One Moment More - S. J. Evans (books for men to read .TXT) 📗

This was a very, very bad idea. As I stared down at the broken sugar cookie in my hand—the remains of what had once been a perfect heart-shaped treat of delicious sugary goodness but had quickly turned into a crumbling mess the moment I picked it up from its cooling tray—I could only hope that Bailee would forgive me. I mean, after all, it was only one of the dozens of other cookies spread across the kitchen counter, dusted with flour and ready to be frosted; surely it wouldn’t be a problem that I’d crushed any hopes of it ever looking presentable. Right?

         But then again this was my sister—my nine-year-old sister—we were talking about, and these cookies were supposed to be “perfect” for her and her friends from school. So it was kind of a big deal. And she’d been counting on me. But of course, now, with my hands all powdery and sugar coated with guilt, my chances of resolving this little issue and winning back her admiration were very slim. Practically microscopic.         Oh, the joys of having a little sister who’ll beg you to help her make cookies the day before a Valentine’s Day party in school. (Sarcasm very much intended.)

        “You call that art?” Without even looking at her, I could tell Bailee was smirking at me, trying—and nearly failing—to hold back her laughter at my pathetic attempts to merely frost a stupid cookie. “Hate to break it to you, sissy, but I don’t think opening your own bakery any time soon is in your best interest. Or anything that involves handling things with care for that matter.”

        Setting golden bits of the cookie still hanging on by a slim thread down, I let out a considerably loud sigh and pushed the urge to run out of the room before anything else could go wrong away. At least she didn’t sound completely disappointed in my inability to handle a cookie with care. I mean, I tried, okay?  It’s not like I meant to crumble it; it just happened.

        “Gee, thanks, Bails,” I mumbled, wiping my hands off on my green and gold butterfly apron from back in the days when I’d often helped my mum in the kitchen as a young girl (it had always been too big on me back then, anyway), and looking up at my adorably golden sister. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to run my own business. Pinky swear.”

         She grinned at me, having momentarily abandoned her unharmed cookie to investigate the mess I’d made, her squinty blue-gray eyes sparkling behind those long lashes of hers, and stuck out her pinky across the counter space between us. “Pinky swear, huh? Let’s have it.”

         Darn it. Why did she have to be so freakin’ adorable? That smug (and yet somehow still innocent) look on her face made it impossible to wallow in my mourning over the death of the heart-shaped dessert I had just destroyed. (Let’s be honest here, though . . . that heart was never cut out for this world anyways. I probably did it a favor by breaking it. I regret nothing.)

         And so, giving in to her cuteness (mostly because I wasn’t about to encourage dwelling on the subject any longer), I leaned across the counter and wound my pinky around hers, shaking on it, and said, “Pinky promise. Now can we just move on please? I’m really sorry I ruined your cookie.” Then I pressed my palms flat against a relatively clear space—merely sprinkled with flour—on the smooth marble counter top, the surface cool beneath my fingertips, and blew a strand of white-blond hair (lightened from the previous summer spent at our beach house by the shore) that had fallen from the messy bun on top of my head out of my face, cracking a small smile.

         She nodded, her honey-blonde ponytail bobbing behind her, and licked some frosting off her finger before washing her hands in the deep-set sink to the far left side of the kitchen, under a window that displayed layers of bright snow covering every inch of the outdoors. “It’ll be our little secret,” she promised as she returned to her task of perfecting the half-frosted cookie in front of her, flashing me a wink right beforehand. “But just in case you’re tempted to make a habit of it, Cookie Monster, you should probably start sprinkling the finished cookies with these hearts instead.” She held up the bottle of tiny red, white, and pink sprinkles, that signature smirk sneaking up her lips again. “I’ve got to be able to bring at least a few goodies to my friends tomorrow. It is a party, you know.”

         Now I’m the Cookie Monster? Oh, how lovely . . . not. “You’re a pain sometimes, you know that,” I said innocently, as a small bubble of laughter unwillingly tumbled from my dry, chapped lips. She narrowed her brows at me, and I could tell she was preparing to defend herself if need be. This time the widening of my smile was one-hundred percent genuine. “But . . . I still love you to death, Bails. And I couldn’t have asked for a better little sis.”

         After that, as I moved around the counter to set myself up for Operation Make The Cookie Look Good Without Touching It, Bailee mumbled “Right back at you,” and squeezed the small white tube with cheery-red frosting inside, spreading a swirly pattern on a new cookie. Then I nudged her arm from my spot to the left of her and clicked on the radio using the small, circular remote balanced on top of an open box of sugar cookie mix, letting myself get lost in the experience of just spending some good ol’ fashioned time with my sister, bonding over cookies and music and a whole lot of childish fights that involved impressive amounts of frosting and flour.

