Some Really Gay Christmas Cookies

“Christmas cookies,” Kellin states. “We need to make Christmas cookies.”

My best friend and I are standing in the kitchen of his house together, him with a printed-out cookie recipe and me with nothing but the confused look that’s probably on my face. I’ve just woken up, and he’s down here bright and early, seeming as if he’s not tired at all. This is new.

“That’s why you called me at six in the morning and begged me to come over?”

"Yep. We need to make Christmas cookies. Now. Pronto. ASAP."

"Okay," I say slowly, rubbing my eyes. "May I ask why you’re so enthusiastic about this?"

"I just wanted to bake some cookies with you," he says innocently, which means that he’s not very innocent at all. I know him.

"You’ve got something evil planned, you little shit," I tease. "I’m not stupid."

Kellin pouts. “Don’t you trust me?”

"After the whole fake spider incident? No. No, I do not."

"Come on, you have to admit that was kinda funny." He holds out the recipe. "But seriously. I’m not planning anything. Let’s just bake these cookies. I’m feeling very cookie-deprived."

So we rush around the kitchen, gathering all the supplies and setting them down on counters and the breakfast bar. Then I notice something.

"Hey," I say, "why are all these measurements in grams?"

"Oh—it’s a British recipe. Like, the person it came from is British. So we’re gonna have to do some math." He makes a disgusted face. "Ew. Math."

"British? Well, now I’m even more suspicious. They’ll probably tell us to put in, like, fifty gallons of tea or something."

Kellin raises an eyebrow. “Well, better to put the tea in the cookies rather than in the harbor.”

He always was a bit of a history nerd.

I’m acting annoyed, but really, I’m glad he called me to do this. We’ve been best friends for years, and I’m used to these sorts of things, but for a while now, I’ve been starting to think of him as something a little bit more than just a friend. It’s a scary thought, because I know I’ll probably just ruin it if I admit that I think I’ve fallen in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same way. But isn’t this the kind of thing that couples would do? He’s not trying to send me a signal or anything, is he? Or maybe—probably—he’s just being himself. I should stop reading into things.

Many sketchy conversions later, we’ve actually sort of figured out what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it. The dough is surprisingly not turning to shit, considering that we probably got at least half of those conversions wrong. Kellin has ended up doing some sort of weird dance as he’s whisking the mixture, which consists of him doing some hip movements that really shouldn’t be as attractive as they are. I can’t stop looking at him throughout this whole thing, and I’m pretty sure he’s starting to notice.

"Are you tired?" he asks. "You keep staring off into space."

"Well, yeah, I’m tired because you woke me up at six in the morning to bake some fucking Christmas cookies," I say. I don’t tell him the real reason for my staring.

"You can go back to sleep once we’re done, I promise," he says as he starts to roll the dough out on the countertop. "Now come help me with this."

We end up using cookie cutters and making the cookies into a bunch of different shapes, before finally putting them into the oven. Kellin’s starting to act kind of weird as we wait, seeming quieter and more fidgety. At one point, he goes over to the kitchen sink and splashes his face with cold water. “It’s hot in here,” he explains. It is pretty warm in here, but I can’t help but think that he’s acting less like he’s just hot and more like he’s nervous about something.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Yeah, I’m fine," he says, laughing a little. "I can’t believe you actually came over."

"I always come when you call," I say. He flips me off, a gesture indicating that Supernatural references are not funny.

At that moment, the oven beeps, indicating that the cookies are ready. We’ve already got a bunch of frosting and sprinkles set up on the bar, since Kellin insists that these cookies will not be complete until we decorate them.

"Is it stereotypical of me to be baking?" he asks as he’s setting the cookie trays down in front of us, one for him and one for me. "Like, am I perpetuating the gay stereotype by baking?" Then he shrugs. "Whatever. I don’t care. I like cookies, and I also like men. Anyone who gives me shit can suck it."

I’ll tell you a little secret about Kellin: Rambling about something irrelevant is another nervous habit of his.

"Don’t look at my cookies while I’m decorating them," he says firmly. "It’s a surprise."

Sure enough, a few minutes later, he taps me on the shoulder as I’m decorating. I turn to him, noticing the unusually shy look that has crossed his face. “Hmm?” I say.

He gestures to his cookie tray. Six cookies have been laid out next to each other, each with one word written on them in frosting, creating an unexpected phrase: Will you go out with me?

At first I think I’m just imagining it—maybe it’s some early morning hallucination. But as I look at it, it becomes all to clear that it’s real, that this is what Kellin’s been nervous about, that this is the reason that he’s now staring at me with a mix of hope and fear in his expression.

"I—I’m sorry, I just—" he stutters, his cheeks turning red.

I turn back around to face him and press my lips to his, cutting him off with a soft kiss. “Kellin,” I say when I pull away, “my answer is absolutely.”

A wide grin spreads across his face. “I—wow. I didn’t think this would actually work.”

"I knew you were planning something, you liar!" I tease, and he giggles. "Seriously, though," I add, "what was with the British recipe?"

He shrugs. “I stole it from some British YouTubers. Oops.”

"You’re such a nerd." I kiss him again. "But you’re my nerd, so it’s okay."