1
LEDGER
“These aren’t cookies.They’re ginger dicks,” I complain to Peyton. She’s my best friend and she texted me earlier today to let me know she was baking. Of course, I had to show up to support her. That’s what friends are for after all. I peer down at the cookies that have killed any desire I have for baked treats.
“You’re right!” She smiles triumphantly and goes back to cutting out her obscene cookies at the kitchen table. Her apartment is too damn tiny. I’ve tried to get her to move into my place. I’d give her a great deal on rent, but she won’t take it. “They’re going to sell like crazy.”
Peyton works as a bartender at Liquid Courage, the only bar in Courage County. She wants to buy it from Harry the owner and she’s doing everything she can to earn a little bit of money including selling baked goods to the patrons. Harry is cool and doesn’t care. He says her munchies encourage the customers to order even more drinks.
“Most of your male customers aren’t going to buy these.” I hold one up that’s especially tiny and peer at it. It looks like it fell off one of those three-inch action figures I had as a kid.
She snorts. “We call that the ex-boyfriend size.”
“You have too much time on your hands,” I insist even though secretly I’m proud of her.
I’ve tried to tell her we’ll go in half on the bar. I make more than enough at the Christmas tree ranch I run with my adoptive family. Most of my earnings go right back into my adventure account. It’s for that day when she finally agrees to go on an adventure with me. Like skiing in Colorado or on a safari in Africa. Not that she’ll let me spoil her. She’s too independent and sassy.
She shakes her head. “Too bad you think that. Otherwise, I might have made you a regular gingerbread man somewhere.”
“Gimme.”
She takes her cookie pan to the stove and bends over. Fuck, I have to look away the moment she does. I always do.
Ten years I’ve been friends with Peyton and there hasn’t been a day I haven’t wanted her. She’s always my fantasy. The only fantasy I have. If she knew the things I think about her when I have my cock in my hand, she’d never talk to me again.
She straightens and sets her kitchen timer before turning to me. She narrows her gaze. “Did you just come over for free cookies?”
I do my best to feign innocence. “No. I’m here for quality assurance. You wouldn’t want to sell a terrible batch of cookies.”
She laughs. It’s a rich throaty sound that makes my balls tighten. “I’m lucky I have you then.”
“Oh, you have me,” I murmur under my breath while she reaches for the plate that she’s carefully hidden away containing two regular gingerbread men. I’ve spent over three thousand days acting normal around her, never letting on that she’s the one woman I want.
I take the gingerbread cookie and nibble on the edges. I won’t eat it all. I never do. But just the fact that I can bring myself to enjoy a couple of bites without guilt means something. It’s progress after years of battling my mind.
She bites into her own cookie and groans. “Best batch yet.”
I clear my throat and set my own food down. Watching her eat is one of my favorite things. She enjoys every morsel, regardless of who’s watching. She never seems to worry that they think she’s eating more than she should or enjoying every bite too much.
“Actually, I did come by for something. I need to know what you want for Christmas this year.”
It’s only a few weeks away and I made her a promise the Christmas we met. I promised I’d give her a special gift every year.
Like me, Peyton is a former foster child. She bounced around the system for a long time. But unlike me, she never landed with people who took her in and loved her.
Christmas gifts were few and far between for her as a kid and teenager. Of course, my parents will dote on her, and she’ll have more than a few things under the tree from them. But I like to spoil her. I like to find the one thing that will thrill her and get it for her.
Normally, this is the part where Peyton’s eyes light up and she enthusiastically begins asking me for something. She’ll make big gestures with her hands and animatedly tell me why this is the thing she simply must have.
Last year, it was the bread maker. It took her a few months to perfect her recipe, but she makes a mean sourdough now.
Her tongue darts out and she runs it across her bottom lip. The nervous gesture lets me catch a flash of the silver ball that’s sitting on her tongue. I love that piercing. It’s something else about her that’s always in my spank bank.
Yeah, maybe some people think I’m an asshole for constantly fantasizing about my best friend. But it’s not like there’s anyone else. There never has been. Never will be. Peyton is it. She’s my soulmate...and she doesn’t feel the same way about me.
“Come on, you can tell me,” I insist as the knot in my stomach grows. The truth is I’m not here for free cookies or even to figure out what she wants for Christmas. I’m here because she’s been acting strange.
Last night was Courage’s annual Christmas dance and we went together same as always. But she seemed different, and I can’t put my finger on why she’d be upset.