Page 114 of Dropping the Ball

Chapter Thirty-Five

Micah

It’s almost 1:00 beforeI make it over to Kaitlyn’s, but as I shut the door behind me, I call out, “I’m here, and nothing outside of this house exists.”

“Kitchen,” she calls back.

Elfstarts playing as I pull off my coat in the entryway.

She smiles at my bright red sweater with snowflakes on the chest and jeans. “Don’t go to Target. You’ll get mobbed.”

I pull her in for a kiss then let her go to glance at the TV. “Is this an elaborate setup so you can tell me to elf myself again?”

“It would be if I’d thought of it. Do you not like this movie?”

“Only broken people hateElf.” I rub my hands together. “It’s freezing outside, by the way.” It’s in the low fifties, but in Austin, that’s close enough.

“Poor baby.” She slides her arms around me. “Does it make you feel any better to know we’re going to be toasty inside while we’re completely irresponsible today?”

“Weirdly, yes. It warms my heart.”

Her eyes twinkle. “What do you get when you ask a valedictorian and salutatorian to relax?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“A cutthroat cookie-decorating competition, duh.”

“You, the lawyer, would like to compete against me, the visionary artist, in aesthetic feats? Bring it.”

She turns on the oven and pulls a covered bowl from the fridge. “I could not talk Mr. Nairz out of his shortbread recipe, but he gave me this.” She removes the foil with a flourish. “Dough for two dozen cookies!”

“No way. Seriously?” She must have made a good impression on Mr. Nairz.

“Picked it up this morning,” she confirms.

“So we eat half the dough and bake half, right?”

“Obviously.”

She sets shopping bags on the counter and pulls out more stuff. Baking sheets, cookie cutters, icing bags, and an apron she ties on. It’s like one of those photo backdrops with a painted picture but you supply the head. This apron has a woman with Kardashian proportions in a sexy Mrs. Claus dress, but with Kaitlyn’s grinning face above it.

I burst out laughing when I read the tattoo on “her” cleavage. “Top of the naughty list, huh? Promises, promises.”

“Don’t worry, you have one too.”

I put on an apron announcing I have “resting Grinch face.” I frown at her.

She sticks her tongue out at me. “It’s funny because it’s true.”

For the next two hours, we roll out the dough, shape and bake our cookies, watch the part ofElfwhere Buddy exposes Santa as a fraud, take the barely burnt cookies out to cool while we mix our frosting, and then we get down to real business.

She had chosen a snowflake cookie cutter, saying it would be easy to fancy up with lines and dots “to make them elegant.” I chose the square gift box cutout.

Now as she stares down at our results, her face says she realizes she miscalculated. Badly. She has six snowflakes that go from uneven glops and streaks on the first one to something that looks like it could have been done by a highly competent fifth grader by the last one. I have an artfully arranged stack of six brightly wrapped gifts in paper with intricate patterns.

She stares from mine to hers.

I shrug. “Mr. Nairz taught me some stuff.”

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