'Tis the Season

Chapter 25: Merry Christmas

"Don't worry. We'll have plenty of time for what I was going to do with you later," he winks. I blush and look away quickly, walking ahead of him to the kitchen.

"What're we making first? Put me to work, Emilia," I tell her as she comes over and kisses both our cheeks as a good morning.

"We'll start with the sugar cookies. I made the dough yesterday, it's in the fridge, and the oven is preheating now so if you two can line the sheet pans for me and start rolling some sections out and cutting the shapes while I make the icing, it would be an amazing help."

I nod and grab the parchment paper, lining the sheets neatly while Carson starts rolling out the dough.

"Hey, look," he whispers to me and I crane my neck to see what he's doing.

"Carson!" I whisper-shout back harshly, trying to not laugh at how immature he is. "Roll that out before your mom sees!"

He laughs, a sparkle in his eyes and rolls his penis shaped cookies back out into the blob of dough just in time for Ryan to enter the kitchen to kiss his wife goodbye before he leaves for the hospital.

I watch Carson with amusement as he rolls out the dough and I pick through the cookie cutters for the Christmas- themed shapes. He has a small smile on his face as he smooths the bumps out, making sure that the section is even all over and not thicker around the edges. His muscles bulge just slightly with each roll of the rolling pin, but it's enough to make me shift in my seat a little, especially after this morning's interrupted antics.

He has the glimmer in his eyes that I've been missing so much since he got sick, and his cheeks are more even in their coloring. His eyes don't seem hooded with fatigue anymore and based on the small little bounce in his step, his energy level has returned to normal. I'm greatly relieved and can't help but go up next to him and wrap my arms around his waist, leaning my head on his shoulder.

"Here," he says, cutting off a small piece of the raw dough and feeding it to me before plopping a piece in his own mouth as well.

"Delicious," I tell him, smiling while handing over a stocking shaped ornament.

"Hey! I love you two and I'm rooting for you, I've already started planning out the wedding in my mind, but there will be no canoodling while in my kitchen on Christmas Cookie day!" Emilia scolds us, shaking her electric beater in our direction. She narrows her eyes but as she looks at us she can't help but smile.

I laugh, pulling away from Carson and going back over to the cookie cutter box. "Sorry, sorry. We're getting back to work now."

❆ ❆ ❆

We spend the majority of the day baking and icing all different cookies. After the sugar we made gingerbread (which I'm already looking forward to binging on tomorrow), white chocolate peppermint, chocolate cherry, and thumbprint cookies. Carson, and Connor whenever he passed through the kitchen, ate more than he baked and iced, but he assured us it was only to "make sure that none of them are under baked in the middle, because no one wants to end Christmas with salmonella".

I was exhausted by the end of the night, but I perked up when Carson slipped into my room to finish what he'd started earlier.

After a very satisfying couple of rounds of that we fell asleep cuddling, so the first thing I saw when I woke up on Christmas morning was Carson's sleepy face right across from mine.

I sighed contentedly, snuggling closer to him for warmth as I reflected on how insanely lucky I felt to be graced with such a sight first thing on Christmas morning.