The Trouble With Falling

“I’ll hang some in the shop and around town tomorrow too,” Eli says as he pushes to his feet.

“Thanks. For everything.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I watch him over the back of the couch as he heads over to a bag that I didn’t notice before. He must have brought it in with him when he first got here but I was too distracted by the flyers.

“I got you something,” he says with a small smile as he carries the bag over to me and sets it at my feet.

“More presents?” I ask, studying the bag.

It’s a pretty big bag with the Grove Trading Shop logo emblazoned on the side and my curiosity is piqued.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I wanted to,” he assures me.

I grin at him, reaching forward to dig into the paper bag. I pull out a big box and I have to laugh when I see the logo on the top.

“Uggs?”

“Yeah,” he says with a grin as I pull off the top to see the boots that I had first tried to buy in his shop on the night that we met.

“I thought that these weren’t practical for this weather.”

“They aren’t, but since we’ve met, I’ve seen you run around in this weather in sneakers and high heels. I figured that at least these are warmer than those two options.”

I slide them on and grin when I see how cute they look, even with my yoga pants.

“I love them, Eli. Thank you so much. This was really sweet of you.”

I stand up, leaning up on my tiptoes to brush my lips against his.

“You’re welcome, sweets.”

I move to pick up the box by my feet but end up kicking it halfway under the coffee table.

“I’ll grab it,” Eli says as he bends down to fish the box out from under the table. “What’s this?” he asks, standing back up with the box that Grams and I had made.

I forgot that I had been looking it at last night and had left it out here.

“Our dream box,” I tell him with a soft smile.

“Can I look inside?” he asks and I nod, sitting back down on the couch.

Eli passes me the box and joins me as I flip the lid off and reach inside. I pull out the old recipe cards first since those are still on top from last night.

“Grams is the one who taught me how to bake. She took me in after my parents died and raised me. We used to cook dinner together every night, breakfast together on the weekends, and we baked. We baked every chance that we got.”

“Was she as good as you are?” Eli asks with a soft smile.

“Probably better,” I say with a laugh as I set the recipe cards aside and pull out the photographs next.

“Aw, a young Hartley Maverick,” he quips with a laugh when he sees the top picture is of me at about age seven, my dark hair in two pigtails, a smear of flour and chocolate on my left cheek.

“This was after the first time that we made chocolate chip cookies. We made the first tray perfectly. They were golden brown and chewy and just perfect. Then we celebrated a bit too much and burned the second batch to a crisp.”

Eli laughs, throwing his head back, letting the deep sound echo off the walls of my apartment.