“I can help.”
“No, no,” I say too quickly. I need a minute without him so close. My nerves are on edge. I plaster on a smile. “I know how you feel about cooking. I’ve got this.”
I open the fridge. Stella and I bought what we thought was enough groceries for the entire weekend, but after sharing with the guys, it’s dwindling fast.
“Turkey sandwiches?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
I pull out everything I need and make us dinner while Teddy puts on a movie—Jingle All the Wayagain, and his laughter at the cheesy holiday movie does funny things to my insides.
“Thanks,” he says when I hand him a plate with the sandwich and some chips.
“Welcome.” I eat standing up in the kitchen.
Between bites, I find the string of LED lights from my dorm room I brought to hang on the tree, and it looks even better than I imagined. I only wish I had two or three more strands. After that, I pull out everything to decorate the cookies.
Teddy sits on a stool in front of me, his body angled so he can watch the TV.
I watch him. He finishes his first sandwich in four large bites, then moves on to the chips. I’ve barely touched my food when he’s finished. I take my sandwich and push my plate of chips toward him.
“Thanks.”
“We’re almost out of food, but we have lots of cookies.” I hold one up. He snatches it from me and pops it in his mouth.
“Good,” he mumbles as he chews.
I give him a playful glare and smack his hand as he goes in for another cookie. I do a super-fast decorating job on a small bell-shaped cookie and hand it to him. “Sugar cookies without frosting are sad. It’s like unfrosted Pop-Tarts. What’s the point?”
He laughs, but after he takes the first bite, he nods. “Damn, that’s good.”
He shoves the rest of it in his mouth and then gets up and pulls a beer out of the fridge.
“That seems like a truly terrible combination,” I say, pointing between the two.
“You’re right.” He sets the beer back and then grabs the RumChata off the top of the fridge. “Cookies and cream.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a sweet tooth.”
He fills a coffee mug with the sweet liqueur and downs it. His face twists up. “That’s too sweet, even for me.”
He reclaims his beer from the fridge.
Together, we decorate the cookies. Well, I decorate, and Teddy eats them. I do my best on the Santa with the small third leg, but it ends up looking like he’s packing some serious heat in his trousers.
Teddy politely doesn’t mention it, but I notice he doesn’t eat that one, either.
By the time we’re finished, we’ve only killed thirty minutes. It’s still snowing out. A freaking blizzard. Just what I wanted, but not exactly how I wanted it.
“I don’t think they’re coming back tonight.” A weight settles in my stomach.
“Nope.” He gives me an apologetic smile. “Do you want to watch another movie or something?”
I nod. “Yeah. Might as well.”
Teddy takes two more cookies and his beer and heads to the living room. I no sooner than step out of the kitchen when the lights flicker. We both freeze. They go out, come back on, and then go out again and stay that way.
An eerie quiet stretches between us as we wait for the power to return. The Christmas tree with its small strand of battery-powered lights is the only thing still on.