Page 61 of Ruin The Friendship
“That works.”
We finish putting the cookies into the oven and clean up the rest of the baking supplies. After the cookies finish baking, we put them on cooling racks and gather the supplies for the icing. We might have to cut this night short, since it’s already nearing eight, and Lydia looks exhausted.
“Do you want to do the decorating another day?” I ask when she lets out a long yawn.
“What?” She gasps. “No! It’s not even eight. Besides, when will we get time to finish them? You have a game tomorrow night, and I have an event this weekend. We have to finish tonight!”
“Alright, alright. I just wanted to be sure.” I pull her in for a hug, making up for all of the touches I couldn’t have earlier when my hands were dirty. We hold each other for a long moment.
“I didn’t expect this,” Lydia mumbles into my chest.
“Didn’t expect what?” My heart pounds heavily as I breathe in her intoxicating perfume.
A shudder runs through her body, and as I run my hands down her arms, I feel the goose bumps spreading across her skin.
“For it to feel like this with you.” She leans farther into my touch, nuzzling her nose against my shirt.
I sit with that for a moment, letting myself hold her as long as physically possible. “Is it bad?”
She shakes her head .“No. Not at all. Unexpected, sure, but maybe it was inevitable.”
I nod, resting my cheek atop her head. “I think you may be right. It feels good, doesn’t it?”
Lydia bobs her head in agreement, tightening her arms around my torso. “Yeah. It really does.”
27
PLANS CHANGE
LYDIA
My fingers are covered in sticky red icing, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so happy. Well, except maybe the Christmas Festival date.
Fletcher is more of a romantic than I realized. He’s been so attentive to me, making sure I have everything I need even when he’s out of town. These dates are so thought out. I can’t wait to see what’s next. All his focus has been on me tonight; I don’t think he’s looked at his phone once.
“What on earth are you doing?” I ask Fletcher as I look at the catastrophe in front of him.
He’s holding a tube of icing to a gingerbread man-shaped cookie. The cookie is covered in blue icing, but all the lines he was trying to draw on it are seeping together, creating a mess.
“I’m trying to make myself.” His focus is so intense. His brow is furrowed, his eyes locked on the little cookie.
“Yourself?” I question, before I can finally visualize what he’s doing. “Oh my god, you really are trying to make yourself into a cookie.”
The gingerbread man is covered in a teal icing, and onthe sleeves is a little “forty-eight” in black, but it’s slowly merging into a black dot. Little black skates are on its feet, and Fletcher is trying to draw the Minnesota Blue Herons logo on the front of the jersey.
“You have to wait until it dries before you add more to the top. That’s why it looks like that.” I point to the blob of black icing.
“I know, but I got too impatient. We can pretend this one is Calvin. I’ll make myself into a different cookie.”
I laugh loudly. Of course, he’d turn his failed cookie of himself into his other best friend.
Fletcher grabs the red icing and puts some on the cookie's head to make Calvin’s hair. “There, it’s perfect.”
Grabbing my phone from my pocket, not even caring about it getting covered in icing, I open the camera and snap a photo, sending it to Grace and Zoey without context. They’ll love it.
Fletcher moves on to the next two cookies, this time doing a better job outlining and waiting until the first layers of icing are dry before adding the details. It’s still a bit of a mess, and not perfect by any means, but fifteen minutes later, he’s holding the three hockey players side by side. One has dark hair to match his, the other has yellow for Trigg, and the messy one has red for Calvin.
“Take a picture. The guys are going to love this.”
