Chapter 16 Talbot
TALBOT
“Three thousand cookies! It’s a new personal best.” Misty seems pleased with herself.
The Christmas music has looped, and the kids are in bed. Aunt Kathy left, and the stragglers are drinking and watching the postgame content from the Rhode Islanders’ beatdown by the Direwolves.
I wish I was watching that game, though maybe not, because my cousin is the one who got his ass whooped.
Another undercover job. Don’t ask.
At least from what Lawrence says, he’s doing worse than I am.
Making three thousand cookies for a girl has to make her fall in love with you, right?
Misty ties the ribbon around the last of the cookie boxes, looping it through the crocheted snowman ornament she made.
“The fact that you bought all these little decorations on top of baking all these cookies is the reason Austen doesn’t respect you.”
“Stop trying to goad me into letting you finish him off,” she warns, tying a double-loop bow. “I crocheted them myself. It was therapeutic.”
“Gumdrop… I see why you snapped and hired a—”
“Shh!” She holds a hand to my mouth.
“I was going to say ‘fuck toy.’”
She elbows me lightly as I move past her.
“You’re wound real tight. You sure you don’t want me to make your Christmas bright?”
“I can’t tell if you’re talking about Austen or sleeping with me. And for the record, I don’t want either of those things.”
That’s not what I want to hear. I need the delusional girl who falls head over heels for the bad boy. Maybe the cookies were not the right call.
See, this is why I don’t do long-term undercover assignments.
“I did actually want to thank you for helping me.” Misty tries to step around me.
My arm circles around her waist, holding her still.
“You want to thank me.” I rest my forehead against hers.
It’s brief, could almost be interpreted as friendly, just enough for her to read into it, stew on it when she’s alone at night.
“What do you mean?” I let her go and turn to the dishes in the sink.
“I love company-mandated unpaid overtime.”
The timer dings.
She slaps the lid on the sprinkles.
“More cookies? They better not be another chickpea monstrosity. Those smelled rancid.”
A blast of warm air with the scent of sugar and peanut butter hits me when she opens the oven. Juggling two hot pans, she slides them on cooling racks. “Peanut butter blossoms.”
I breathe in deep before I can stop myself. Instantly, I’m transported back to my childhood, when I’d bake these with my mom and Elsa because they were easy to make. Back when things were simple, back when I looked forward to Christmas.
“I made these for you,” she says simply.
She’s busy unwrapping red and green foil from Hershey’s kisses and sticking them into the puffy, piping-hot cookies.
“You made these… for me?”
I don’t do girlfriends or relationships. Part of me always secretly thought it was bullshit—the constant nagging and guilt-tripping to force the other person to show how much they love you.
But this? Someone just knowing you so well that they want to do something nice for you, bring a little joy to long, dark winter nights?
Misty’s beaming up at me, clutching the little glass bowl of Hershey’s kisses. “I remember you saying a few nights ago that these were your favorite cookies. So I made some for you. They’re all yours.”
I don’t make a move even though I want to stuff the whole tray in my mouth.
They’re just cookies. They don’t mean anything.
But it’s everything. It was my favorite part of Christmas.
And she just knew.
Seeing my hesitation, Misty picks up one of the still-warm cookies with the tips of two fingers and stretches out her hand, offering it to me.
For a second, I almost, almost, feel guilty.
It feels too real; this isn’t something you do for a person you just want to sleep with. This is like dating- and relationship-level shit.
Don’t. This means it’s working.
Eyes locked with hers, I lean forward, letting the heat from the cookie melt the chocolate in my mouth.
My lips barely brush the tips of her fingers.
The shiver traces down her spine.
I’ll fuck her by Friday. Austen will be dead by Wednesday.
And I’ll enjoy both.