The Girl I Loved Once

Chapter 29

*Enjoy everyone!*

I stopped by Lara Jean's house to work on chem after school and now I'm still here, hours later, surrounded by cookbooks and old recipes from magazines picking out Christmas cookie recipes. This is an annual thing, and Lara Jean and Kitty lovingly call it the "Christmas Cookie Bonanza". 

Dr. Covey is listening to NPR in the kitchen while making their lunches. 

"Please, no more turkey sandwiches!" Lara Jean yells to her dad.

I nudge her sock and mouth spoiled, and shake a finger at her and Kitty. Lara Jean scowls at me 

"Whatever, your mom makes your lunches every day, so shut it!."

"Hey, I'm sick over leftovers too, but what are we gonna do, throw it away?" Dr. Covey yells. 

"Pretty much exactly." 

"If we had a dog," Kitty says, chiming in, "There wouldn't be any more leftovers!"

"What kind of dog do you want?" I ask. 

"Don't get her hopes up." Lara Jean says, but I wave her off. 

"An Akita. Red fur, with a cinnamon bun tail. Or a German Shepard I can train to be a seeing-eye dog."

"But you're not blind," I say

"But I could be one day." 

I laugh and nudge Lara Jean, "Can't argue with the kid." Lara Jean nods. 

"It's pretty much futile." She leans over to Kitty and shows her a magazine recipe. "What do you think? Creamsicle cookies?" 

They're written down as a maybe. 

I learn over, pushing a New York Times cookbook onto her lap, with a fruitcake recipe shows. 

"Are you kidding? You're kidding, right? Fruitcake cookies? That's disgusting."

"When done right, fruitcake can be really good. My great-aunt Trish used to make a fruitcake, and she'd put ice-cream on top and it was awesome. " 

"If you put ice-cream on anything it's good," Kitty says.

"Can't argue with the kid," I say, somewhat defeated. "Point taken, but this isn't you're average fruitcake. It's not, like, a wet loaf of neon jujubes, its got pecans and dried cherries, and blueberries, and good stuff. It's called Christmas Memory fruitcake."

"I love that story! It's so good but so sad." Lara Jean says. 

Kitty and I shoot her a puzzled look. 

Lara Jean tells the story of A Christmas Memory, and Kitty and listen attentively. 

"That's depressing," I say, mood ruined. "Forget the fruitcake cookies."

I'm flipping through a Julia Child cookbook, Lara Jean is fumbling through an old Housekeeping magazine when the doorbell rings. Kitty gets up. 

"Check who it is before you open it!" Lara Jean yells. 

She peers out the window and squeals, unlocking the lock and opening the door. "Joshy!" She yells. My head jerks up so fast I get whiplash. 

"He's here to see Kitty."

"Yeah, right."

Josh walks into the living room casually, as if he owns the place. What an ass, I think to myself. I'd scowl and be rude to him, but I realize that the only way I'd ever win over Lara Jean is to get her father and sister to overwhelmingly like me. So I do a 180.