The two of them go back and forth on who gets to hold my niece first, while I remind them that she is two years old and not a baby, and is in a phase where half of her personality is being independent, and the other half is being mischievous. They agree to both offer her a fist bump and let her choose who to bump back first, which is a much better plan than the original, but still leaves the competitive aspect intact, which is what fueled their connection in the first place.
“How can we help?” they ask when I start to roll the dough into balls.
“Can you two unwrap some of the Hershey kisses? We are supposed to put them into the center of the cookie the second we pull them from the oven.”
“Ohh,” Ollie says approvingly as he takes in all the ingredients on the counter. “Are you making Birdie’s Peanut Butter Blossom cookies?”
“Trying to,” I say, and go through everything one more time, even though I have been meticulously careful this entire time to get it right.
One perk about the rental that I can get behind is that the owners keep the gourmet kitchen stocked with anything a person could need to cook or bake with, so I didn’t have to buy any ingredients for the cookies other than the Hershey kisses. Everything was stocked in matching canisters for me to use as much as I needed.
Ollie steals the first two chocolate kisses that Val unwraps, and when Val blocks him from taking a third, he gives up and announces that he is going to grab the rest of their things from the car.
“How have things been going?” I ask, once we are alone.
“Really good. The therapy is helping. We should have listened to you and Cameron earlier on that one,” Val says. “And Connecticut is only a two-hour flight to Charlotte, so Ollie and I see each other at least three times a month.”
I smile. “That’s great.”
“How about you guys?” Before I can answer, the door bursts open with my family’s raucous laughter. They file inside with pink noses from the cold weather outside.
“We’re back!” Scott announces, taking off his beanie to hang it on the coat rack next to the door, and slides his hand through his hair to try and tame it.
“Where’s Emerson?” Val asks, as Cameron brings up the rear without my niece in sight.
“Ollie’s got her,” he says, and then maneuvers around the clump of people at the door to make his way into the kitchen with a smile that still makes me weak in the knees. He goes in to give Val a quick hug in greeting, but when he sees the anger on her face that Ollie found a way to get to Emmie first, he quickly moves on to get to me, sliding his arms around my waist to pull me into him.
“Hey, babe,” he says, and leans down to plant a lingering kiss on my lips.
“Your face is freezing!” I complain and try to pull away, but he just leans in closer so that he can rub his cold cheeks across mine, tickling me with his stubble.
“It’s pretty cold out there,” he says, “but unfortunately, the sky is still clear, so I don’t think that we will have that white Christmas you were hoping for.”
I shrug. “Maybe next year. I’m just grateful that it at least feels like winter here. Monika said it was in the seventies when she flew out of LAX this morning.”
“When is she getting in?” He keeps his arms around me but leans over to check out the perfectly spaced rows of dough coated in sugar that are ready to be put into the oven.
“Within the hour,” I say, but blush when he narrows his eyes down at my cookie batter.
“Did you get all the ingredients? They look a little different than when my mom and I used to make them.”
“Yes,” I say confidently, and give him a little push to get him out of the kitchen. “I triple checked. Have a little faith in me.”
“I haveallthe faith in you,” he counters, but promptly ditches me as soon as my niece starts crying for him.
“I’m coming, Emmie. I’ll save you from your stinky Uncle Ollie, don’t worry.”
Scott and Gabe both press their lips together to stifle a laugh, and I call out to my brother-in-law. “Hey, Gabe, you’re a good baker. Come take a look at this batter real quick and tell me if you think it looks weird.”
He turns away from me to hide the multiple shopping bags that he returned home with from their trip into town and makes an excuse that he can’t help because he needs to wrap them right away.
“I say we bake them, and worst-case scenario, we can just throw them away and eat the kisses,” Val says, deflated from losing her bet with Ollie and being no match for Cameron, who is one of Emmie’s favorite people on earth.
“I second that plan,” Ollie says. He saunters back into the kitchen to steal another chocolate kiss, still gloating that he managed to outsmart Val.
“Hey, Drew,” Scott says, taking his very unwilling daughter out of Cameron’s arms. “Can you help me get Emmie changed into her Christmas dress?”
“Sure. Let me just get these cookies into the oven.”
