vellichor short

Cookies

One night, he came with a box of cookies. "I come bearing gifts!" he called.

"You better not eat those in my bookshop," she warned without looking up from Tender is the Night.

He pouted before realizing she couldn't see him. "You don't even know what they are!"

Without so much as a glance, she replied, "They're cookies from that new bakery on Elm. Been there done that, sweetheart."

"Bakery? No, my coworker made these for me.", he said, frowning slightly.

She finally looked up at him. "Aaron, the only place that uses saffron in cookies is City Sprinkles. So unless your coworker is South Indian, I think you just got played", she said, grinning.

"Damn it Garcia", he mumbled under his breath.

She finally closed her book and lithely maneuvered her way through the maze of ottomans littering the floor between the counter and the door. "You absolutely will not," she said, playfully glaring at him for emphasis, "eat those in my store."

"You're really going to make me wait for-", he broke off, squinting at the clock. "A whole hour?"

"You eat them, you eat them outside."

"And you're not going to budge on this?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then you leave me no choice." He offered her his hand with mock charm. "Madam?"

She stared at him for a second, and without hesitating, took his hand. He pulled her outside into the mostly empty parking lot and onto the curb. "We're eating them right now?" she asked, sitting down beside him.

"You said I couldn't eat them inside!"

She threw her head back as she laughed at his goofy attempt to "unveil" their meal, pulling away an imaginary silver dome above the two measly cookies. He ignored the butterflies that fluttered in his stomach when she moaned with appreciation as she bit into the cookie, or when she licked the icing off her fingers. They sat on the curb with their legs crossed facing each other, talking about the last movie each of them had seen, the news that they had heard that morning, everything and nothing at all.