Chapter 9 Sugar Cookie Conundrum
Sugar Cookie Conundrum
“Mommy, we’re hoooo-ooome!” Teagan shouted as we dropped our purses by the door and toed off our shoes. The temps had dropped, sending a scattering of flurries through the air. But the Meyer’s home was warm and cozy and smelled like freshly baked cookies.
I took a deep breath and settled a little more solidly in Mistletoe.
“In here,” Linda called back.
We made our way to the kitchen only to find it full of Teagan’s brothers.
Tom was snoozing in the recliner, football on the TV.
Alex was close to sleeping on the couch but was holding on.
But everyone else—Linda, Cooper, Riley, Parker, and Kami—was gathered around the dining room table, an array of frostings and sprinkles on top of a disposable plastic tablecloth.
“You gotta work on your life, T,” Cooper called out from the head of the table. “I’m not tryin’ to be earlier than you everywhere we go.”
She slapped me on the back and said, “It’s not me. It’s my new roommate. She has no sense of urgency.”
“To be fair, I got no warning that this was happening.” I didn’t think it would matter, but it was worth defending myself.
Linda looked aghast. “Holly, it’s the second Sunday of December.”
I held up my hands in defeat. “My bad, everybody. I’ll put it in my calendar as a recurring event.”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” Cooper said primly. He looked at me pointedly as Teagan went off to the kitchen to add more cookies to the oven, and I took my seat at the table. “Since you’re back permanently.”
“Oh, am I?”
Cooper glopped a huge spoonful of red buttercream onto his Santa-shaped sugar cookie and nodded seriously. “That’s the rumor. Balls is back for good.”
“Hmm, well, this sub job is only temporary. Not sure what I’ll do after that. Maybe go back to Denver. Maybe run away to Mexico. TBD on my life, Coop.”
“Well, I’ve got a good feeling about this,” he insisted, spreading the frosting in the least detail-oriented way I had ever seen. He shrugged and grinned at me. “Mistletoe has missed you. Mistletoe is so excited you’re home. Mistletoe would really like to get to know you again.”
I reached for a cookie shaped like a candy cane. “Oh really? That’s how Mistletoe feels? About me?”
“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Cooper added a dollop of green to his red frosting, turning the poor Santa a brownish shade of yellow. “Mistletoe has always been really into you.”
“Mistletoe has always been into me?” Cooper’s code wasn’t hard to figure out, but it felt unreal, impossible. I couldn’t believe him.
“Since we were kids,” he confirmed breezily, as if this wasn’t the most shocking information he could have ever dropped. He added two black smudges for eyes, turning his sickly-looking Santa into a ghoulish apparition.
“Cooper,” I hissed, my frosting brush hovering over my still-blank cookie.
He grinned over my shoulder. “Oh, hey Sam. Glad you could finally make it.”
I spun around as if I’d been caught sniffing Sam’s underwear. His cheeks were as red as mine felt. “Hey, Coop. Whatchya talking about?”
Cooper added black buttons to his cookie, but he used too much frosting, so the buttons globbed together, making a giant black hole in the middle of Santa’s chest. “Just how glad we all are that the prodigal Balls has returned home.”
Sam sat in the chair next to me. He smelled like the crisp outside, like spiced oranges, like something familiar and homey and perfect. “We are glad you’re home, Holly,” he murmured in a low voice. “Everything’s better with you here.”
Glancing at him quickly, I willed my cheeks to stop burning. Deciding the subject needed changing quickly, I started adding white to my cookie candy cane. “Uh, the secretary at the school seems to have it bad for you, Cooper. Every time I see her, she finds a way to bring you up.”
He shoved his zombie Santa away and reached for a cookie shaped like a bell. “Who? Monika?”
Sam snorted.
“Yeah, Monika. She must be new to Mistletoe?”
“Yeah, her family moved here her senior year of high school. You were already gone.” Cooper was staring intently at his cookie. “She’s, erm, nice.”
Sam chuckled again.
“Okay, I need to know the details.” I turned to face Sam, ignoring Cooper’s rising protests. “What happened?”
Sam side-eyed Cooper before saying, “She asked Coop out on a date, but he was too chicken shit to say yes.” At Cooper’s vehement protest, Sam quickly added, “To be fair, I think he was blindsided by the entire thing. She’s seven years younger than us.”
“She is sort of a baby,” I agreed.
“A hot baby,” Cooper muttered to his frosting abomination.
“Gross,” I scolded, unable to hide my laughter.
“She’s very forward,” Cooper said as if that explained his reluctance.
This drew an eye roll from me. “God forbid a girl know what she wants.”
Cooper’s eyes snapped to mine, his gaze accusing, sharp. “That’s an interesting opinion coming from you, Balls.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” My cheeks were hot again.
“Oh, nothing. I just don’t think you like girls who go after what they want. I think you prefer indecision and waffling.”
“Cooper, what?” I was glaring now, trying to start his cookie on fire just by scowling at it. “That’s incredibly rude.”
“Is it rude? Or is it the truth?”
Sam slid forward, leaning into me. His hand was on the table next to mine, his pinky almost touching mine but not quite. “She wasn’t insulting you, Coop. She was defending Monika. Back off.”
Cooper narrowed his eyes at his best friend. “I’m right.”
I didn’t look at Sam, but I felt him stiffen next to me, dig in for the fight if Cooper was going to keep going. “You’re being mean. And besides, she’s right too. Monika does know what she wants. And she’s happy to go after it. Stop pretending you don’t like the attention.”
For the first time since I’d sat down, I wondered where Linda and Teagan were, and why I was the one left to referee whatever this was. Glancing around the room, I found them in the kitchen, in deep thought over a batch of cookies they thought needed more time.
