Page 79 of A Love Like Christmas Time
“Did it help?”
“In some way. In others, it didn’t.” My arm around her tenses, my whole back is tighter than a coiled spring. “It helped me understand why she left. In my brain, it makes sense. My heart is not that easily convinced, though.” She sets down her coffee mug to slide both arms around me. “My brain wants to forgive her, because we’re humans, and humans are, by design, flawed. Obviously, I also make mistakes.” I quirk my eyebrow at her, making a soft smile tug at her lips. “But my heart is not that rational. It’s stuck between wanting to have a mom again and protecting itself by pretending she never showed up here.”
“What about your sister?” She furrows her eyebrows, making an adorable crease appear between them. I lift my hand to smooth it out with my fingertip.
“Yeah.” I let out a deep sigh. “That’s what makes this even harder. She’s not at fault for what our mother did before she was even born. I’m just not sure if it matters.”
“I’m sorry,” Lauren whispers, but I shake my head. It’s not as if any of this is her fault. If anything, she’s the reason I’m confronting it head-on instead of burying my head in the sand. Or snow.
Silence stretches as we both trail after our own thoughts, holding each other.
And slowly but surely the tension in my back lessens and breathing finally comes easier.
Chapter 30
Lauren
“You want to bakewhatwith me?” He looks at me as if I had told him that cats have two heads.
“Speculoos,” I repeat, though it sounds more like a question. “I have no idea if I’m pronouncing this right,” I admit while rummaging in one of my drawers, trying to make space for one of the stoneware pots I brought from my L.A. apartment.
In my attempt to find a proper space for it, I stumbled over the cookie forms I bought at a Christmas market in Germany three years ago.
They caught my eye, so I couldn’t walk past them. It’s basically a block of wood with a detailed carving of a Christmas tree, presents under it, baubles hanging from branches, a little star on the top and all. Supposedly, the cookies will show every single detail. I honestly doubt it’s going to work, but I’m a sucker for fancy cookies, so I have to at least try.
Maybe it would have been more useful to start baking the gingerbread we’ll need for the Christmas market. However, I don’t have any honey or comparable ingredients, and we don’t have the cutters here either. I guess wonky hearts have their own charm, but I’d rather have pretty and uniform ones.
“Okay, hold on.” His eyebrows furrow, creating an adorable crease between them as he picks the wooden block up and turns it in his hands. “I’ve never seen this kind of cookie form before. I’m not even sure how it’s even supposed to work.”
“Which is why the two of us are going to watch a tutorial,” I declare, standing next to him, our arms touching, as I pull my phone out of my pocket and search for a video.
“Okay, okay, wait,” he says after the first minute and reaches over to stop the video. “She said the dough needs to cool. We should get that out of the way and into the fridge before watching the rest.”
“I admire how confident you are that we will manage to make this work.” I point to the form on the counter. “Okay, let’s do it!” I push my phone into his hands. “Tell me what we need, chef!”
“Flour.”
I saunter over to my cupboard, take out the flour container and my kitchen scale. “Here you go.” I set them down in front of him. “What’s next?”
“Butter,” he says. I walk over to my fridge and glance at him over my shoulder before I open it.
“Eggs too?”
He nods. I take them both out and bring them over to him. He’s already weighing the flour by the time I set them on the counter.
“Sugar,” he continues absentmindedly, gently patting the container, making only a dusting of flour fall into the bowl. “And then we need a bunch of spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.”
“On it,” I say in a singsong voice and grab them.
When I turn back, I find him focused, brow furrowed as he cuts chunks of butter into the bowl. For some reason, it’s the most attractive thing I’ve seen him do all day.
“Do you want to knead it?” he asks, pointing at the bowl, oblivious to how much I want to jump him.
I blink at him, fluttering eyelashes and all. “You know…” I stammer and wring my hands, pursing my lips. “I can crack the egg in there, but I’ll leave kneading to the pro.”
“The pro?” He rolls his eyes, chuckles and sprinkles a good amount of cinnamon into the dough. “You say that as if I knead all my dough by hand and don’t have two giant machines in my kitchen to do it for me.”
“I have a KitchenAid,” I tell him confidently. Then I sag into myself. “In one of the ten yet-unpacked boxes upstairs. If you’d prefer to search for it- ”
