Chapter 24
BELLA
“Are you ready for your next Santa lesson?”
I lead Hardy into the kitchen where my Aunt Delilah is pulling ingredients out of the fridge. He looks at the baking tools on the island. “What the hell is this?” he asks, holding up the penis cookie cutter.
“It’s a penis. You’re an EMT, shouldn’t you know that?” I say with a wink.
The answering scowl on his face is priceless. “I know it’s a penis. Jesus Christ.”
“He is the reason for the season!” Aunt Delilah chimes in.
He shakes his head, growing more frustrated at our antics. “I thought you said we were making cookies. What do you need this for?” he asks, holding the cookie cutter by the tip, waving the balls around while he speaks.
How the fuck do I explain this? I’m madly in love with this man, he just told me he loves me, and I don’t want him to regret that decision.
And even though I’m slightly worried my brand of crazy will scare him off, I opt for honesty.
If this relationship is going to last between us, he needs to know what he’s in for with me. And my crazy sorta aunt.
“When I had a bachelorette party back in the day, my maid of honor got penis-shaped everything, including that cookie cutter in your hand.”
“I was her maid of honor.” Delilah pokes her head out of the fridge.
“More like maid of dishonor.” I laugh as she sets a carton of eggs on the counter.
She smiles back at me. “I wear the title proudly.”
“The point?” he says, trying to rein us back in as his eyes shift toward the hallway, probably looking for Avery. But I’m undeterred since Isaac knows to distract her while we give him our cookie history.
“Honey, you have your big meaty paw wrapped around the point of that thing. Just look at the way you’re gripping that shaft.” Delilah cackles, and I lose it.
He drops the cookie cutter onto the counter, crossing his arms. “For fuck’s sake.”
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I continue, “Anyway, I tucked all the penis paraphernalia in a box in the basement so Isaac wouldn’t find it.”
Delilah shakes her head in agreement. “Poor thing didn’t want to traumatize the boy.”
“A few years ago, around Christmas, I sent Isaac down there to get my cookie cutters so we could make Christmas cookies. And since men seem to have such a hard time locating things that are clearly labeled…”
“And right in front of them,” Delilah adds.
“Exactly. He couldn’t find them. Despite the see-through bin clearly labeled ‘cookie cutters,’ my genius of a kid opens four boxes, all of them also clearly labeled with their contents, until he finds the gem of a cookie cutter you were just stroking.”
He straightens. “I was not stroking it.”
Delilah unwraps the butters, plopping them into the mixing bowl. “There was some stroking going on.”
“Is she always like this?” he asks, gesturing a thumb at her.
“I am, and I’m a delight,” she volleys back.
“That you are. You’re getting after-school Delilah, not Principal Adams. Back to what I was saying. My kid comes running upstairs, proud of his discovery.”
“He never did find the rest of the cookie cutters,” Delilah says, throwing away the butter wrappers as she pulls out the sugar.
He watches in awe as Delilah and I work together as a team, her mixing as I grab the rest of the dry ingredients. “So, you made dick cookies?”
“I’m a single mom who survives off an IV drip of coffee. If it made him happy, I didn’t give a fuck what shape it was. And he thought it was funny. It was one of the first times I’d seen him laugh since the divorce. So, we made dick cookies.”
“But we didn’t stop there!” Delilah adds.
He shakes his head “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like where this is headed?”
I smile at him across the island. “It became a tradition in our house. Anyone can have a cookie decorating contest, but only the elite make cock cookies.”
Delilah comes up beside me, wiping her hands on her apron. “I wanted to call them dick cookies because it sounded softer.”
“No one wants a soft dick in their mouth, Delilah.” We break out into laughter, realizing what I just said. “Besides, I like the way cock cookies sounds. The alliteration. Cock cookies. It has more oomph than dick. Cock feels heftier in your mouth.”
“I’d like a hefty cock in my mouth,” Delilah says.
“Gives new meaning to eat a dick, eh?”
We dissolve into another fit of laughter. This is my happy place during the holidays, in my aunt’s kitchen, surrounded by laughter, making phallic cookies. “Like I was saying, we have a cock cookie competition. Say that three times fast.”
“Cock cookie competition. Cock cook—”
I laugh, cutting my aunt off. “I didn’t mean to actually say it. “
“So, this cookie competition,” Hardy prods, sounding interested.
“Say cock,” Delilah interrupts.
His cheeks flush. “I’m not saying that.”
Delilah gives him a curious look. “You a prude or something?”
I step up next to him, shooting her a look. “Leave the man alone.” Then I turn to him to finish my story. “So, we have a competition. Some years we see who can make the most realistic cock.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea to do with your kid?” He sounds skeptical, and I would worry that he’s questioning my parenting when I remember he’s a girl dad.
“It was his idea!” Delilah laughs.
Placing an arm on his, I continue. “What you’re forgetting is that I’m a boy mom. We’re a different breed. Cocks and balls are an everyday occurrence for us. We don’t scare easily. Remember how I drove around with a cock on my car not too long ago?”
Delilah laughs. “Ned told me about that.”
“I saw Ned that day, and he didn’t say anything to me!”
“Well, you know Ned,” Delilah says, waving it off.