Before I could enlist them to settle the boys down, Cooper pulled back the tip of his spoon, covered in purple frosting, and launched it at Sam like a catapult. Only the heavy glop of frosting didn’t make it all the way to Sam. It landed on me. Right on my cheek.
I shrieked because, well, that was what one did when attacked by purple frosting, and almost fell out of my chair. Sam was there to catch me. His hands landed on my back, keeping me from toppling to the floor while Cooper cackled his amusement and tried to apologize all at once.
“Cooper!” I snarled.
“I’m so sorry!” But he was literally laughing so hard he had tears tracking down his cheeks, so probably not so sorry.
“Let’s see,” Sam coaxed, using the hands on my back to spin my body around. He cleared his throat to hide a laugh. “The bad news is, he got you good.”
“Is there good news?” I asked, melting under his touch. He reached for the roll of paper towels in the middle of the table and gently wiped the glop off my cheek with one.
He made a low, disappointed sound in the back of his throat. “Erm, the other bad news is this purple color might not . . .” He pressed harder, rubbing more aggressively. “Erm . . .”
“What?” I whisper-gasped. “Is my cheek stained purple?”
He put more muscle behind the paper towel and really pressed down on my face, really working to get it off. Hope flared inside me only to be doused by his frustrated huff and defeated drop of his arms.
“We need water,” he decided. Standing up, he held his hand out for me to take.
I didn’t need his help standing up or finding the bathroom in the house I’d basically grown-up in, but did that stop me from taking his hand? No, no it did not.
His huge, calloused fingers wrapped around mine, pulling me after him. I caught Teagan’s raised-eyebrow gaze as we left the kitchen and shot her a silent look, warning her to be cool in return.
He shut us in the powder bathroom near the front door. It was not a large space to begin with, but because he was so tall, he seemed to eat up all the air in the room, especially when he tugged me against the counter, caging me in against the wall.
Turning on the faucet, he smiled shyly as he watched the water run. “I’m letting it get warm,” he explained.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to do with his extra degree of thoughtfulness. Hudson had never really been the kind of guy to check on my needs. He’d always assumed if I needed something, I’d ask.
At first, I’d loved the independence. I’d loved that he seemed to look at me like an equal, treated me like we were on the same footing. But as our relationship dragged out, I recognized it for what it was—laziness.
Sam was the opposite. Full of little details and thoughtfulness. The water didn’t need to be warm. He didn’t need to help get the frosting off my face. I wasn’t asking him for any of this.
And yet . . . my heart was beating a frantic rhythm against my breastbone. My breathing hitched, sticking to my lungs. We were so close in this small space. He was so near. So . . . attentive.
He dipped the paper towel into the warm water, then wrung it out before pressing it against my cheek. He put pressure behind it, but was somehow still gentle.
“I could probably do that myself,” I said on a breathy laugh.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Probably.”
My heart squeezed. “Um, do you want me to—”
He shook his head, never looking away from his work. “No.” Another thirty seconds or so and Sam pulled back, dropping the wet paper towels into the wastebasket. “I think it’s better.” He brushed his knuckles over the same spot gently, tenderly. “You’re saved.”
My smile was shaky. “Thank you.”
“You can pay me back.” He leaned forward, his green eyes darkening. The few inches between us began to disappear.
A thick swallow. A hitching breath. “Oh yeah? This wasn’t your good deed for the day?”
He grinned quick, a flash of white teeth. More predator than friend. “Nah.”
I licked dry lips, more nervous than ever. “I’m not going on a date with you.”
His tongue dragged over his bottom lip. “I’ve already decided that you are, actually.”
“You can’t—”
His lips were on mine before I could finish my sentence, soft and warm and so very delicious.
He towered over me. I had to tip my head back to reach him.
He was so big, so consuming. And I wasn’t just tiny compared to him, I was fragile in his arms, delicate and soft and .
. . vulnerable. Yet somehow it felt good to stand here and kiss him, kiss the man I’d grown up loving.
His teeth grazed my bottom lip and I gasped at the bite, the sting quickly made better by the swipe of his tongue. He took the opening and slid that tongue into my mouth, deepening the kiss. We were all taste and sensation and hypnotic push and pull.
His hand on the side of my face glided around to the nape of my neck, cradling my head as he dipped me backward and ravaged my mouth.
His strong, broad chest pressed against mine.
His legs and mine intertwined. We were fully dressed and upright, but the kiss was something intimate and sacred, so much more than two separate bodies touching.
We were coiled together, giving in to each other, letting go, letting something unfurl that neither of us could tame.
I let him have his way with me. I wanted him to have his way with me. Maybe I would never have admitted that out loud, but our one kiss from all those years ago was my favorite fantasy to visit. Even if the night ended in disaster.
One of his hands landed on my hip, squeezing tightly, before slipping under my baggy sweatshirt to press rough fingertips against my bare skin. We both shivered at the contact.
He kissed me long and thoroughly until I was gasping for breath and wondering if we should take our clothes off now? Or wait until we weren’t in a bathroom.
But there were too many Meyers in this house to get too naked. And when Cooper banged on the door and shouted, “Are you two done yet?” at us, I pulled back, red-cheeked and bubbling over with embarrassment.
“Oh, my gosh.” I rubbed my swollen lips, desperate to settle my racing heart.
Sam only smiled gently at me. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow. After school.”
It was only after he left me alone in the bathroom that I noticed Linda had hung mistletoe from the wall sconces near the oval mirror.
Also, for what it was worth, the hand towels had a pattern of mistletoe all over them, too.
At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the toilet paper was decorated in mistletoe.
It was the poisonous flower that kept on haunting me.
But had I even told Sam yes to his idea of a date? Something whispered that it didn’t matter. He was bound and determined. And after that kiss . . . we both knew I wasn’t going to say no anyway.