Sprinkle All The Way (Evergreen Lake: Under the Mistletoe)

Chapter 9

nine

VIOLET

Last night I barely slept. I kept replaying the moment in the pantry with Noah.

One moment my mind was running through everything he told me, trying to remember how all the appliances worked and shake off the feeling of Ginger lingering. The next my skin was on fire from his touch as his gaze locked with mine. I thought he might pull me into a kiss, but he didn’t. Part of me was disappointed. But he had plenty of moments to kiss me before, and never did. I’m not sure why he would now. I wish I was brave enough to give in to my feelings and be the one to kiss him, but I keep worrying that he’s going to disappear again after I just got him back.

Today, I’m standing across from him with a metal table between us and bowls, measuring cups, and cookie cutters scattered around. We accidentally matched both in black T-shirts and blue jeans, and it’s taking everything in me not to crack a joke about it. He’s wearing his shirt better than me, though. His tattoos are fully visible and it’s hard not to stare at them, I’m dying to find out the story behind each one. I want to ask if he’s noticed the small tattoos on my arms, and if they’re affecting him the same way his are driving me crazy. I avert my gaze and sip my coffee, grateful for the caffeine to help wake me up.

“You have to finish and toss that before we start,” Noah says, pointing at my coffee. “I don’t need you spilling coffee into the cookies.”

“What?” I gasp. “I would never spill, how could you say that?” I throw my hands in the air, the coffee spilling out of the top and burning my hand. He raises one eyebrow at me. “Okay, fair. Did you finish yours?” I ask, licking the coffee off my hand.

He taps his empty cup on the counter. “I did. Thank you for getting me some. You didn’t have to stop at Sips.”

“Of course, and yes I did,” I say. “Also, Sydney says hi. I didn’t realize she was home too.”

He nods. “She’s probably one of the only people in town who likes me.”

“Have you been hanging out with her a lot?” I ask, killing time as I finish my coffee. Noah and Sydney were always friends. She was always nice to me, and I wondered if she knew I had a secret crush on him. I was always jealous of how much time she spent with him.

“Not really. I’ve been busy here,” he says.

I nod through the last sip of my coffee, tossing it into the trash can once I’m done.

“Okay, Coach,” I say, pulling my hair into a ponytail. “Put me in, I’m ready to bake some cookies.”

“Go wash your hands,” he rolls his eyes at me.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” I salute him and wash my hands in the sink. The soap smells like vanilla and I’m starting to wonder if he favors vanilla-scented products.

Returning to the table I see all the supplies he has set up. The circular cookie cutters are larger than I thought they would be. Picking one up, I inspect it .

“These are pretty big,” I say.

“Yeah, well, remember how you could never finish one?” he teases. I would go to Gingerbreads sometimes when he was working just to see him somewhere that wasn’t school or my room. The cookies always left me full by the time I got halfway through one, but he always helped me finish them later that night when he would come to my room.

“I bet I could fit my arm in these.” Then, without thinking, I stick my arm through the cookie cutter and slide it up my arm.

“Violet,” he shouts. “They’re sharp.” He barely gets it out before I nick my bicep with the metal.

“Ouch, shit.” I jump, pulling the cookie cutter off my arm as a small red line appears in its wake right above the tattoo that’s there.

He groans and rolls his eyes as he comes around the table and grabs my hand, pulling me to the bathroom. “I told you it was sharp,” he chastises.

“Yeah, well curiosity killed the cat I guess,” I say back, inspecting my arm when we stop in front of the sink, squeezing so more blood comes out of the cut. It doesn’t hurt much, which makes me want to squeeze more. Whenever I get bruises I have a bad habit of repeatedly poking them. It drove Greg crazy, which made me want to do it more.

He shakes his head at me as he grabs a small first aid kit from below the sink, used to me constantly hurting myself with small bumps and bruises. He opens a small Band-Aid package and pours some hydrogen peroxide on a paper towel before taking my arm into his hand.

His grasp isn’t hard or harsh, not as tight as my own. His fingers aren’t cold but warm on my skin that’s still chilly from the cold winter air. I’m frozen as I watch him clean the cut and put the Band-Aid on. His fingers linger on raised lines in my skin .

“Pretty tattoo,” he says softly, pushing on the Band-Aid one last time to secure it in place.

“Thanks, it’s a violet and an iris, for obvious reasons,” I tell him, thinking of how Iris has a matching one on her arm. “Sorry about getting blood on your cookie cutter,” I apologize as he leaves the bathroom to toss the cookie cutter in the sink, giving it a quick rinse first.

“You didn’t grow out of that?” Noah crosses his arms and leans against the sink, facing me and I resume my spot next to the center table.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He points at me with his pinky. “The accident proneness. You’ve got a cut on your finger too.”

I glance at my hand, the Band-Aid from when I arrived is gone now and the cut is healing. “Cardboard cut,” I explain with a shrug.

“Ouch, those are the worst,” he winces.

“Yeah, well, when you’re trying to get out of your place in a hurry you don’t really care about bumps or bruises,” I say quickly, remembering flashes of me shoving all my belongings into a box and not bothering to pack them neatly or label the box. “Anyway, what are we cooking today?”

