Mal blinked in surprise. Is that what Stella was—a friend? They might not have thought so, especially with Stella leavingMixxedMedia. Back at the Haus, the rest of the team was getting together all the tools and materials they’d need for the first-ever Layout Party without her, which felt like a decided break in… whatever sort of relationship it was that they had. Mal wasn’t sure theywantedto be her friend; even after all this time, Stella’s rapid departure from their life still sometimes stung.
But… maybe they could be one day, if Mal wanted. They took the coffee and smiled.
“Thanks, Stella,” Mal said, and meant it. “That’s really nice of you.”
“It’s a single-origin pour-over,” Stella said. She grabbed Ms. Merritt’s chair from her desk and wheeled it over, sitting beside Mal. “None of the drip stuff like at the Haus. You’ll see the difference.”
Mal took a sip. They had to admit, it was good. But it wasn’ttheirsthe way the Haus was.
“Well,” Stella said. “What have you got for me?”
Mal nodded. “I’ve made a list. Let’s get to work.”
“Okay, I have to admit—I’m kind of into this excuse for bonus baking.”
Maddie grinned at Mal from the other side of the kitchen table. The two siblings were stationed together, along with a small army of cooled sugar cookies and an array of icings dyed in seasonal fall shades. (The colors were at Mal’s insistence. They knew all too well that this was perhaps their last chance to use them before red and green took over for Christmas.)
Mal squeezed their plastic icing bag, outlining a yellow leaf on a round cookie. With much greater precision and accuracy, Maddie piped an outline of a zine on hers.
Though both the Flowers siblings were exhausted, the mood in the kitchen was light—much lighter than it had been earlier in the day while their mom rushed around preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Mal hadn’t known therewasa wrongway to stir the green bean casserole mix, but they found out today that there was. Even Maddie got an earful when she discovered that their dad had purchased whole-berry, not jellied, cranberry sauce, and had been sent on a mission to the Kroger down the street to right the wrong.
It had been A Day, proper noun. But with their mom now exhausted and upstairs watching TV in her room, their dad out for a midnight Black Friday blowout at Glen’s, and the community cats sleeping somewhere snug and sound, Mal hoped, with their bellies full of the turkey they’d sneaked out to them, the night was as sweet as the icing Mal licked off their finger.
“Thanks for volunteering to help,” Mal told their sister.MixxedMediawas holding a Friendsgiving dinner tomorrow and, like she always had withCollagebake sales, Maddie had signed up for baking duty. “Sorry it’s so last-minute. Nylan texted to remind me, and I—”
“It’s cool, Mal.” Maddie waved an icing-covered hand at them, then went back to carefully letteringMixxedMediaonto her cookie. “I’m happy to support you, really.”
Mal believed her. In the weeks since their talk about college, things had changed between them—subtly, but enough that Mal could feel the shift. It felt comfortable, like they both had more space to be themselves, together. The same Flowers siblings they had always been but better.
Giving up on making their leaf cookie pretty (it would taste good regardless), Mal was quiet for a moment, considering something.
“Hey,” they said, looking up at Maddie as they selected a pumpkin-shaped cookie to decorate next.
“Hey,” said Maddie, pausing her work to look back at them.
“Do you want to come tomorrow?” Mal asked.
“To work?” Maddie shook her head and teased, “Black Friday at Dollar City isn’t really my thing, Mal.”
“No,” Mal said, laughing. “To the Haus. For Friendsgiving.”
Maddie went still, her hand hovering over her cookie so her icing bag dripped an orange blotch onto the otherwise-pristine zine rendering. After a moment, she asked, “But isn’t that a zine thing?”
“Yeah.” It was, at its core, a get-together organized by Nylan and Parker, who had insisted their next working meeting also be a celebration. Mal had been considering who, if anyone, they would like to invite. Their mom had been out from the start—they couldn’t imagine her in the back room of the Haus, didn’t want to share it with her even if they could—and their dad, they knew, would be too busy. The idea of inviting Maddie had made them nervous but in the way that Mal often couldn’t discern from excitement. “But it’s also for family and friends, and you’re both my familyandmy friend. So. I would like it if you came.”
“Yeah,” said Maddie, looking down at her cookie. Instead of frowning at her mistake, she grinned and used a paper towel to wipe the blotted bit off. “Yeah, I would like that too.”
Mal smiled. “I get off work at noon, and we can go after.”
It turned out that feeling had been excitement all along. It bloomed now in Mal’s chest, warm and welcome.
“Well, we better finish these cookies, then,” Maddie said.
And the Flowers siblings worked into the night together.
“MAL!”
Of course it was Emerson’s voice they heard first: loud and with theLheld a little long, as if Mal was an exclamation point themself. They smiled, tucking into the back room and dodging around Parker and Nylan, who were hanging a framed copy of their first issue over the door.
