COMPLETE ✓| Charlotte Hastings found herself between a rock and a hard place when she aged out of the foster system. With only a car to her name, she set out on the open road, hoping to find long lost relatives. Winter hits her hard. When she meets...
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CHAPTER TWELVE | REVELATIONS
Charlotte Hastings
I was covered from head to toe in flour, but I didn't care one bit. It was worth it to have this experience with Eli. I felt like I was on Cloud 9, experiencing what a childhood should look like for the first time. Eli said, making cookies is a right of passage and at first I was skeptical but I now had a new love for baking. Rolling out the dough was satisfying as it slowly turned into a flat oval.
I turned to Eli, showing him the final product. "How's that?"
He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I reached over and took the christmas tree shaped cookie cutter in my hand. It lingered over the freshly rolled dough. Anxiety rose in my chest as I worried about messing it up. After so much work I had high hopes for these cookies.
"What now?" I asked, prolonging making the first cut.
"Now we find an edge," he said, pointing at one side of the dough, "and make the first tree." He reached his hand out and positioned my hand and the cookie cutter just above the spot he was pointing to. "Just press down."
I took in a shaky breath and made contact with the dough. I pressed down hard before I removed the cookie cutter, seeing the outline of a tree. Once I got a feel for what I was doing, I continued until the whole surface was covered in tiny christmas trees. Eli's hand lingered on the small of my back as he stepped closer, so close that I could feel his breath against my neck.
It was a taste of the life I always wanted. Even though I wasn't really a part of his family, somehow I still felt like I was. Everyone was just so nice and welcoming. I knew that I would have to let it all go when my car was done. It couldn't last forever because of one fact. We weren't family. My family was somewhere out there, waiting for me to find them.
Eli's voice broke me from my thoughts.
"Are you all right?" He smiled, his eyes searching mine. "It looks good." He carefully pulled the excess dough from around the trees and put it to the side. "We can just pick them up and put them up on the tray," he said when I didn't answer him.
I nodded and started to peel each individual tree off the counter carefully. Eli sighed and helped lay them down on the cookie sheet. Twelve perfect cookies. I slid on a pair of oven mitts and put the tray in. "How long do they go in for?"
"Try ten minutes, for now." He was still looking at me, and it seemed like he wanted to ask me more, but he just shook his head and set the timer.
I pulled myself up onto the counter. "Now we wait."
He began cleaning the counter. "Yeah, now we wait."
As he wet a cloth and began to wipe down the countertops, every now and then he would glance back at me. His forehead was creased as if deep in thought and it didn't take a genius to know what he was thinking about. My past was mysterious and even though I wanted it to stay that way, part of me felt like he deserved to know because I was about to put him through hell.
