Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Aiden had never made homemade cookies before. He said he’d only ever done it from the Nestle rolls, and I immediately had to rectify that situation. I’d thought it would be a cute thing for us to do before we watched a movie, but I’d forgotten how competitive we were.
“Rosie, it says you have to put the batter in the fridge for a few hours,” he said insistently. He was reading the recipe off his phone, shaking his head.
I waved him off. “It’s just a suggestion. The cookies won’t be better or worse if we don’t.”
“That can’t be true. It’s going to taste like shit if we bake them straight away.”
“No it won’t,” I snapped.
“Yes, it will,” he snapped back.
“Well, then it won’t be different from your regular diet. You talk so much shit you should be used to the taste. Now, tell me what I need to add after the vanilla extract.”
It was a miracle that I had all the ingredients, mostly thanks to Alexa. But I didn’t have one of those electric mixers, so I was having to do it all by hand. My wrists were about to give out any minute. The batter should’ve been thick and light brown by now, but there were still clumps of flour at the edges.
“Aiden, I think my arm is going to break.”
He didn’t even look up from his phone. “You’re fine.”
“I really do think it’s going to fall off,” I urged.
He rolled his eyes, nudging me away from the bowl with his hip. “I told you we couldn’t do this without a mixer. I knew you’d rope me into mixing.”
“If it’s the price of cookies, then we just have to pay it.”
“I don’t know why I thought I could satiate your sugar addiction at Serendipity.”
Aiden started mixing so quickly that a gust of flour puffed up into his face. I cackled, but quickly stopped when he threatened to dump the contents of the bowl on me.
Eventually, we were able to get the batter looking kind of like cookie dough. We gave up on the mixing, deeming it was good enough, plopped scoops onto one of my baking trays, and stuck it into my tiny oven.
“You’ve got flour on your cheek,” I said, laughing. I stepped forward, the pad of my thumb swiping against his cheekbone, wiping the spot away. His eyes didn’t leave mine and my breath caught.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
“S-sure.” I stepped back, suddenly feeling nervous. I had straddled Aiden before, but it somehow felt different now. More intense. “Let me pull the movie up on my laptop while the cookies bake.”
He nodded once before I turned around.
On my way into my bedroom to grab my laptop, my eyes snagged on my window, and I gasped. Flurries were falling from the sky, beginning to blanket New York. Snow in New York always seemed so magical in the movies—whimsical and magical. In reality, New York snowstorms were pretty for about a minute, and then turned gross—piles of gray and brown slush on every corner.
But from the inside of my apartment, along the empty streets, the magic of New York snow was renewed.
Aiden was sitting on my couch when I returned to my small living space. He was studying my apartment, his eyes flying to something new every second, lingering on the sad Christmas decorations Alexa and I had put up after we found them for cheap at a thrift store. There was a wreath on the door, fairy lights up around the apartment, and mistletoe hanging from the arched ceiling between our kitchen and living room. Garland with red berries lined the coffee table in front of the couch.
“It’s snowing,” I said softly to Aiden as I set my laptop on the coffee table, starting the movie.
Aiden glanced at me. “Oh yeah? First snow of the season, right?”
“It’s good luck on Christmas, you know.”
“Must be,” he murmured. “I like your place. I didn’t really get to look around the last time I was here.”
“It’s no brownstone,” I teased.
He nodded, conceding. “Sure, but it’s homey. It’s the kind of place you could walk around without worrying about breaking anything. Most of the stuff at my place is still my mom’s. I still feel like a little kid, nervous to touch her vases and d é cor.”
“You could make it your own.” I sat on the couch next to him, folding my legs underneath me. “Add some of the dog art we bought today.”
He snorted. “Oh yeah, that screams Aiden.”
“You don’t have any Christmas decorations up.” My elbow rested on the back of the couch, my head resting against my hand as I faced him. I paused and hesitantly asked, “What was Christmas like for you as a kid?”
He took a deep breath and moved his elbow so his position mirrored mine. “When my parents were still together, my dad would drag my mom to some corporate holiday party on Christmas Eve so I’d be in the apartment by myself. I’d go to bed early and maybe read a book.”
My heart split open. “Well, what about after they divorced? Did your mom do anything special?”
