Dropping the Ball: a Holiday Rom-Com
Dropping the Ball: Chapter 35

It’s almost 1:00 before I make it over to Kaitlyn’s, but as I shut the door behind me, I call out, “I’m here, and nothing outside of this house exists.”

“Kitchen,” she calls back.

Elf starts playing as I pull off my coat in the entryway.

She smiles at my bright red sweater with snowflakes on the chest and jeans. “Don’t go to Target. You’ll get mobbed.”

I pull her in for a kiss then let her go to glance at the TV. “Is this an elaborate setup so you can tell me to elf myself again?”

“It would be if I’d thought of it. Do you not like this movie?”

“Only broken people hate Elf.” I rub my hands together. “It’s freezing outside, by the way.” It’s in the low fifties, but in Austin, that’s close enough.

“Poor baby.” She slides her arms around me. “Does it make you feel any better to know we’re going to be toasty inside while we’re completely irresponsible today?”

“Weirdly, yes. It warms my heart.”

Her eyes twinkle. “What do you get when you ask a valedictorian and salutatorian to relax?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“A cutthroat cookie-decorating competition, duh.”

“You, the lawyer, would like to compete against me, the visionary artist, in aesthetic feats? Bring it.”

She turns on the oven and pulls a covered bowl from the fridge. “I could not talk Mr. Nairz out of his shortbread recipe, but he gave me this.” She removes the foil with a flourish. “Dough for two dozen cookies!”

“No way. Seriously?” She must have made a good impression on Mr. Nairz.

“Picked it up this morning,” she confirms.

“So we eat half the dough and bake half, right?”

“Obviously.”

She sets shopping bags on the counter and pulls out more stuff. Baking sheets, cookie cutters, icing bags, and an apron she ties on. It’s like one of those photo backdrops with a painted picture but you supply the head. This apron has a woman with Kardashian proportions in a sexy Mrs. Claus dress, but with Kaitlyn’s grinning face above it.

I burst out laughing when I read the tattoo on “her” cleavage. “Top of the naughty list, huh? Promises, promises.”

“Don’t worry, you have one too.”

I put on an apron announcing I have “resting Grinch face.” I frown at her.

She sticks her tongue out at me. “It’s funny because it’s true.”

For the next two hours, we roll out the dough, shape and bake our cookies, watch the part of Elf where Buddy exposes Santa as a fraud, take the barely burnt cookies out to cool while we mix our frosting, and then we get down to real business.

She had chosen a snowflake cookie cutter, saying it would be easy to fancy up with lines and dots “to make them elegant.” I chose the square gift box cutout.

Now as she stares down at our results, her face says she realizes she miscalculated. Badly. She has six snowflakes that go from uneven glops and streaks on the first one to something that looks like it could have been done by a highly competent fifth grader by the last one. I have an artfully arranged stack of six brightly wrapped gifts in paper with intricate patterns.

She stares from mine to hers.

I shrug. “Mr. Nairz taught me some stuff.”

She narrows her eyes. “It only matters what our objective judge, my sister, thinks.”

I smirk while she snaps pictures and texts them to Madison.

“That was rigged,” Kaitlyn complains.

I drop a kiss on her nose. “I still like you even though you suck at cookie decorating.”

“Fine. I forgive you for being good at frosting.”

I scoop her up and carry her over to the sofa to settle her on my lap. “Thank you for this whole day. What happens when you fail the bar exam because you didn’t study today?”

She pinches my side. “It won’t be funny if that happens.”

“It won’t happen.”

She sighs. “I hope not. But now I have a confession.”

I tug at the bib of her apron above her “cleavage.” “I know this isn’t your real body.”

“A real confession.”

Her voice is serious. I don’t want to change the light mood, but I always want her to be able to talk to me. “All right. Hit me.”

“I know Christmas is a big deal to you, but I’ll be working like crazy right up until Christmas Day. I’m trying to cram all the Christmas in today because I won’t have time.” She drops her head against my chest. “I’m getting so tired of saying I won’t have time.”

