The Game That Breaks Us (Us 3)

He chuckles and dumps the butter into the bowl and sugar. My dad and I had already gone around to each ‘station’ before we started and measured out the ingredients so there couldn’t be any errors there.

I dump the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir them together with a rubber spatula. I set it aside and grab Bennett’s wrist.

“Careful,” I warn. “You’ll over mix it.”

“Over mix it? Is that seriously a thing?”

I nod. “Yep. Now we add in the egg and vanilla.” I do that since I’m terrified that it’ll wind up with hunks of eggshell in the dough if he does it. “And then the dry ingredients.” I stir those in with the rubber spatula.

When it’s all mixed together, Bennett grins widely. “Hey, it looks like actual cookie dough.”

I resist the temptation to roll my eyes. “Of course it does.”

He shrugs sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m used to the stuff straight from the grocery store.”

My dad hears this and gasps from across the room. “You’ve never made homemade cookies?” He sounds scandalized.

Bennett shrugs. “It was just easier for my mom, I guess.”

My dad frowns at this but doesn’t comment.

I bump Bennett’s arm with mine. “It’s time to start rolling out the dough to go in the oven. Like this.” I grab a small amount and roll it into a ball between my hands before placing it on the waiting tray.

“Easy enough,” he says, grabbing a gob of dough.

“Whoa.” I grab his wrist to stop him. “You have way too much. You need like half that amount.” I take some of the dough from him and make my own.

“I’m not very good at this,” he says sheepishly.

I laugh and flick a piece of hair from my eyes that has fallen loose from my ponytail. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

He looks unsure, but by the time we’ve emptied the bowl of dough, he’s making nicer looking cookies than I am. I set the tray on the island so my dad can put it in the oven. He always takes over for that part, saying there’s some super-secret way to cook them so they stay gooey.

“All right, kids.” My dad claps his hands together. “Go to bed so Santa can come.”

“Dad,” Lincoln groans. “We know

Santa isn’t real.”

My dad narrows his eyes on Lincoln. “Of course he’s real.”

Even though all of us are old enough to not believe in Santa, my dad has never, not once, broken character when it comes to believing in him. In fact, we still get presents from ‘Santa’. It’s silly, but it makes my dad happy so who am I to ruin his fun? Plus, more presents, so yay me.

Bennett and I wash our hands before heading upstairs. I can still hear Lincoln groaning in his room. Even though I’m only in my first year of college, those years of teenage angst seem so long ago.

No one is in the hall so I pull Bennett into my room and close the door behind us.

I wrap my arms around his neck and he picks me up, my legs automatically winding around his waist.

He grins cockily. “Am I about to get my Christmas present?”

I kiss him teasingly and pull back all too soon. “No, I’m going to get mine.”

His smile widens. “I like the sound of that even better.”

These moments with Bennett are few and far between while we’re here. We’ve only had sex the two times and the bathroom was hardly sufficient, not getting to feel him skin to skin. I feel ready to burst with the need to be with him.

“We have to be quiet,” I warn him.