The Search for Lily Myers ✓

39 | More Than Meets the Eye

"Maybe letting me decorate these was a bad idea," Amelia frowned.

She had just tried to use icing to draw a face onto one of her and Henry's gingerbread men and it was now looking something more like a possessed Teletubby.

"It won't work well while they're still hot!" he called from the living room.

Oops.

He came over to the kitchen island to investigate her handiwork before she could eat the incriminating evidence. When his eyes landed on the cookie, he bit down on his lip and she watched as he mustered every ounce of willpower he had not to lose it and burst into laughter.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop himself from cracking a smile, but he quickly tried to regain his composure. "Your artistic skills never cease to amaze me."

"Oh, shut up," she muttered, but even she had to stifle a giggle when I glanced back down at it.

Henry picked up the abomination and popped it into his mouth in one bite. Judging by his happy expression while he chewed it, she assumed it turned out tasting better than it looked.

"Your baking skills are impeccable," he said innocently.

The only part she had done was use the cookie cutter. In classic Henry fashion, he had decided that the pre-made stuff from the grocery store wasn't sufficient enough and insisted on making the gingerbread dough—and the icing—from scratch.

She narrowed my eyes. "Show off."

"No, I'm serious," he teased. "The placement of the icing really made it for me. It was so innovative how you melted it all over the counter like that."

He was being dramatic—there was a singular drop of icing on the counter. He stepped closer to come and wrap his arms around her waist and she tried to look irritated, but she probably wasn't doing herself any favors in that department by draping her arms around the back of his neck and letting him kiss her forehead.

"You're annoying." She wasn't sure she sounded very convincing.

"Mhmm. I can tell by how annoyed you're acting with me."

She playfully shoved him away and retreated to the living room, where they had been working on decorating their Christmas tree. After their morning excursion to acquire it, they figured they might as well make a whole day of prettying it up. They'd perused through what ornaments Henry had, headed over to Amelia's place so she could grab some of her favorites from her own stash, and then popped over to the grocery store because he'd gotten the munchies and wanted a festive snack for their festive day. While he was wandering around grabbing his ingredients, she'd poked around the holiday section to get some lights and tinsel and check if there were any ornaments there that she absolutely had to have. She might have gone a little bit overboard, but Christmas only rolled around once a year, so she didn't regret it even once she got her total at the cash register.

Now, the tree was coming together nicely. They had almost gotten through Henry's box of ornaments when the oven had started beeping and she'd run over to pull the gingerbread out. And thus the cookie demon was born—it was for the best that she passed off the icing duties to Henry before any more atrocities could be spawned.

Amelia reached into the box of ornaments and carefully picked up a small silver bell, which she hung near the top of the tree. Over at the kitchen counter, Henry had glanced down at his phone.

"Liam wants to know if we want to grab drinks later."

They all probably needed it after the shitshow that had been last night. A chance to decompress and just be themselves and possibly wallow in the angst of being twenty-somethings didn't seem like such a bad idea.