Celeste Chapter #2
When the rest of the club heard the plan yesterday, they cheered. In addition, several of the single members went to town to help with the move. With that many hands, they’d have no trouble getting it all done today.
Recipes were scattered all over the kitchen, along with huge twenty-pound bags of flour and sugar.
That didn’t include all the other ingredients needed for the various goodies we were making.
Some would be available to eat right away.
Others would be put away, frozen in a few cases, until Christmas Day.
It would save us from having to make them on Christmas Eve or Day.
As for the food for the big day, we had it all planned out: what we’d do on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth to cut down on the load on Christmas itself.
It would be hectic and tiring enough with the kids and individual family gatherings.
I was impressed with how organized the old ladies had it.
They had a master binder detailing what was to be done and when.
It began when Agony claimed Eliana, and as each old lady was added, the celebration grew larger.
Capri and I laughed ourselves silly when it was the men, not the kids, who kept sneaking in to steal bites. Watching grown men beg, pout, and be chased out of the kitchen by a wooden spoon or rolling pin was hysterical.
I was bent over the pie I had finished making. All we had to do was freeze it and then pop it into the oven on Christmas Day. I’d been tasked with creating some of the pies after Capri bragged about how good mine were. I felt someone standing behind me.
“No, you can’t have any. Yes, it’s for Christmas Day. Yes, you’d better run if you don’t want to get the spoon or rolling pin,” I said automatically. It had to be one of the men.
“What the hell? This is how you greet your man after he worked all day for you?” Hulk’s deep voice grumbled. I’d been so in the zone, I hadn’t heard anyone return.
Gasping, I whirled around, throwing my arms around him. He chuckled as I babbled.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I thought it was one of the other guys. They’ve been begging and trying to steal bites all day.”
“Yeah, that sounds right. But you can’t blame them. It’s a tradition. If I were here, I would’ve done the same. What can you give me a taste of?”
He grinned before he hoisted me in his arms and laid a kiss on me. I devoured his mouth. I felt like it had been a week since our last one.
“Hey, if you’re gonna maul each other, you have to get out of the kitchen. We can’t have you contaminating everything,” Eliana’s laughing voice admonished us.
Reluctantly, we stopped kissing, and I was put back on my feet.
“What else do you have left to do?” he asked me.
“I just need to wrap up this pie and pop it in the freezer. Then I was going to see if anyone else needed help.”
“Celeste, we have it all under control. We’re just doing a few final touches.
Let us take care of wrapping up the pie.
You and Capri have worked your butts off.
Why don’t you go home and see what those men are doing?
If you don’t keep an eye on them, God knows what they’ll do with your things.
You’ll find the kitchen boxes in the garage and the bedroom boxes in the kitchen,” Tana said.
The other women murmured and nodded in agreement.
Hulk protested, but he was shooed out of the kitchen, along with Capri and me.
The walk over to the house felt good. It was cool out, but after the heat of the kitchen, it was a relief.
There was a truck parked in the driveway. Boxes were being unloaded already.
“Don’t they need to take a break?” I asked.
“They’d rather get it done, and then we can all relax later at the clubhouse tonight. It’s not that big of a job,” he explained.
As we got close to the truck, I had to ask. “Where’s the bulk of the furniture?”
“See that truck at the outbuilding? They’re offloading it there. Only the pieces you wanted in the house are on this truck,” he explained.
As we walked into the house, the guys helping to unload here called out, “Hello.” We stopped to thank each of them personally, but they waved us off. Their responses were varied.
“Happy to do it.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“It’s what we do for our family.”
Despite Tana’s warning, they did a great job of putting the boxes in the correct rooms. And yes, each one was marked with which room it was for, and even a notation of what was in it.
When I remarked on it, Hulk admitted Agony had given him the idea, so he’d passed it along to the guys before they started this morning.
When Capri and I tried to help with the unloading, we were told no.
When we attempted to start unpacking boxes, Hulk made us sit in the living room to rest. He said we’d done enough for the day.
He claimed we’d make them look bad and like slackers if they let us help them do their work for the day.
When we tried to be sneaky and do it anyway, the other guys did the same, so we gave up and relaxed.