“They traded off holidays. When I was with my dad, it was the same thing. When I was with my mom,” he smiled at the memory, “we had a really quiet Christmas. She’d make homemade hot chocolate and would have gotten some cookies from Levain Bakery earlier in the day. We never sat around and waited until midnight, but we’d watch the classics. Rudolph, Frosty … Even when I was in high school. She was sick and I … I couldn’t say no to her.”
“She seems like she was a great mom.”
“God, the best. She would’ve liked you a lot.”
“Yeah?”
His smile widened. “Big time. She would’ve told me to be nicer to you.”
“Well, at least you know you weren’t the nicest to me.”
“I should’ve been,” he said softly. His hand reached out to touch one of my curls, rubbing it between his two fingers. He focused on my hair, but I studied him in the low light with a pounding heart. Adrenaline rushed through me as I imagined him tugging me closer, onto him, like we’d been at his place.
The timer for the cookies brought us out of our silence and I reluctantly stood. “I—I better go check on them,” I stuttered out. Being this close to Aiden had such an immense effect on me, I lost any sense of self.
The cookies turned out to be a disaster. We had forgotten to put parchment paper down so the bottoms were burnt, and I might’ve preset the oven a little too high thinking they would cook faster. But instead they turned hard as rocks the minute they cooled down.
I still placed them on a plate and poured two glasses of milk for Aiden and me. I set them on the table next to my laptop and said, “Voil à .”
Aiden sat forward to grab one. He eyed it before knocking it against my coffee table. “Huh. Wonder what would’ve happened if we put them in the fridge for an hour.”
“Oh, fuck off. They can’t be that bad.” I snatched one from the plate and dunked it in the milk. I hesitated before I bit into it. “Delicious,” I managed.
I suffered through a few more bites before Aiden pointed at my kitchen and said, “Spit it out.”
I rushed to the kitchen and called out, “I’ll get the Oreos.”
I also grabbed some blankets on my way back. Aiden and I cozied up, side by side on my couch, our thighs pressed against each other, watching the movie. I tried my best to stay focused on George Bailey, but all I could feel was the heat of Aiden’s muscular thigh against mine. His touch sent a chill through my whole body and I craved more. But we still had nearly forty minutes left in the movie and an hour to go until Christmas.
“What do you want for Christmas?” I whispered, turning to face Aiden. The only light in the room was from my laptop screen and the twinkle lights. I could barely make out the sharp angles of his face or his full lips.
“I haven’t thought about it,” he said.
“No letters to Santa?”
“No.” His lips quirked. His green eyes flickered down to my mouth before searching my eyes. “Right now I feel like I have everything I need.”
His face inched closer, our noses nudging against each other. I inhaled sharply, as his breath fanned against my face, his lips suddenly so close to mine. I could already feel the heat and softness of him. His eyelashes fanned across his cheek, and I marveled for just a second how beautiful he was. I’d been so stupid to run out on him that first time. I was terrified of another heartbreak, but if today had proved anything it’s that Aiden would be careful with me. He’d suffer tourist crowds and make reservations just in case. He could be a romance hero if he really wanted to.
Our lips had just barely touched each other when someone started banging at my door.
I jumped back, startled. My heart was still racing as I looked around in confusion.
“They probably have the wrong door,” I said. “I didn’t buzz anyone up.”
“No, but you have that stupid brick.” He stood from the couch and said, “Stay here. I’ll check.”
I nodded, touching my fingers to my lips. When Aiden got rid of whoever was at the door, I’d tell him. I’d tell him I wanted to kiss him, and I wanted to be with him. I couldn’t wait a second longer.
I jumped again at a screech that definitely wasn’t Aiden’s.
“Quién eres? Dónde está mi hija?”
Is that … ?
I raced to my front door. Aiden looked back at me panicked as my eyes widened.
My parents and sister stood in my doorway with luggage, wearing matching llama Christmas sweaters.
I was terrified, painfully aware of every move I made. You only get one shot with a girl like Maxine. This was my chance to prove to her that I craved her. That I wanted to spend forever where she was, no matter what. How could I not do everything I could to show her that this, these moments of careless laughter and accidental brushes, were all I had been wanting for months?
— Excerpt from Untitled by Rosie Maxwell and Aiden Huntington