can babysit the baby,” Talbot adds as he cleans off my mother’s cookie batter from the ceiling, his gray T-shirt riding up to show a thin strip of skin and muscled abs. “They’re herding dogs.”
Ryan tamps down a smile as Grandma Pam huffs something about terrible mothering. “How about some cheese, Mom?”
“I don’t want raisins in the cookies.” Mason leans on the counter. “I don’t like raisins or applesauce.”
“None of these keto cookie recipes have either,” I mutter, scrolling through my phone, trying to find a recipe that is halfway edible.
Austen saunters in, sees Talbot, and scowls.
Talbot winks and blows him a kiss then grins when Austen swears at him. He rests his chin on my shoulder.
“That cookie recipe looks disgusting, Gumdrop.”
“Are you actually helping me bake or just planning to make passive-aggressive commentary all afternoon?”
Talbot grins. “Can’t I do both?”
The dough is made, and the first batch of cookies is out of the oven.
I wipe my hands and take out my phone, because yes, my student loan debt qualifies me to be an unpaid social media PR intern for an NHL team.
“Boys, photos! Mason, fix your hair. Mom, can you fix his hair?” I point. “Icing is here, colored sugar there. Do not mix up the sugars! Spoons are provided, and this is a wet rag to keep the icing tips clean. We have an assortment of decorative sprinkles. Use sparingly.”
I set up the phone on a tripod balanced on a shelf.