Page 52 of Hogging the Hunk
“By the end of the night, you’ll be a cookie pro,” I promised. “What time do you have to go to bed? I’d hate to keep you up on a school night.”
Ellie’s face brightened and for the first time, she truly looked excited to tell me something. “It’s already been canceled tomorrow. We’re supposed to get a lot of snow.”
“Nice.” I held up my hand and she high-fived me. “Snow days are the best. Now, let’s get started. You’ve waited long enough to be rewarded with a fresh-from-the-oven cookie.”
With the pans clean and the kitchen reset and ready for baking, I dove straight in to Ellie and Milo’s personal master class of cookie baking according to Beckett Kent. I discussed the benefits of using room temperature eggs, why genuine vanilla was a must, the pros and cons of using silicone baking sheets, and all the telltale signs a cookie was fully baked, even if it looked underdone.
Within forty-five minutes, Ellie was pulling out the first tray of perfectly baked inside-out chocolate chip cookies. The white chocolate baking chips contrasted the rich chocolate cookie and with one whiff, my mouth started watering.
“You’re supposed to wait about ten minutes for the cookies to cool before you eat them. Me? I think that’s cruel and unusual punishment.” I took out a half gallon of chilled goat's milk I’d lifted from Maren’s stash. “That’s why ice cold milk and warm cookies pair so well together.”
Milo retrieved three glasses from the cabinet and offered to pour so I could give Ellie the final tips for how to get the cookies off the baking pan without breaking them. Holding out the bottle for Milo, his fingers wrapped around mine momentarily. It was the almost imperceptible squeeze that made me pay closer attention.
My eyes found his, and he gazed at me with tenderness. He was thanking me without words, and I understood why the evening had meant so much to him. Ellie could be challenging—enough so that it would have intimidated or scared off other women who had no interest in a child being a part of Milo’s complete package—but I knew Ellie wasn’t a bad kid. There was a fine balance between trying to earn the trust and respect of a youth and making them feel like they were being treated like a baby. I had done my best to walk that tightrope and so far, things seemed to be improving.
There was no way to tell what would happen between me and Milo. Maybe he’d hate my stubbornness, and I’d decide I couldn’t stand his chewing. That didn’t mean I didn’t want Ellie to like me.
Ellie set three cookies on the three paper towels Milo had torn off and set on the counter. Each taking a simultaneous bite, Ellie and Milo both groaned as their teeth sunk in. The cookie was the right ratio of chewy and crispy, and the rich and sweet flavors balanced each other nicely.
“This is why I didn’t want to buy packaged cookies.” Crumbles of cookies fell out of Ellie’s mouth as she spoke. “These are amazing.”
“I’ve died and gone to cookie heaven,” Milo agreed.
Silently, I chewed my cookie, wondering if this might be my destiny. These warm moments of domestic bliss, where everything was so perfect I couldn’t think of one thing I would change? For the longest time, I assumed I would make these memories with Greg. Everything about us, from our chosen profession to what we considered the idyllic family home to our eating habits were aligned. There was just one problem—I’d fallen completely out of love with him.
Milo had already consumed a second cookie by the time I finished my first. Milo’s second helping disappeared in one enormous bite. He grinned at me like a boy who’d been given permission to eat his weight in cookies.
“How are they really?” I asked, accepting my second cookie from Ellie.
“So good.” Milo’s smile split his face, and his teeth were covered in chocolate, giving him a toothless appearance. Ellie and I giggled conspiratorially.
We guzzled milk by the cupful and Milo reminded Ellie to pace herself. “These are so decadent you’ll give yourself a stomachache if you overdo it.”
“If she’s anything like me,” I said, holding my hand in front of my mouth to be pseudo polite—I was still talking while chewing, “then she’ll probably never get to that point. I don’t feel awful after eating a ton of sugar.”
“You don’t feel like you’re going to puke?”
“Nope. I’m pretty sure I could take over the world. The ability to gorge on sugar is an unintentional superpower of mine.”
Giggling from her sugar high, Ellie nodded. “That’s me exactly!”
As the evening wore on, we laughed and ate our fill of warm cookies, packing up those we couldn’t or shouldn’t finish for Milo to take into work and for Ellie to pack in her lunch when school resumed. With the last batch in the oven, Ellie tossed the oven mitts on the counter and folded her arms.
“I’m sorry I dumped my hot chocolate on you at your Christmas party,” Ellie said, her eyes fixed on the tiled floor. “Your sweater isn’t ruined, is it?”
It took me a moment to recover from my surprise. I’d half expected Ellie to ignore her mistake as a coping mechanism for avoiding guilt. Wafting my hand, I dismissed her concern. “I got it in the wash fast enough that it didn’t set. I know it was an accident.” Milo and Ellie exchanged a look, and I caught on that I was missing something. “What?”
Milo, with his patience worthy of sainthood, waited for his daughter to summon her courage to explain. Sighing, Ellie crossed her arms, shrinking into herself. “It wasn’t an accident.”
The world went silent except for Truffle’s soft, grunting snores as she napped in front of the snapping fireplace. I had accepted that Ellie’s actions resulted from an overeager girl who had something urgent to tell her father. Not for a second had I considered that Ellie had targeted me for a hot chocolate dump.
Older and theoretically wiser though I was, it still stung to discover Ellie had humiliated me on purpose. “Why?”
“I didn’t want you to kiss my dad,” Ellie muttered.
The happy feeling that had been crackling in my chest all evening, like a merry bonfire on a dark winter night, was snuffed out with one stiff gust of chilly wind. Ellie didn’t like me. Didn’t trust me despite the effort I’d made to extend repeated olive branches. Looking to Milo for reassurance, the sorrow in his eyes was almost too much to bear.
“I see.” Swallowing only made my throat stick and my tongue feel swollen and sluggish. “Can I ask why?”