He doesn’t question the subject change, and pushes off the sink. “First, we need to put on gloves. Especially since you have a cut on your finger,” he says, pushing a box of gloves down the table to me. “No one is going to eat what we bake today, but you’ll need to get used to wearing them. For cookies, I was thinking we’d start small and easy. How do snickerdoodles sound?” he asks, walking into the pantry and turning around as his full frame fills the doorway, his arms stretched above him holding the frame. The position causes his shirt to rise, showing a small sliver of skin and I avert my gaze quickly when I notice a trail of hair disappearing into his jeans. My body heats thinking of where it leads.

“Those are my favorite,” I admit, picking up a mixing cup to distract myself from ogling him.

He smacks the frame, making me jump. “That’s it then,” he exclaims. “They’re one of my favorite Ginger recipes. We’ll do a small batch.”

He reaches to one of the pantry shelves and grabs a small wooden box before returning to the table. Moving around the table to get a better look I see it’s filled with hundreds of index cards I assume were once white, but are now tinted yellow with tears and stains all over them. He flips through the cards until he finds the right one, pulling it out with a satisfied “ah-ha!” which makes me laugh. I follow him around as he heads back toward the pantry, pulling different containers off the shelf and handing them to me. I try to recall which ones are which from yesterday but being in here only reminds me of Noah’s touch on my face. My cheeks flush and I look to the ceiling, urging them to return to a normal color before he turns around.

I follow him out to the table, and he takes the containers from my arms and sets them on the table, along with the ones in his arms.

Turning to me, he sports the cheesiest grin I’ve ever seen on him. “You want to know the secret ingredient?” He leans in and whispers, and I can smell his vanilla scent.

“Love?” I tease.

“No, focus,” he whisper-yells, picking up one of the small containers. “Cream of tartar. It’s what helps them stay soft and chewy.”

I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Tartar? Isn’t that raw meat?”

“For fuck’s sake, this is going to be a disaster,” he grumbles under his breath and drops his head.

“It is not.” I smack his arm .

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughs, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t realize you knew literally nothing about baking. I’m going to have to teach you more than I thought. Tartare is raw meat, but take off the e and you have cream of tartar. It’s a dry, powder-like, acidic byproduct of winemaking. Tartaric acid is one of the main ingredients, hence the tartar,” he explains, pointing the container at me. My confused gaze meets his. “You didn’t understand any of that? Did you?”

“Nope,” I pop the p. “Not a word.”

“Well, it’s different,” he says.

“Perfect,” I nod. “Tell me what we need and how much.” I rub my hands together, picking up a glass measuring cup.

“First, glass is for liquids.” He steals the cup from my hands. “Use these for dry ingredients,” he says, handing me a red plastic measuring cup.

I note the difference in my head, not sure why it matters, but I trust he knows what he’s talking about. He slides the index card between us, pointing out all the different measurements and I try to keep up, but they all blend together. I keep glancing at it to confirm the tablespoons didn’t morph into teaspoons.

I gather the right amount of flour as he pulls out a small Kitchen Aid mixer from beneath the table, plugging it in.

“Probably should test this to make sure it didn’t break overnight,” I barely hear him mumble as two things happen at once. One, Noah starts the mixer. Two, I dump the flour into the bowl of the mixer.

A puff of white powder blinds me as I hear him swear and turn the mixer off.

Embarrassment washes over me and I hope I suddenly activated latent powers of invisibility so I can sneak out of here and move to a remote cabin in the mountains where I don’t have to interact with anyone .

“Open your eyes,” I hear him chuckle through his words.

Light slowly creeps into my eyes as I open them. Noah is covering his mouth, trying not to laugh at me. Taking a deep breath I glance down at myself to see my black T-shirt is now white, and I can only assume so is my face. Reaching to wipe my cheek, my hand gets covered in flour.

“You missed some,” he says while biting his lip, pointing to the other side of my face.

“This isn’t funny,” I whine, trying to act annoyed about it but his laughter is contagious.

“This is one hundred percent funny,” he teases. “You’re not a super talented baking assistant.” He tosses a dish towel my way.

Wiping my face off I can tell there is flour in places where flour shouldn’t be, like my ears.

“Maybe you hand me stuff, and I’ll do the mixing,” he suggests.

“No, I can help mix.” I slam my hand on the table, landing right on an egg and crushing it.

“Yeah, not happening,” he says. “Go over there.” He points from me to the other side of the table, far away from the mixer. “Measure out the other ingredients.”

“Fine.” I cross my arms, stomping over to where he told me. “I guess that’s fair.”

I manage to avoid any more mistakes as Noah prepares the dough. He explains everything as he does it, and I grow more confident in asking clarifying questions. By the end, he lets me help put the cinnamon and sugar mixture over the cookies before baking them. They only need about ten minutes in the oven and the bakery already smells amazing.

He’s cleaning the table as I get the remaining flour out of my hair.

“You wanted to go ice skating today, right?” he asks when I return. He’s taken the cookies out of the oven, but I keep myself from diving in and burning the roof of my mouth.

“Yeah, does that still work for you?” I ask, positioning myself next to the cookies.

“Sure thing, but you might want to go home and shower first,” he suggests, glancing me up and down.

My cheeks heat, again, and it’s like any look this man gives me has my knees wanting to give out. “Very true. I’ll do that and come back here. But do I get to taste one of these first?” My fingers tap along the table toward the cookies.

“Of course, they’re all for you,” he says, pulling a to-go box out from below the table. “Bring them home, and tell your mom I say hi.”