 “What do you mean you can’t go?”

        Later that same day, after decorating a little over two dozen cookies until they reached a suitable level of holiday pizzazz (Bailee’s words, not mine), I sat cross-legged on my bed, with a beach towel draped underneath me so that the patches of flour Bailee had smeared all over me wouldn’t leave a white stain on my Pikachu bed sheets. (And yes, I just said I have Pikachu bed sheets; I went through a phase of adoring the little creature a few months back. Sue me.) My cell phone—one of the simplistic freebies my parents got with some special family-plan deal, complete with a slide out texting keyboard that I couldn’t even use and decorated with a bedazzled Pikachu case (shocking, I know)—was directly in front of me, projecting my best friend Lila’s  incoherent mutters of disbelief on speakerphone.

       “What I mean is just that: I can’t go tonight. I have to watch Bailee,” I explained slowly, interrupting her unnecessary tirade of sorts. She stopped muttering for a second, hopefully to process the news and realize she’d lost this battle. But then I heard the faintest sounds of a printer going in the background, the jangling of keys, and the unmistakable sigh of relief that when dealing with Lila could only mean one thing: She was up to something. Something that screamed trouble.

        “Well. I hate to ruin your exhilarating plans, babe, but that’s just not acceptable,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “You are going out with me and the groupies tonight. And that’s that. No negotiations allowed.” There was a lot of shuffling on the other end, a loud thud followed by a string of curse words her mother would have grounded her for ever even thinking about much less muttering, and then the slamming of a car door. I was still trying to process the possibility of skipping out on a Sunday night of babysitting and relaxing in my bedroom while I watched The Notebook on my laptop for the fiftieth time, just to go to out with some friends for a Valentine’s Day celebration—destination unknown—that probably involved at least a little illegal drinking, when she added, “I’ll be over in five. Better start getting ready.”

        Shoot. How am I supposed to explain to her I don’t really want to go?

       Exactly ten minutes later (Lila was famous for being “fashionably late”, always marching in to things at her own pace), Bailee answered the door before the girl on the other side even had the chance to knock. Not that she needed to, considering the fact that she knew exactly where we keep our spare key: in the bright red and yellow birdfeeder that hung from a chain beside the wooden porch swing now covered in snow. But nevertheless, I felt a little burst of disappointment bubble inside of me; I had been hoping to keep the unnecessary confrontations to a minimum, after all. And Bailee didn’t need to know what Lila was up to.           I mean, I wasn’t sure that even I wanted to know what exactly it was she was up to. Though I could only assume it involved a lot of sneaking around – or at the very least, some wacky plan that required a little Fairy Godmother kind of magic – and a whole lot of kicking and screaming on my part.

         “Lila McDuffie!” Bailee squealed as she opened the front door to reveal my scheming best friend, who looked rather flirty in her little black party dress, the one with a heart-shaped neckline and tiny rubies embedded into the bodice, tight and revealing enough to draw the attention of boys all over town. “You look gorgeous! But what are you doing here?”

         Lila reached forward and wrapped Bails into a quick hug. “Just stopped by to borrow your sister for a few hours,” she explained as she pulled away, and when she saw me, standing at the foot of the staircase only a few feet away from her, she raised a pointed brow, crossing her arms over her chest. “What on earth happened to you? I thought I told you to get ready? Not jump into a bed of—what is that—flour?”         

         Fumbling with the ends of my powdery hair, I tried to think up an excuse that didn’t make me sound completely pathetic. But before I could say anything, Bailee interjected with, “We had a major flour war break out while we were frosting cookies for my Valentine’s Day party earlier! Well, actually, I was the one frosting the cookies because Reina couldn’t do it without destroying them, but it was a lot of fun! We totally trashed the kitchen. You should have been there.”

         I was this close to retreating back into my bedroom, as if none of this had ever happened, and never speaking to another soul again—except for maybe my pet hamster, Oscar (not that he really counted, since he never spoke back); but I thought better of it. After all, Lila and I had been friends for so long, dating back to that first day we ran into each other—literally ran into each other on the way to school—right on the sidewalk of a busy neighborhood a couple blocks away in second grade, that the news of my pathetic (and by pathetic, I mean non-existing) cookie handling skills didn’t seem to surprise her that much. She had grown to accept me and my “quirks” by now.

          Well, for the most part, at least.

         So instead of laughing at me and disowning me as her friend, like some people would have, she simply nodded her head and cracked a smile. “Wish I could have been there.” Her ocean blue eyes twinkled, despite the hall’s dim lighting. “I’ve always loved a good food fight, you know,” she added, flashing me a wink.             Bailee smiled that adorable and incredibly contagious smile of