I Believe In Us (This Holiday)

Christmas season had come again and she still wasn’t quite sure how it happened. It seemed that a blink of an eye ago it had been August and the weather hot. It seemed like just a heartbeat before she had been wearing shorts and vests and sunglasses. However, it was most definitely December now and Christmas was just around the corner.

Time really did fly. She was convinced. It had happened.

The weather was colder and she was now wearing a jumper and jeans, her heat on to battle the dreary British weather that had made its claim outside her window. For Christ’s sake, there was even snow outside. Thank God there was another two weeks until actual Christmas, because she had to stop off and buy all her presents still and, God, she didn’t even want to have to think about what she was getting her mum and dad this year. At least there was one good thing about December. She may have gotten caught up with her life and all that came with it but her best friend hadn’t and he’d rang her a few days ago to make sure they were going to keep up with their Christmas tradition, even if it had completely vacated her mind this year.

So here they were, she and her lifelong best friend, making cookies in the kitchen of the very tiny flat she now rented out. At least this didn’t change—even if Liam had.

He had been a cute kid, that was for sure, even as he ran round town and caused trouble. He had grown up into such a man though, even at just nineteen. He was tall and solid, with broad shoulders and a tummy she could prove wasn’t a tummy at all. He had this deep voice that had thrown her for a loop when it had finally settled and broad hands that seemed big and capable and adult-like. For all of that, he still had a smile that made the corners of those big brown eyes—unchangeable like his sunny nature—crinkle up when he was truly happy and that was all that really mattered.

Paige mixed the batter, humming along to the Christmas song currently playing from the radio. They were in full festive mode here, her apartment resplendent with the music and Christmas lights, her tree, sad but there, in the corner with its ornaments. The entire place even smelled like Christmas, a heady scent of cinnamon and sugar cookie, though the cookies were explanatory. Obviously.

Liam was singing with the clear, beautiful voice he possessed as he made dollops on their pan with the batter they had already made. Their first batch was cooling on the rack, big, thick slabs of sugary confection that they’d soon drown in frosting. They always shared one and “taste tested” it together to make sure they were as perfect as they knew they would be. They had this down to a science, they did. Their mums had been fast friends ever since their college days when they met at fifteen and they had made these very same sugar cookies when both she and Liam had been in the womb. Or, well, practically. They’d been doing it ever since they’d been born at least. Paige and Liam had had these tradition—and so many others—pummeled into them by their mums and this was probably their collective favorite. She and Liam had been making their own batch of cookies since they had been fifteen and they knew what needed to be done. This was a no-brainer.

Paige listened to Liam sing, smiling slightly at the sound. He was just so good. She had begged him to try and pursue it when he’d been trying to make decisions about his future but he had claimed he hadn’t been good enough, nor was he confident enough to really go for it. He said he preferred to just sing round his friends and family, maybe occasionally when he was out if he’d had enough, but that he was going to leave it at that. Paige had been disappointed but Liam was loving uni and seemed to be doing quite well pursuing his dream of becoming a college-level teacher, so who was she to argue?

Still. They were best friends.

“You’d do a brilliant rendition of this,” she commented, eyes hooked to the batter she was stirring. It just needed a few more turns with her spoon and then it’d be perfect. “I reckon you should think about it.”

“You do, do you?” Liam laughed, squeezing in behind her to open the stove so he could slide the new tray in. They had perhaps not considered the very, very small space of her kitchen when they’d decided to do their baking here. Perhaps they should have…

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, I hate to tell you, love, but you know it’s not going to be happening.”

“Not even if I get some beers in you?”

“Not even then.” Liam closed the stove and turned to face her, smiling. She watched as his hand inched toward their completed set and glared him down until he stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned innocently her way.

“You forget I know the secret.”

“What secret?”

“That if you’re drinking vodka you’ll literally do anything anyone tells you to.”

He pulled a face at that and Paige laughed, remembering wickedly Liam’s seventeenth birthday when they and their other friends from their form sneaked into a club and got absolutely smashed in celebration. At one point in time, Liam had climbed on top of the table, shouting, and they’d been kicked out and run before the coppers could be called on them. The things Liam had done because of the amount he’d been drinking had been mental and, God, but Paige still loved to take the mickey out of him over it to this day.

