by Amber Lynn
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Thursday morning I woke up and did the usual morning ritual of showering and dressing. With nowhere to go, I was stuck on what to do. My life was supposed to be back to normal, but normal would involve me going to work. After living years of having my days pretty much planned out for me, making decisions wasn't second nature.
Not being able to come up with anything better, I headed to the kitchen to make sugar cookies. When all else failed, the kitchen was always my answer. Plus, all the rolling out and eventually decorating would take up most of the morning.
As soon as I was done tying on my apron, I grabbed some butter and cream cheese from the fridge, unwrapped them and placed them in a large glass bowl. I stuck the bowl in the microwave for a minute and a half on the lowest heat setting to get them both softened. Even though I had all the time in the world, waiting for things to soften wasn't in my vocabulary.
When that was done, I beat in some sugar until it reached a smooth consistency. I continued beating the mixture as I added eggs and vanilla. Then slowed down the mixer while I incorporated the dry ingredients.
Once it was all mixed together I wrapped it up in Saran Wrap and put it in the freezer for thirty minutes. While it was firming up, I preheated the oven and got out my rolling pin, cookie cutters and cookie sheets. I prepared the breakfast bar area with flour and I was all set. I still had about ten minutes, so I decided I needed to listen to some music.
I grabbed my mp3 player from beside my bed and set my eclectic mix of country, pop and classic rock to play. As the music started up, I took the cookie dough and started rolling it out. I guess you could say I was rockin' and rollin'.
I ended up making mostly flowers, which I could only assume was my subconscious mind trying to brighten my mood. As I was getting the last batch out of the oven, I looked up and found Nate standing in my apartment staring at me. I immediately dropped the hot pan, which somehow miraculously landed correctly on the floor and only a couple of the cookies flew off in the process.
"What in the world are you doing in my apartment?" I screeched at him. By that point in our acquaintance, I should've expected it.
"You weren't answering the door when I pounded on it, so I got worried and let myself in," he answered. I could tell he didn't care whether the reason I wasn't answering was because I didn't want to see him.
"And how exactly did you do that? Break down the door?" I looked around him to my door and on first inspection I saw nothing amiss.
"No silly, I used my key," he said, like it was obvious. He even proudly displayed said key.
"I don't remember ever giving you a key to my apartment. How in the world did you get one?" I knew we hadn't spent every waking moment together, but I didn't think in the times we were apart he was out making copies of my key.
"When you were sleeping one night, I borrowed yours and ran down to the twenty-four-hour hardware store. They made one right up for me."
By then, the shock had worn off a little, so I picked the cookie sheet off the floor and put the cookies on the cooling racks. I took the broken, flying cookies and tossed them in the garbage. "Can I have that extra key please? I prefer it that no one but me can get into my apartment whenever they want."
"I think I'm going to keep it for a little while," he said, smiling at me with his borderline irresistible lips curved up just enough to display his dimples.
"Aren't you supposed to be flying back to Chicago and getting out of my hair?" He was like some kind of really persistent vermin I just couldn't get rid of. I wasn't certain anyone other than a hitman could take care of my rat problem.
"I'm going to stick around, at least through the weekend and make sure all the loose ends are tied up, so sorry, you're going to have to put up with me a little longer."
He was so frustrating. He'd irritated me enough that I was imagining building a giant mousetrap then luring him into it. I thought it sounded kind of fun and since I had tons of time on my hands, I was going to draw up some plans.
"So, do you need some help frosting all of these cookies?" He asked, looking around the kitchen and seeing the cookies covering just about every surface.
"I'm not going to be able to get rid of you right now am I?" I asked. There was no reason for me to waste my breath.
"Nope," he replied. "Like you, my day happens to be wide open and all my other friends in this city are currently stuck working."
"Fine, since I'm trapped with you, I might as well put you to work. I have to make and color the frosting, so why don't you just settle in on that side of the breakfast bar," I said as I pointed, trying to reiterate the fact he should keep his distance. If he could frost from the hallway, I would've preferred it, but I knew the suggestion wouldn't get me anywhere.
I quickly mixed up some frosting and divided it into six bowls. I left one white and colored the rest red, blue, purple, yellow and green.
"Okay, here's a knife and some baggies. To use the baggies, put some frosting inside the baggie and work it down to one of the corners. Then take the scissors and cut a little tip off the bottom. Make sure you don't cut it too big, though, otherwise you'll make a mess of the cookie. When you hold the bag as you're decorating, don't squeeze too hard or you'll make a hole in the bag and mistakenly decorate the palm of your hand."
