Page 44 of Kiss Me

“One of them,” I correct. “One of my favorite parts of the holidays.” Truthfully, I loved every part of the holidays as a kid.

I’ve missed just about every aspect over the past ten years. Since my mother died, my father barely even acknowledges the holiday, let alone bothers with decorating.

“Right,” Taehyun says. “Well, it looks like we have everything we need to decorate.”

I follow him over to the living room to find stacks of unopened Christmas ornaments, three different types of tinsel, multiple lights and candles, and finally a huge box with a six-foot artificial Christmas tree.

“I can’t believe they delivered all of this,” I say, grinning like a child on Christmas morning.

“That’s not everything.” Taehyun holds up a finger before heading to the kitchen. “We’ve also got all of the ingredients to make gingerbread cookies,” he says, displaying a package of flour and sugar in each hand.

“And …” He pivots to open one of the draws. He makes a sound of satisfaction as he pulls out the cookie cutters.

“These to actually make the damn things. I know you’re a fan of the gingerbread man shape, but I had them bring the house shaped cookie cutters for a little variety.”

My eyes start to water. Before Taehyun’s even able to place the cookie cutters back in the drawer, I make my way over to him and throw my arms around his neck.

He stills for a second, surprised, but then his arms wrap around me, completing this moment. I don’t dare let the tears in my eyes fall, though. I couldn’t possibly cry for a second time in this man’s presence.

“Decorations or cookies first?” he asks once I finally pull back.

“Um …” I peer around while I decide. “We should definitely make the dough for the cookies first and bake them while we decorate.”

He grins and kisses me. It’s so quick and natural that it almost feels habitual. Something like a couple would do.

I brush away the thought and proceed to remove the long-sleeve shirt I’m wearing, leaving me in just the T-shirt. I put the red apron with gingerbread men all over them over my head, and Taehyun ties it up in the back without me even asking.

I do the same for him, and we soon get started preparing the dough for our cookies. I eventually connect my phone to the cabin’s speakers so that my Christmas music playlist plays while we bake.

The music continues on repeat as we move from the kitchen to the living room to begin setting up the decorations.

“I’ve got this covered,” Taehyun says as he begins removing the artificial tree from the box.

“That thing is huge. You can’t do it by yourself.”

He blocks me when I go to reach for one of the tree’s branches. “You have an injured ankle. You should rest it.”

He laughs out loud when I snatch the branch from him and hit him with it.

“Very funny.”

We go back and forth like that as we set up the tree and then proceed to open all of the new packages of ornaments, bobbles, tinsel, and lights.

“Let’s do a silver and red themed Christmas tree?” We have more than enough decorations to adequately deck out our tree.

Taehyun agrees, and we start our process of making this once bare tree sparkle with holiday shine.

“You can’t put the ornaments so close together,” I tell him some time later. This is the third time I’ve had to tell him to spread the decorations out.

He glares at me. “Who the hell knew you were as competitive about Christmas tree decorating as you are about gingerbread houses.”

“I’m not being competitive. It just looks better spread out,” I reply while removing the latest ornament he placed right next to another bobble. “And they’re the same color.”

I point between the ornament in my hand and the one he placed it right next to.

“It should be red, silver, red, silver, so that the colors stand out next to one another.”

He throws up his hands in exasperation. “I’m going to check on the first batch of cookies.”

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