“We don’t talk about that, ‘member?” he pouted.

“You don’t talk about it because it makes you feel the twat. I, however, looooove talking about it because you were a twat and it was brilliant because you hardly ever are.”

“I know how to have fun,” he argued and Paige laughed again.

“That you do, love, but you’re usually so sensible so it’s a laugh seeing you become unwound and acting the animal.”

He shrugged, giving her the point, and Paige pushed the bowl of batter away, quickly sealing it over with saran wrap until they could unload the stove and put the new batch in.

“Ready to frost?”

“I was born ready.”

They moved to the opposite counter, squeezed tight side by side. They had their homemade frosting and all the goodies along to go with it before them and their blank canvases, masterpieces ready to be made. Liam was the better froster, though Paige would never admit it. She was envious of how smooth he could spread it on so she made up for it by dousing her cookies with sprinkles and all the other toppings they had accumulated, turning them into little fireworks of sugary death.

They were silent, comfortable with one another, listening to Bing Crosby croon over the radio as they worked. Liam finally bumped her hip with his, eyes slanting her way as he smiled at her.

“How’s school and all that going?”

“Fine.” She laughed. “I think I called you every day the first month to complain about it though.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard at the beginning, yeah? I was homesick too.”

She nodded, thinking back to Wolverhampton. Paige missed home, and it was a long way from Manchester, but she liked what she had created here. She was living her own life and it felt bloody fantastic. Her flat may have been small and her water heater may have been dodgy at best, but it was hers and that made it more than good enough.

“Yeah, I remember.” They had grown so much closer over the last year, the both of them struggling with the new directions their lives had taken them and the challenges they’d had to face. Liam had always been her best friend, had always been the one person who always had her back, but this year Paige had realized he was an angel in disguise and that losing him would be tantamount to losing herself. “I’m just glad we’ve both worked through it, yeah, and come out the brilliant, intelligent, sexy, gorgeous as sin people we are today.”

“I don’t know about brilliant…”

“Shut it!” She elbowed him in the side and he just laughed, tickling her back, making her squeal as she squirmed out of the way.

“I’m only joking, Paige. You are brilliant. And funny and lovely and—”

“Keep going,” she urged. “You’re not quite done digging yourself out of the hole you were in yet.”

It made him laugh and toss some sprinkles at her, getting them all in her hair. Paige voiced her discontent and flung frosting off her knife toward his face. It splattered on the side of her fridge, as well as his face, and they both started laughing. Paige had to grip onto the counter for support, such was the intensity of her giggles. Liam wiped the remains from the back of his head only to smear it all over her face, getting the white frosting all over her cheek.

It started one of their full-flung frosting fights and it didn’t end until the stove dinged, alerting them to the fact that their next batch was now done and they were only halfway through frosting the first.

Paige slowly, so slowly, set down the pearlescent decorations she had in one hand, eyeing Liam warily. Watching her just as intently, he set down the tube of gel frosting he had as well. They both extended their hands, displaying that they had no weapons.

“Truce?” Liam asked.

“Truce.”

They transferred the just-finished cookies to the cool down station—of course they had stations, even in her cramped kitchen—and returned to frosting, concentrating on their miniature works of art. They had to get them done quickly so they could put the next batch in and keep the whole process going. It was like clockwork, this, the both of them so used to it, and so there were no more tree-shaped sprinkles being thrown around, even if her floor was covered with the evidence of their own immaturity.

They talked as they worked, about anything and everything, as best mates were prone to do. They chatted about school some more and families—her brother was coming home with his girlfriend, or she’d heard, so that was bound to make Christmas fun—and music and films and anything and everything that sprang to mind. As efficient as ever, they loaded the next pan up and slid it into the fiery confines of the stove before they turned to survey their work, nothing left to do until the other cookies to cool so they could frost them next.

Liam extended a cheerful snowman her way. Paige looked up at him, snickering, insanely jealous about his cookie decorating skills again. The wanker.

“This the one we’re going to try?”

“That or the pink and green one.”