Surprisingly, as we went along decorating the flowers, his didn't look like a five-year-old was the mastermind behind the decorating, as I expected. By some miracle, he wasn't even making a big mess.
After about his tenth cookie he asked, "Don't you have any little toppings we can put on the cookies?"
Before I answered, I had to wonder how many times he'd sat around a table and decorated cookies. I didn't know much about his family, in fact, I didn't think we'd covered his life at all, other than the mention of his parents' divorce. He was only going to be around a few days, and there was no reason for me to go prying, so I was left to wonder if he'd sat around and helped his mother decorate cookies as a kid.
"Well, since you've arrived in my life, not only has my world been turned upside down, but all my toppings magically made it on the floor and to the garbage. Before you came today, I was going to make some colored sugar up, but I don't think I can trust you not to start throwing it around."
"You're probably right. I like seeing you covered in sugary confections."
"Those sugary confections are sticky and I prefer not to wear them," I said as I continued trying to get the cookies all decorated. I should've thought about halving the recipe. I was lucky the cookies would freeze well, because I didn't have a lot of use for eighty cookies.
When we finally finished with our beautiful creations, I hoped to never see a cookie again. Somehow I'd managed to eat five cookies while decorating and I was feeling a bit jittery. I bundled three-quarters of them up and put them in freezer safe containers, then placed them in their new home. I imagined I'd have cookies for the rest of the year.
"Let's go grab some lunch," Nate suggested.
After being surrounded by sugar for the last couple of hours, a salad was sounding really good to me. Something packed with salt sounded better, but I'd eaten five cookies and countless amounts of frosting. A bag of chips wasn't a great option.
"Sure. Let's get out of the apartment for a little while. The smell of cookies is going to make me sick."
We walked around a little, trying to find something that sounded good to both of us. Since I was searching for a salad, I really didn't care where we stopped, which meant it is was up to Nate to pick. He finally dragged me into a barbecue restaurant.
I ended up getting a barbecue chicken salad and a side of onion rings. I couldn't help the fried temptations. My body demanded salt of some kind. Nate ordered a rack of ribs with coleslaw and a little corn on the cob.
"Oh my gosh, this is just what I needed," I said as I bit into an onion ring after our food arrived. I was surprised no one stared at me as my body rejoiced the addition of something not full of sugar.
; "Did you have the rest of your day planned out?" Nate asked. "After such a thrilling morning in the kitchen, I can't imagine what you would've planned for the rest of the day."
"You know, you actually gave me a brilliant idea for my newest way to kill you. I thought I might spend the rest of the afternoon drawing up plans," I replied, only half joking. Even if I didn't use the giant mousetrap against him, it would be a really cool thing to have in storage in case I ever needed one.
"Well, we can't have that, so it seems it's up to me to decide what we're going to do."
"Why does there have to be a 'we' at all in this conversation? I'm sure you can find someone on the street to annoy and let me get on with my plotting."
"Nope. You're my favorite person to pester and I don't think anyone else will do today. Why don't we keep the flower theme going and head over to the Botanical Gardens? That should be nice and peaceful for you. I'll even promise not to do anything annoying."
I snorted at the thought. I wasn't sure he understood the meaning of the word annoying.
"Yeah, like I can believe a word you say." Really, who did he think he's kidding? Him just breathing tended to be annoying in my mind.
"You're the human lie detector, remember? I can't lie to you even if I wanted to."
"I'm pretty sure that isn't my super power, if it is, I'm demanding a refund for its lack of coolness. I want to be able to fly or have X-ray vision. Oh, or maybe super strength. Lie detecting is just so boring."
"Sorry, we don't get to pick our super powers. They're given to us for a reason," he said, taking a big bite of coleslaw. The logical response to that would've been to ask what his super power was, but I didn't feel like being logical.
We ate the rest of our meal in silence, mostly because Nate was busy trying to see how many of his ribs he could get in his mouth at once. It was a weird sight to witness, but even a face covered in barbecue sauce didn't dull his looks.
When we were done, and Nate had managed to wash his face, we made our way back to my apartment to pick up Nate's car. The trip to the gardens remained pretty quiet, just general chatter about the weather and sports.
We spent the rest of the afternoon touring through the different gardens. My favorite had to be the Background Garden. It made me wish I had a yard to actually do some planting. The whole place was really beautiful and I was feeling a lot better after the most stressful week of my life.
Around six, Nate drove me back home and surprisingly dropped me off, saying he was meeting a buddy for dinner. In the kitchen, I made a quick sandwich and grabbed some crackers for my own dinner. Once my stomach was full, I washed it down with a glass of water and loaded the dishes in the dishwasher before I headed off to bed. It was still early, so I settled down with a book until I fell asleep.