Full Package(53)

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Directions



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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheet. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.



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2. In a large bowl, mix together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating gently, because if you don’t you’ll ruin the eggs, and destroy the recipe, and you’ll be left with a gigantic bowl of everything cookie dough disappointment that you can’t bake and you can’t eat either.



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3. Stir in vanilla. Mix in the sifted ingredients until well blended. Carefully. Do it carefully. If you screw this up and stir too long, I swear you’ll kill it. Do as I say.



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4. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the cherries, oats, coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans. This won’t be easy, so put a little muscle into it. It’s hard, what you’re doing. But it’ll be even harder if you don’t do this properly.



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5. Drop cookie batter onto sheets, placing them two inches apart. Now, don’t go crazy and get them too close. If you do, you’ll have to ditch the whole batch. You don’t want that, do you?



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6. Bake for eight to ten minutes in preheated oven.



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7. While you wait, wipe that stupid tear from your cheek. It’s better this way. You know that.





31





I have a mind vise, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Even though I’ve been bitten by the love bug, I can still depend on my special skill—separating emotions from actions as if they’re whites and darks in the laundry.

Back at the apartment, I zone in on Josie’s hair and only on her hair.

Admittedly, the sharp, chemical odor of hair dye helps matters. Hell, maybe I’ve found the one thing about her that doesn’t turn me on. This shit stinks.

Josie is parked on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom, decked out in leggings and a bra, with a towel draped over her shoulders. I stand behind her, painting pink onto the ends of her hair.

“Do you think this is your new calling?” she asks as I wrap a section of her newly pinked hair in tinfoil. “You seem to be a good hairdresser.”

I stop, bend my face near hers, and speak sharply. “If I were you, Miss Josie, I wouldn’t be mocking the guy holding a paintbrush full of hair dye.”

“I was just teasing,” she says softly, but with worry in her tone. “You know that, right?”

“Yes. I do. I’m just giving you a hard time,” I tell her, since that’s what I have to do to make it through this. Joke, tease, play. Bring us back to who we were before.

“I appreciate you doing this,” she says, tilting her face up at me.

Fuck. Those green eyes. Those pretty lips. She makes it too difficult to give her a hard time when all I want to do is kiss her.

But duty calls, and I paint another strand. “I’m not doing this because I have hairdresser aspirations. I’m doing this for you.”

She moves her arms behind her and wraps them around my thighs. “Thank you.”

Even though all my instincts tell me to drop a kiss on her lips, or whisper something sweet in her ear, I don’t listen to them. I ignore them completely and finish her hair.

At some point she lowers her hands and folds them in her lap. Briefly, I wonder if she can feel the tension in the room. If she can sense the shift.

When I’m done, she stands and looks at me. Her eyes are etched with worry—maybe fear, too. “I have to let it sit for twenty minutes. Do you want to watch another episode of Bored to Death?”

I say yes, and we settle in next to each other on the couch.

We started bingeing on this HBO show a few days ago. The first time we watched an episode was Tuesday night, after a wildly hot session under the sheets during which we learned that we’re one of those couples that not only loves, but is really fucking good at sixty-nine.

Fuck.

I didn’t mean couple.

But, boy, did we rock that position. Neither one of us skipped a beat. I devoured her sweet pussy while she went to town on my cock, and we climaxed within about sixty seconds of each other.

And now I’m aroused while watching Ted Danson. Great. Fucking great. I’m not even touching Josie, she smells like a chemical factory, and yet the mere memory of her coming on my face is enough to get a hell of a rise out of me.

Hmmm.

Maybe I need one more time with her.

Yeah, I definitely need a final round. We don’t have to sixty-nine for me to be a happy camper. Any position will do.

When the show ends and she clicks off the TV, I offer my services. “Want me to rinse that out?”

“Sure.”

Back into the bathroom we go. Josie drops the towel from her shoulders and strips off her leggings. She unhooks the bra, and the white lace falls to the tile floor. I strip off my clothes, too, while she turns on the faucet. As the water heats up, I reach behind her head and undo the tinfoil pieces, balling them up and tossing them in the trash.

Then she tips her head toward the shower.

She doesn’t have to say it. But I swear I can hear the words on her lips. One last time.