Paige craned around him to look at his other choice before they looked at each other, simultaneously saying, “This one.”

Liam broke the cookie in half, offering her the larger piece. He was always such a gentleman and she shouldn’t be surprised but she was. The world was full of dicks, if this year had taught her anything, but Liam was seriously made of gold. It went a lot farther beyond him offering her the lion’s portion of a cookie, but Liam was made up of small gestures and extravagant ones, and those smaller ones could be just as good and sweet.

Paige took a bite of her treat and literally moaned, nodding enthusiastically. Another thing that should never surprise her was how insanely good their cookies were, but you never really got used to perfection, did you? Besides, she only had these one time a year so, yeah, they damn well better be amazing as far as she was concerned.

Liam was nodding as well with his agreement, mouth full, his portion already half-gone. That was a lad for you though, wasn’t it? Sometimes Paige had to wonder if they were all stomach or not. She looked at him, ready to tell him that, but he swallowed—that looked like an immense effort—and reached toward her before he let his hand drop.

“You’ve a bit of frosting on your nose there.”

“Oh.” She reached up, swiping at her nose. When she looked at her hand, there was nothing there. She frowned and tried again and Liam laughed at her stupidity when she came away frosting less again. And here she’d been calling herself brilliant and intelligent and sexy just moments before. Finally, he laughed and grabbed her hand.

“Here, let me since you apparently can’t.”

He reached for her nose, taking off the dollop of frosting present there with ease. The bastard. Paige watched him, eyes slightly narrowed with false hostility. His eyes met hers and then he stopped, watching her. Paige frowned for his moment of hesitation and then he popped his finger in his mouth, sucking off the confection.

“It’s good frosting,” he murmured in the quiet. Why was it quiet? She had the radio playing, didn’t she? Didn’t she…?

“It’s always good frosting,” she whispered back.

Paige watched, her mind working slowly, so slowly, unable to process what was happening as Liam’s eyes dropped to her mouth and then to her eyes again. She watched, removed from her mind, entirely absent from it, as Liam moved closer, invading her personal space, his gaze caught on hers. And then, oh god, was this really happening? She could not have imaged in a million lifetimes this ever happening, and then—and then—and then—

His mouth touched hers, so softly, the sugar on them rubbing against hers.

Liam was kissing her. He was actually kissing her. The boy she had known since she’d been two weeks old, the boy she had shared so many adventures with, the boy who knew all her heartbreaks and secrets and triumphs. Her best friend. Her very best friend. And he was kissing her. Paige couldn’t believe it. She really couldn’t believe it.

It was a quick moment and he stepped back again, cheeks flushed, looking up at her so shyly it almost made her hurt from how cute it was. How was this happening? Why had—when did—

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat, smiling at her with such chagrin. “I just…I’ve always wanted to do that and you looked so lovely with frosting all over your face and I… I couldn’t help it.”

“Why did you stop?” Paige asked dumbly. It made Liam blink before his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

“Why did I stop…?” he repeated. “Because I didn’t…I…Did you not want me to stop?”

Paige looked at him for a moment before she slowly shook her head back and forth. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

“Oh.” Liam stared at her again before he moved forward and his mouth smashed to hers with a force she thought Liam—sweet Liam, cute Liam, the Good Samaritan Liam—couldn't possibly possess, his hand cupping the back of her head as he leaned into her, tasting of sugar cookies. Paige’s head spun but it was spinning from this, it was spinning because kissing Liam felt good, and she moved forward into him, gripping his shoulders.

When it had ended, they moved far enough away from each other so they could see one another, eyes bright and smiles happy. Paige reached up, cupping Liam’s cheek gently. She giggled and then kissed him again, burrowing into him.

“I didn’t even know I wanted that until it happened,” she laughed.

“I can’t say the same,” he murmured ruefully, kissing the top of her head. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.”

“Really?” Paige craned back to look at him and Liam looked down at her, nodding enthusiastically.

“Really.”

They laughed again and held on to one another as her Christmas lights twinkled and the music from the radio played. It was two weeks until Christmas and she had never, never been more in the spirit, thanks to her best friend. Suddenly, the entire season looked much more promising.