“There’s a cookie walk.” King pointed diagonally across the way.
“You know we’re going on the cookie walk.” I had no idea what a cookie walk was, but he had me at cookie.
We were hardly the only ones with the idea. The place was packed. You started by picking out your tin and then went around a huge maze that could only be outdone by IKEA, and you filled your tin with cookies from all over the world. There were, of course, the chocolate chip, chocolate krinkles, and peanut butter kisses that you saw everywhere, but there were also beautiful gingerbreads and angel wings and almond cookies, not to mention all the ones I had never seen before and didn’t know the names of. We left with four full tins, picking two of each of the different varieties so we could both try them all.
“We’re gonna roll home,” I teased.
“No, we’ve been getting our exercise.” He kissed my cheek, my ears burning with the embarrassment of it.
But why should I be embarrassed? He was my mate, and it was safe to say we had not only been exercising plenty, but we’d continue to do so.
“Shall we grab dinner before heading out?” he asked me.
“From what I see, everything’s got a pretty big line.” There weren’t a lot of restaurants, a couple of cafes, a diner, a Mexican place, and some food carts, and all of them had what appeared to be really long waits. “I thought we’d go back to the resort and have cookies for dinner.”
“I should probably be talking you out of that, telling you how you’ll be sorry in the morning, but that sounds like a brilliant idea to me.”
“Then let’s go back and have some dessert,” I said. “Oh, and when we’re done, we can have some cookies.”
“I like how you think, mate. I like how you think.”
10
KINGSTON
I patted my belly after eating a huge breakfast while gripping Merrick with the other hand because I didn’t want to let him go.
Never again will we let him out of our sight.
That’s not practical because he has to go to the bathroom.
And I get anxious when he does.
But while my bear and I were debating how to stick close to our mate, Merrick was reading a flyer on the resort notice board. It was cute they still had these hard copies.
“Look.” Merrick’s eyes lit up, and I wondered what he had in mind. A snowman-building competition, ice skating, ziplining? Either could fit into our plan. “It’s a cookie-decorating class. A festive-themed one.”
Cookies were for eating, not making or swirling frosting on. Besides, we already had a ton from the cookie walk.
He tore his hand out of mine and clapped. “It’ll be so much fun. Let’s do it.”
He caught sight of my face. I wasn’t frowning or grimacing.
Could have fooled me.
Shush you.
“King?” Merrick pulled the edges of my mouth outward, trying to make me smile. “It’s something we can do as a couple.”
I grabbed his butt and pulled his hips against mine. “I can think of something else we can do together.”
“Pfft.” He slapped my chest. “Don’t be a spoilsport.”
Accompanying the notice were images of people grinning beside piles of cookies in red, green and gold.
“It’ll commemorate our first Christmas.”
I couldn’t bake and wasn’t much of a cook beyond scrambling eggs and tossing greens and mushrooms into the eggy mix.
