Which definitely should have felt nice, but instead just compounded my crimes. “I’m really sorry. I hope this doesn’t mess up our Valentine’s Date.” A voice in the back of my head was moaning, This was supposed to be casual, what happened to casual?
“How could it?” They held up the grocery bags they were carrying. “Kitchen?”
I led them through to the back of the house. “I’ve been on the edge of my seat to find out what we’re doing.”
They set the bags on the counter and turned toward me. They’d done a thing with their hair where it swooped to one side with a braid that started above their right eye and ended over their left ear.
“I like your hair,” I said, feeling weirdly shy.
They touched it. “Thanks. Um. Okay. This might be a silly idea? But I brought over stuff to bake cookies. Because you said you preferred that to a fancy dinner date, which is traditional for Valentine’s Day. But if that doesn’t sound good, we can always acquire actual food instead. We can do whatever. I’m not devoted to the cookie idea.”
Oh god, they’d tailored the date to, like...me. And I’d shown up in ratty clothes internally whining about wanting things to be casual. “Oh my god, that sounds amazing. Let’s make and then eat a whole bunch of cookies.” I waved my hands around. “Go on, what’d you bring?”
They exhaled. “I was into this a few days ago, but then when I packed it all up to come over I started thinking I had guessed wrong. This dating thing is not for the faint of heart, Declan.”
“You’re telling me. Now let me see what you got.” They stepped aside so I could look at all the goodies. “Oh boy, are we making sugar cookies? And, like, decorating them?” I shoved my glasses up as if to better see what I was unpacking. “Oh my god, are these dinosaur cookie cutters?”
“You have to be a little careful with the T. rex’s arms. Sometimes they crack off. But for the most part, they work really well. I mean, I haven’t used them that much, but I can make a small batch of cookies in my toaster oven.”
I jumped up and down, partially in genuine delight, partially in residual nerves and overcompensation. “Sidney. This is the best. When do we get started?”
“Now, I think?”
“Yaaaaaay!” I might have been overdoing the enthusiasm a little judging by the uncertain look they shot me. “Do you want something to drink? I have sparkling water in legit glass bottles, also I have the makings for hot cocoa, which we can have now while baking, later while eating, or both. Because we’re grown-ups and we can have as much hot cocoa and cookies as we want.”
They hesitated. “Do you have marshmallows?”
“I have two different kinds of marshmallows. I was totally in the mood, but I couldn’t decide whether to go with ginormous white ones or multicolored little ones, so I bought both.”
Sidney nodded approval. “I find the small ones are more visually appealing in a cup of cocoa.”
“I agree. And they melt faster. But sometimes you need a really big marshmallow in your life.” I held their gaze with a ridiculous smile on my face.
“That sentence wants to be innuendo but I can’t make it work,” they said after a second.
“I know! I tried, though.” I rubbed my hands together and surveyed our ingredients. “So, mixing bowls. Mixing bowls, mixing bowls, must find the mixing bowls.”
* * *
There should be a scientific formula for how much cookie dough gets eaten before the cookies go into the oven. You’d have to take into consideration the number of bakers and the length of time since each of them last ate, plus tolerance for the risk of salmonella poisoning.
Sidney and I apparently both had a high tolerance for potential food poisoning, though they told me it was the flour you really had to watch out for.
Sugar cookie batter, while not as satisfying to eat as chocolate chip cookie dough, was still pretty tasty, and once we had all of our dinosaurs in the oven we did a fair amount of “cleaning” up the bits that were left over by, you know, eating them in between sips of cocoa.
“I considered getting the pre-made icing,” Sidney said, running a damp cloth over the counter while I washed the dishes we’d already used. “But then I realized that it might be nice to have something to fill the time with. It was weird. I already know we’re comfortable just sitting here watching TV, so I don’t know why I felt all this pressure to come up with things for us to do.”
Which would have been an acceptable place for me to admit I was a little jittery too, but I didn’t know how that would help, so I didn’t. “What kind of icing are we making?”
They rinsed off their hands and started drying mixing bowls. “It’s just powdered sugar and lemon juice, but I brought colors and actual brushes to use.”
I nudged them. “Brushes? We’re going to paint our dinosaurs?”
A pink flush stole over their cheeks. “I, um, saw it on YouTube.”
“Did you do...research for this date?”
“Look, I don’t date, it’s Valentine’s Day, which I know has some meaning to you, and I really wanted you to have a good time—”
“Teasing, teasing, sorry.” I nudged them again. “No matter what, it’s bound to be a much better date than us sitting in a fancy restaurant having to choose between multiple forks.”
“I get off on using the wrong fork for things. Sometimes it’s not obvious, but sometimes it is. Or spoons. Using a soup spoon to stir coffee really makes people uncomfortable.”
I giggled. “You are so sadistic.”
“I consider it my job to unsettle people. Or less my job and more my calling.” They glanced over, one eyebrow slightly raised, Very Serious Expression. “I didn’t ask for this calling, Declan, but it is my grave responsibility to give back to the world that has given so much to me.”
“So much, uh, being-unsettled?”
“Ha. Actually, yeah. I never seemed to make sense in any context I was put into, so now I bring my not-sense-making right to other people’s doorsteps. Or computer screens, whichever.”
“I like it. Your way of not making sense. It makes a lot more sense to me than other people’s way of making sense. If that makes sense.”
They groaned. “Too far. You took it too far.”
“Just far enough.” I shut off the water. “Okay, what’s next?”
By the time the cookies were cool (the ones that survived the initial, uh, human meteor strike of us “tasting” them, anyway), we had four bowls of very brightly colored icing: hot pink, neon green, electric blue, and lemon yellow.