Page 83 of Not in My Book

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 amiraclethat 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 hadstraddledAiden 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 décor.”

“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?”

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