“I know. Front-row seat, remember?” I smooth her hair, still not tired of being able to touch it whenever I want. I’ll never be tired of it. “Are you going to be okay if all this work . . . doesn’t work? What if something falls apart with the gala? Like no one comes or no one bids?”

She bolts upright. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“No.” I settle her back against my chest. “Everything will be amazing. But I’m wondering how you’ll feel if it’s not.”

She’s quiet for a beat. “It will be embarrassing. But I’m handling every detail that can be handled, and at some point, that’s enough.”

“What about how embarrassment is worse than death for you?”

“I never said that.”

I smile against her hair. “I know you.”

She runs her finger over the snowflakes knit across my chest. “The last two weeks have taught me that the only way to get kicked out of my family is cheering for anyone besides Texas. This whole gala could fail, and I guess they’ll still keep me. Madison ambushed me at the office the other day and did amateur therapy again. Something about how I’m worthy of love?”

I tighten my hold. “You are.” Is this it? Is this when I put into words what I’ve been feeling since Thanksgiving? No, recognizing since Thanksgiving. I’ve been feeling this for longer than that.

Love. Say it. Because this can’t just be me.

I open my mouth. “Thank you, Kaitlyn.” Not the three words I meant to say. But I don’t want to send her running scared again by dropping the other three big words on her too soon. “I love that you did this. The dough. The Christmas movie. It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Except for Mr. Martinez and the bike in the rain.”

“Second most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me,” I amend. “Thank you for making time you didn’t have. But I am responsible for my own Christmas spirit, and now I’m taking responsibility for your Christmas spirit. Leave it to me, okay? I would never let it get lost in the shuffle.”

“Micah . . . I don’t want to butt into things that aren’t my business, but I also want everything about you to be my business. So your mom . . . will she be okay with the holidays? They’re intense for anyone. If you need to be around for her more, I support that.”

“She’s okay.” I love that she cares this much. I wish I had a sign that would tell me when she’s ready to hear how deep my feelings run. “Christmas season kind of stabilizes her, believe it or not. That’s when she does the most business, and it’s good for her. The last day she can ship an order and have it arrive by Christmas is the twentieth. Then she crashes. It’s not usually a depressive episode. More like unwinding?”

She nuzzles against my chest. “I’m glad. What’s Christmas usually like for you?”

“Low-key. We go to my uncle’s on Christmas Eve, which isn’t our favorite. But it’s fine. My aunt says, ‘Tori, how’s your little Etsy shop doing?’ My mom says something like, ‘Almost good enough to afford fillers like yours,’ and we eat and exchange gifts and there’s awkwardness but no drama.”

“Team Tori,” Kaitlyn says, “even if she kind of hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She’s embarrassed because you met her on a bad day, but she was okay when you came over to invite us to Thanksgiving.”

“True,” she says. “But she still avoids me.”

Mom doesn’t come out of her bedroom where she makes her peg dolls if she knows Kaitlyn is over. “She’s asked about you a few times. I go at her pace. Does that bother you?”

“No. I want her to be comfortable with me.” She tilts her head up to press a kiss where she can reach, which is under my chin. “Now, you were saying you’re going to elf yourself?”

“No, I said I would be in charge of Christmas spirit. Think of it as being your Christmas concierge. That’s a rich person thing, right? Using concierges for everything?”

“Totally. I have seven on speed dial.” She gives an enormous yawn that she tries and fails completely to keep behind her hand. “The last three weeks are hitting me all at once. Can you take over starting now?”

I shift her to the side, pull the throw blanket off the sofa behind us, and tuck it around her. Then I pick up the remote. “On it. We begin with Hallmark. Today’s movie is called Christmasland.”

“You know that without looking?”

I don’t answer.

She tucks her feet under my thigh and wiggles her toes. “You’re a zombie movie expert and a Hallmark Christmas movie expert?”

“Let’s go with enthusiast.”

“Micah? Do you have the whole movie lineup memorized?”

“Only for the seventeen that looked interesting this year,” I grumble.

And even though it takes her a full five minutes to stop laughing, we do finally watch it.