Page 56 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘That sucks,’ Mac said, and oddly it was the most comforting thing anyone had said to her about the death of her grandpa. Itdidsuck.
Annie dumped the dough out onto the counter and started rolling. ‘It does,’ she said. ‘He was one of the few people who really got me, you know?’
‘All those siblings, and your grandpa was the only one who got you?’
‘That's the thing,’ Annie said, handing Mac a cookie cutter. They were making gingerbread hearts and stars because those were the only cookie cutters they could find. ‘There’s so many of us. You kind of get pigeonholed. Like we each get our one thing that defines us, and no one really focuses on anything else.’
‘That makes sense,’ Mac said, pressing hearts into the dough. ‘What’s your one thing?’
Annie shrugged. ‘Somewhere along the line, I became the smart one, I guess. The one who was good at school. Maddie’s the athlete, Charlotte’s the baby, Brian’s the only boy. Evelyn’s the oldest, so she gets to be the leader, and Natalie is the musician, thesensitiveone.’
‘Being good at school is not the worst thing.’
‘It’s not a bad thing at all, but it’s not the only thing and, I don’t know, my grandpa was the one who paid attention to the other stuff like baking.’
At least he was until Annie took over her parents’ kitchen. There was no ignoring her baking anymore. Her grandpa’s joy over her cookies had started her down this road but it was all Annie now. She was determined to be the best baker in town.
Mac nudged her shoulder and this time Annie leaned into him.
‘Okay, what now?’ Mac said, assessing all the hearts and stars filling the cookie sheet.
‘Now we bake.’ Annie slid the baking sheet into the oven while Mac grabbed a bag of potato chips from the cabinet.
‘A snack for while we wait,’ he said with a grin.
Annie joined him at the table, reaching into the bag.
‘Sour cream and onion. My favorite.’ She popped a chip into her mouth with a smile. ‘I guess we're done with the kissing part of the evening.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Well, sour cream and onion… Our breaths aren’t exactly going to be fresh after this.’
Mac grinned. ‘I would still kiss you even if your breath was a little sour-cream-and-onion-y.’
Annie scrunched up her face in disgust even as she secretly thought that was very cute of him to say.
‘What? Is sour-cream-and-onion breath a deal breaker for you, Annabelle?’ Mac teased.
‘I don't know. Probably!’ she said, although at this point, she would kiss Mac even if he had a horn growing out of his head, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘Well, what is a dealbreaker for you?’ he asked, leaning back in his chair, studying her with dark eyes under those pretty eyelashes.
She shrugged, not able to come up with anything clever under the intensity of his stare.
‘Okay, what about this?’ he said, leaning forward, really getting into it now. ‘Let’s say you really like a guy and things are going well, but then you go to the beach, and it turns out he has gross feet. Dealbreaker?’
‘Gross feet?’ Annie asked with a laugh.
‘Yeah! Like gnarled toes with weird toenails.’
‘Ugh, gross. Is this your way of telling me that you have weird feet?’
‘No way! I have very pretty feet,’ he said, plopping them in Annie's lap. ‘Go ahead, pull off a sock and find out.’ He wiggled his toes, and Annie couldn't help the giggles spilling out of her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed quite so much.
‘I am not pulling your sock off!’ she said, trying to push his feet off her.
Mac leaned forward and yanked off his sock like he was revealing a prize she had won in a very strange game show.
