Kiss Her Once for Me (45)

For the first time in twenty-four hours, she sets her eyes on me as I stretch the joint in her direction. She holds up both hands. “No, thanks. Someone in this kitchen needs to have their wits about them. Okay, fam!” Jack declares at full volume. “Let’s get started. This year, we’re making cutout cookies, peanut butter fudge, and dasik.”

I must involuntarily make a face of confusion because Jack adds, “Dasik is a Korean pressed cookie. We used to make them for Lunar New Year as kids, but now we usually make them at Christmas. This year, we’re doing half with sesame seeds and half with green tea.”

I nod as if I understand anything about baking. I’m suddenly captivated by the way Jack takes charge of the kitchen, assigning everyone in the family different jobs, sending Katherine to the stove to heat up the skillets for the dasik and Meemaw to the stand mixer to work on the homemade frosting for the cutout cookies. The sight of Jack in her red apron, the strings tied around the dip of her waist. She’s wearing her glasses, which only make her more attractive, like a hot lesbian architect. The sleeves on her flannel are rolled up to her elbows, revealing the black swirls of tattoo ink on her arms, those glorious tendons that flex when she cooks breakfast in the morning, those fingers that move—Shit.

A tiny bit of weed, and my brain is already hyperfixating.

“Jack is an incredible cook,” Meemaw tells me, when she catches me staring at her granddaughter.

“Mmm,” I say in response, trying to focus on the dough Andrew and I are going to roll out, and not on the way Jack looks mixing the peanut butter with the sugar and melted butter.

“She works at a shop on Division, but she’s opening her own bakery,” Meemaw continues proudly.

All of my attention is back on Jack, watching her freckled cheeks turn the faintest hint of pink beneath her eyes. “Wait, you are?”

Jack shrugs one shoulder and pushes the hair out of her face. “Yeah, I am. Opening my own bakery, that is.”

I stare down at the mound of dough on the parchment paper in front of me. Memories attempt to overtake me, but I shove them back, not wanting to think about that day or that place—about the building she showed me when she told me about her dream. When Andrew passes the joint to me a second time, I accept it.

“And Jacqueline is opening the bakery all by herself, without any financial help,” Katherine notes as she meticulously roasts the sesame seeds.

“Mom,” Jack says, in a tone that suggests Katherine’s comment is something more than a casual observation. “It’s perfectly fine. I took out a business loan, and I have the money—”

“But you have to pay the loan back, and if the bakery doesn’t turn a profit… I just don’t understand why you’re willing to take this financial risk when your father’s company could invest—”

“I don’t want it to be a Prescott Investments business,” Jack jumps in. “I want it to be my business.”

Beside me, Andrew’s body is tense, tightly coiled. “Then your grandmothers could help,” Katherine continues.

Meemaw nods as she locks the stand mixer into place. “I’ve said I’d be happy to give you some startup money, just to get you on your feet until the bakery starts making money.”

For a moment, the kitchen is quiet except for the sound of the KitchenAid whorling the frosting.

“Thank you, Meemaw,” Jack finally says through a clenched jaw. “But I can do this on my own. I can open my own bakery without the family’s help.”

“Yes, but why would you?” Katherine’s little outburst is met with a glare from Jack.

“Maybe I don’t want to be dependent on the Prescott name to accomplish my dream,” she bites out.

Lovey reaches over to put a papery hand on Jack’s elbow. “Your mother is just concerned about you. She doesn’t want to see you fail.”

Jack shuts her eyes tight. I remember her sitting in the coffee shop at Powell’s, telling me, I’m the family fuck-up. “Well, you can all relax,” Jack says bitterly. “When I fail, I’ll have Grandpa’s trust to fall back on, okay?”

I flinch as Andrew’s fist collides with the ball of dough in front of him. He pulls his hand away, and there’s a little imprint of his knuckles.

“Andrew!” Lovey scolds in a low voice. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Sorry,” he grumbles, avoiding his grandmother’s gaze. “Sorry, I just need some air.”

He moves around the countertop, and I’m vaguely aware that, as his fiancée, I should probably follow him, but before my loose limbs can move, Dylan is abandoning the fudge. “I’ll go see what’s up with him.”

There’s a heavy tension in the air once Andrew and Dylan are gone. Michael Bublé is crooning “Holly Jolly Christmas,” but there doesn’t seem to be anything jolly about the cookie-baking process. Katherine presses her manicured fingers to her temples. “I have a headache.” She winces to sell it. “I—I need to go lie down.”

The stand mixer is still spinning away, and Jack reaches over to turn it off. “Thanks, Jacqueline, sugar.” Meemaw smiles. “You know, I’m really no good at all this domestic baking business….”

“Go.” Jack shrugs. “It’s fine. You, too, Lovey.”