“You’re precious,” I murmured, meaning it with all my heart, but before I could make a move, Adam swooped in first.
He caught Sky by the back of the neck and kissed him, hard. Sky practically melted beneath it. Grinning, I grabbed him by the front of his coat and dragged him in for a kiss as well, tasting Adam’s breath mint on his tongue.
“Fuck,” Sky whispered.
“Let’s go home,” I suggested. “Someone’s earned himself a little fun.”
Adam’s laugh was rumbly and did all sorts of things to my insides as he stepped close and ran a hand down my back, leaning in. “I think we’re all going to get lucky tonight, but yes. Let’s go home.”
My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t wait.
45
SKY
We spentthe entire day shopping, and I was more than ready to go home and relax. My feet ached from walking the mall and my lower back had the weirdest of twinges, and yet my heart felt big enough to burst.
The holidays had never felt so merry and bright, just like the song always said, until I met Adam and Fletcher Rose, and I wondered if maybe, somehow, all the bad things in my life had led me to the best thing I could’ve ever wished for.
Greymercy was beautiful in December. A blanket of white covered the ground, colorful lights decorating nearly every house on the main streets as we drove back through town. Giant blow-up Grinches and Santas billowed in the wind, and light-up reindeer lined up down one homeowner’s yard, with Rudolph in the lead, his nose cherry red.
It was cozy, and I realized that this was the first time this town had ever felt like home.
Adam pulled into the drive and killed the engine, but before Fletcher and I could get out and help, he swooped in and gathered up all the bags.
“Ah-ah,” he singsonged. “No snooping till Christmas.” With an ornery smile, he turned and waltzed up the sidewalk and into the house.
“Spoilsport,” Fletcher pouted, then nudged me. “Hey! The cookies are definitely cool enough to decorate now. Let’s go.”
Before we’d left, the three of us had spent the afternoon making sugar cookies from scratch.
When I told Fletcher I’d never made Christmas cookies before, that we always just got a package of cheap chocolate chip ones at the store, he’d gone on a tangent about how everyone needs cookies at Christmastime, and that was it.
We were making cookies.
So Adam and Fletcher taught me how to mix the dry ingredients together, and then the wet, until we got a nice firm dough. Once the dough had set in the fridge, I helped roll it out and Fletcher brought out a plastic bag full of holiday-shaped cookie cutters. We laughed while cutting out our cookies and lining them up on the pan, sneaking bites of cookie dough along the way.
After baking them, we’d laid them out on wax paper on the counter to cool. The house smelled like heaven. It’d been Adam’s idea to go shopping, to get us out of the house for a while so the cookies could cool.
“Look at that,” Fletcher said as we came up on the counter. “So golden and delicious.”
“Good enough to eat?” I grinned and reached for one, but Fletcher smacked my hand away.
“Not without frosting, it’s not. Luckily for us, it’s pretty easy to make. Then we get to do the fun part—decorating!” He laughed and began pulling ingredients out of the cupboards, along with a couple of mixing bowls and a hand mixer.
I watched him whip up a batch of frosting using powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Once it was done, he separated it into bowls and added drops of food coloring to each one.
He handed me a bowl. “Start mixing, but go slow. This stuff stains. Learned that the hard way.”
I carefully folded the droplets of dark blue dye into the fluffy icing, watching as it went from bright white to a soft baby blue. Fletcher mixed up a warm red, then green, and I did yellow. The primary colors were all we needed, I guess.
“Perfect. Take these bowls to the table. I’ll put the cookies on a pan and bring them over, along with the decorations.”
I was curious about what he meant by “decorations” but carried the bowls to the kitchen table anyway. Then I fetched a roll of paper towels, because I had a feeling we’d be getting a little sticky.
By the time I finally sat down, I about groaned with relief. “Ugh, my feet…”
“Swollen?” Fletcher asked.
