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“Me too, and I’m glad I get to wake up next to you every morning.” I’d had a crush on Randy for a while. But I never thought he was attracted to me. When we’d been forced to work together baking cookies for the annual family cookie swap, it gave us time to get to know each other.
He pulled his jeans up and after he was all buttoned up, he pulled me close again. “Don’t forget to put the lock on the door.” He smiled before kissing me. “I owe you later.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll make it up to me.” I read the directions on the lock and after digging out a screwdriver, I had it installed on the door and latched.
“Hopefully that works,” he said as he took one of the packages of dough out of the refrigerator. “I’m doing the larger ones first, they’ll go faster.” Without missing a beat, he was rolling out dough to the thickness we both knew worked perfectly forthe larger cutters, while I took out another package and rolled some out thinner for the smaller cookies. Since there were two ovens, we put our batches in at the same time then spent a few minutes cleaning up before I took out everything we’d need for the frosting.
“I’m going to see how they look with some extra detail.” I mixed a large batch of icing before separating it into six. I left one larger batch without color and added a little more powdered sugar to it, so it was stiff enough to hold in the thinner icing that I’d fill the images with. I didn’t typically do a lot of detail on cookies, preferring to keep the design simple and let the flavor sell them. But Valentine’s Day was one of the holidays where a cute cookie was appreciated.
Randy was so entranced watching me color the other icing that the timer startled him, making him jump. It was the smaller cookies, and they were done; he pulled them out of the oven and set them aside while I slid in another baking sheet I’d loaded while Randy was rolling out more dough. We worked together so well, and never once got in each other’s way, and after about an hour we had some cookies that were cool enough to start decorating.
“Did you add flavoring to the frosting?” he asked and stuck a finger in the bowl.
“Only vanilla. The more I think about it, the more I think we need to keep the sugar cookies traditional, and amp up the flavors on our other recipes. What do you think?”
“I agree. I thought lemon might be good, but not everyone likes lemon, and it doesn’t really suit for Valentine’s Day.”
“Well in Fanfiction a lemon means graphic sexual content, so I’m suresomepeople like lemon,” I said, and we both laughed.
“I think Ilovelemon,” Randy said, and wrapped himself around me from behind. “How much longer do you think this’lltake?” He looked at the few cookies we had finished, and the bags of frosting waiting to be used.
“A while. But I could be convinced to take another break.” I turned and kissed his cheek, and a few minutes later when he was undressing me in the living room, I was thankful he’d remembered that lock.
Four
Randy
After making sure Eli was just as satisfied as he’d left me earlier, we worked uninterrupted for a couple of hours and were able to get all of the cookies baked. We’d hoped for twelve dozen and had just enough for that by making more of the smaller sizes.
“I have an idea, let me know if you think it won’t work. But I’ve been watching baking videos again and thought this was clever.” We both brainstormed all the time over all sorts of things, but my favorite was over different recipes. Eli was so good at displaying them, something I was more than happy to let him take care of that. But then I’d seen this video, and it made me curious.
“What is it?” Eli asked and folded his arms while leaning against the counter.
“Well, you know we have the do-it-yourself Valentine’s cookies at the gift shop, brilliant idea by my boyfriend. How would you feel about making a simple square box made of cookies to hold a few decorated cookies and maybe some confetti or maybe some chocolates. We could offer it with a little wooden mallet to break it open. What do think?”
I stared at him while I waited for his reaction, and once again wondered how I’d gotten so lucky. His brows raised, and he tipped his head seeming to consider what I’d said.
“Come on, Eli, what do you think?” Gripping his arms, I shook him, making him laugh.
“I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world. That’s a brilliant idea. If we can make it work, we could use it for other holidays too. I wonder how big we could make them and still keep them stable?”
“Probably not bigger than maybe six or eight inches. But if we keep the cookies small, we could fit maybe half a dozen in them,” I said, and the two of us discussed which dough would work best for the square pieces that would make up the box.
“We could also see if a window would work,” I said, and Eli’s eyes lit up.
“Oh, that sounds so cool. See? Who said you’re bad at packaging?”
“Me. I say I’m bad. But you know this.” It was true, if Eli hadn’t shown me different ways to present our cookies, I probably would have put them in a simple plastic bag with a label. But he was way more creative than that and made each one look special with its own tag and special decorations on the package or bag.
“Hey, who locked the door,” Dad yelled through the door making us laugh. I walked over and unlocked it but kept my foot against the door not letting it swing open. “Can I come in?”
“I’m not sure. What’s the password?” I asked, making him laugh.
“Cookie?” Dad guessed and walked right in when I moved aside. “I see you finally decided to add a lock.”
“After Mom walked in on us last week, we both agreed it was time.” Dad walked over to where the cookies were either cooling or drying. We’d barely iced any but there were a few that were finished. “You’re welcome to sample the ugly ones,” I said.
“There are no ugly ones,” he said but picked out a few small ones. “Thanks. Getting ready for the holiday I see.”
