Page 11 of A Love Like Christmas Time
Kieran pushes Nic’s doorbell. Now there’s no take-backsies. My upbringing might not have been straight out of a parenting handbook. However, I do know it would be extremely rude for Nic to open the door to me turning around in my tracks and running off. That’s just common sense.
“Hurry, Nic!” Kieran says dramatically and gently pounds his fist against her door, though not loud enough for her to hear it through the door. “I’m about to die of starvation.”
There’s bustling inside, and we see shadows moving through the frosted glass panels next to her door.
“One moment!” A muffled voice shouts, followed by what I think is a string of quieter curses. Finally, the door opens to reveal a disheveled Nic, breathing heavily and cradling a small orange cat to her chest that’s trying her hardest to wiggle out of her hold.
“Welcome, welcome.” She motions for us to get inside.
“Is something burning?” Kieran asks, and immediately I perk up. He’s right. It smells rather…crispyin here.
Without a word, I shove past him and Nic to make my way to what I assume to be her kitchen, shrugging off my jacket and already pulling up my sleeves.
“Please don’t burn. Please don’t burn.” I hear Lauren’s voice in a kind of singsong tone and follow it, all my hesitation from before suddenly forgotten. I round the corner, find myself in the kitchen and there she is. Her long blonde hair is loosely thrown together into a messy ponytail, strands of it falling out of the elastic, a stark contrast to her dark red sweatshirt.
She’s tearing one of the pots from the stove, quickly putting it onto the marble kitchen counter and stirring it frantically. A smaller one that I think contains gravy of some sort is blubbering so much it splashes onto the freed-up hot plate with a sharp sizzle and the scent of burning stock.
“Everything okay?” I ask, nudging her aside to wipe up the spilled gravy on the hot stove with a wet rag and lightning-quick moves to prevent it from burning onto the appliance.
“It’s Chaos,” she complains, exhaling a deep sigh. “I swear she turned up the heat on all the cooktops. That damned ghost cat…” Her eyes suddenly widen, and she looks around the kitchen nervously, while I’m trying to make sense of the words coming out of her mouth.
“Nope, nope. I say this with love and respect, Chaos, but you can be a little, yet surely adorable, pain in the butt. Please don’t haunt me.”
Right. The infamous ghost cat. My eyebrow wanders up my forehead, but when she sees my expression, she shakes her head solemnly.
“Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it myself, but…” She points over at a glass that’s seemingly moving over the counter by itself, with the speed of a snail. “I’ve been proven wrong too many times.”
Before it reaches the edge of the kitchen island, she grabs the glass and puts it back in the center.
“Please,” I chuckle. “Thatis making you think it’s a ghost cat? It’s probably just not level.” Her frenzied and slightly panicked expression is adorable, though.
“Do you think that isn’t the first thing I checked?” She rolls her eyes. “But by all means, the bubble level is over there. See for yourself. I’m sure it will show a different outcome ifyoutest it.”
The way she’s grinning at me, the dare hanging heavy between us in the air - I want to reach for the level, because this seems like a chance to push her buttons for once. I’m a breath away from taking her up on it, but suddenly Kieran storms into the kitchen. Lauren gently tries to push me away from the stove, her palm on my chest.
“I got it.”
Fuck. I hope she doesn’t realize how hard my heart is thundering in my ribcage.
I take a step back and run my palm over my face, trying to calm down.
“Everything was fine,” she whines and walks to the other side of the kitchen island. Her eyes burn into the back of my neck as I pull one almost overboiling pot from its cooktop. “I swear I can cook.”
Henry and Nic stroll into the kitchen too, both giggling and with red cheeks. The stupid grins remain on their faces as Kieran and Lauren squabble over the mashed potatoes.
Huh. So far this isn’t as bad as I imagined. Then again, the evening is still young.
“Nic? I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your ghost kitty brought you some new friends,” Kieran says, staring through the ceiling-high window behind him.
I freeze, holding my fork with the first bite of turkey and mashed potatoes halfway to my mouth as everyone else around the table jumps up and runs to Nic’s window front.
Come on. They made me sit and take part in one of those stupid things-we’re-thankful-for declarations, only to now delay digging into the food even further? Didn’t Kieran say hewas starving? My stomach certainly announces that the muffin I had for breakfast wasn’t enough.
“Let me see,” Henry mumbles and immediately springs into action, like the animal-loving vet he is.
Damn it.
I can’t be the only one digging into the food while everyone huddles around the new furry arrivals. But everything smells mouth-watering.