“Back to the competition. So, some years, it’s all about realism. Another year we tried to see who could take their cock and disguise it into something completely different with just icing and decorations.”
“I called it hide-a-willy!” Aunt Delilah exclaims.
“Last year, we took it a step up from that and allowed alterations to the dough, so you could cut up the cock or twist it into different shapes to disguise it.
“A puppetry of the penis but with cookies!”
He’s not even phased by my aunt’s interjections at this point.
“I’m not sure what we’ll do this year, because it’s not like you can just go to Pinterest for ideas for this sort of thing. But I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” I say as I scoop out the flour and place it on the island.
“We could do tattoos, or piercings. The ladies love those,” Delilah suggests.
“I mean, that’s cool and all, but we need something that really stands out. Something that pops.”
“What about that picture you sent her the other day? The elephant trunk?” Hardy asks.
“Oh, thank you, I totally forgot I made that one. We could do an animal theme!”
“I knew the shape of that cookie looked off. Makes sense now,” he says, shaking his head. “And the Only Fans joke. Only Cookies, because they’re all penises, makes way more sense now.”
Delilah looks at me. “Do you think we could make a legit OF account and get away with just posting cock cookies anonymously? There’s someone who would pay to see that, right?”
“I dunno, seems risky. That sounds like an after-retirement side hustle,” I say, tapping my chin.
“This is great and all, but I can’t let Avery make cock cookies. She’s six, we have not had the birds and the bees talk, and I’m not going to let a penis cookie cutter force my hand on that.”
Isaac walks in right as I’m zooming in on the nuts-turned-elephant cookie. “Oh, that’s a good one. Text it to me? I want to show my friend the nuts on that one.”
“We’re not showing our nuts to anyone,” I say as he busts out laughing.
“You walked right into that one, Mom.”
Hardy tilts his head in confusion.
“Isaac got tired of me always saying ‘that’s what she said,’ so now he tries to set me up to say the most unhinged things.”
A toothy grin lights up Isaac’s face as he looks at Hardy while he opens the fridge. “She makes it way too easy.”
Hardy scrubs his hands down his face. “Can we get back to the cookies? I’m not letting my daughter make cock cookies.”
“Yeah, I was at least ten when we started,” Isaac agrees, taking a bite of an apple.
“He’s right,” I say to Delilah.
“I guess we could go the traditional route this year.” Delilah sighs reluctantly.
“Thank you,” Hardy says as his shoulders relax.
I gather up the cock-ie cutters and pull out a bin with traditional Christmas-shaped ones.
“Giraffe!” Avery shouts.
“In the kitchen, Butterfly.”
“There you are,” she says as she runs in and pulls a chair up to the island to help. “Is it time to make cookies now?”
“We’re almost done mixing the dough. Why don’t you go ahead and pick out the cookie cutters that you think Santa will like best?” I lay out several options for her to choose from.
“We should use ones that won’t burn,” Avery says as Hardy rubs at the back of his neck.
“In that case, I’m going to rule out this candy cane one because it’s not as thick and that could burn easily if we aren’t paying attention,” I say.
Avery nods thoughtfully as she taps her finger on her chin. “I want to do the tree, the sock, and the bomb,” she declares proudly as she holds up the tree, stocking, and ornament cookie cutters.
“The bomb?” Hardy mouths to me, and I nod to let him know I got this.
“I think that’s a great idea. I’ve never heard of a cookie bomb. What would it look like?”
“Like one of those black bombs in the old cartoons daddy likes.”
Hardy and I share a knowing glance.
“Would it look like an actual bomb, or like a bomb-shaped ornament?” I ask, trying to gently push her in the ornament direction.
“Like a real bomb,” she says as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Got it. So does it explode like a real bomb?” I ask.
“We could fill it with sprinkles. And then they would fall out when Santa bites into it!” she exclaims.
That’s actually a really cool idea, and I look at Delilah, silently asking her if we could make that.
Delilah nods as she carries the dough to the island. “I think we could accommodate that if we make three bomb cookies, stack them, and hollow out the middle one to hide the sprinkles. It would be a thick cookie, though, so I think we should only make one like that for Santa.”
Avery beams with excitement as we spend the next hour rolling out dough and baking trees, socks, and bombs.
Delilah packs up half of the dough, popping it in the freezer while Avery and Isaac carefully decorate our test cookies.
I smile down at Avery as she puts the finishing touches on her cookie bomb, filling it with sprinkles, before smooshing the cookies together with a generous amount of icing.
“How does this look?” she says, proudly holding up the bomb.
Isaac leans over her shoulder and pretends to take a bite, chomping comically around her while she squeals and tries to protect her cookie. “Giraffe, no!”
Her squeals and giggles warm my heart, and I look over at Hardy. I swear there are tears in his eyes as he mouths “Thank you,” and holds his hand over his heart.
“We have to save this one for Santa,” Avery exclaims.
“Actually, you can eat that one, if it’s okay with your dad. This was just a test run. We have extra dough in the freezer ready to make fresh cookies, so Santa doesn’t have to eat ten-day-old ones.”
Hardy nods, but it’s in vain, because Avery is already shoving half the cookie in her mouth as sprinkles rain down her shirt.
“At least we know the cookie bomb works,” Delilah says, pointing to the mess.