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This is an ongoing investigation.
Chapter 36
Carefully, Jakob shut the door to the oven again, the rows of tree-shaped sugar cookies inside not yetquitethe color of gold he was looking for.
He could practically hear Frank's voice yelling at him to stop wasting the heat and leave it closed until the timer went off. But Jakob didn't trust the slightly amber tint of the oven’s window to tell him if the cookies were ready, or if there was simply a date with a bottle of oven cleaner in his near future.
Plus, getting to enjoy that whiff of baking cookies? Worth it.
He glanced at his phone as it dinged, grinning at the single emoji Cassie sent him of a rather surprised-looking reindeer.
Humming along with Elvis as he sang about hisBlue Christmasover the kitchen speaker, Jakob looked around for something else to keep him from peeking into the living room.
The results of that might not be as harmless as his intrusion upon the cookies had been.
For lack of better options, Jakob began unloading the dishwasher. Which — it happily turned out — came with the bonus of the noise helping cover the sound of Alex's voice drifting in from the next room that Jakob had been trying so hard to ignore.
Soon enough, the timer dinged, offering Jakob a temporary respite from his chore. He cursed under his breath as he searched for the oven mitts, finally finding them in a drawer of all places, grousing to himself about whoever had put them there.
The slam of the cabinet drawer, while satisfying, also covered all traces of Alex entering the room. Jakob jerked his head up, hand reaching instinctively for —
He grimaced, forcing his body to relax once he realized the sound had only been Alex dragging one of the kitchen chairs out and falling into it with a sulky slump, not…
Guess I'll be taking Dr. Miller up on that offer for an extra session next week, after all.Jakob thought, eyeing the bullet hole in the ceiling still framed by the red police tape from when his house was considered a crime scene. And wasn't that a weird notion?Need to remember to ask Owen about patching that up. Doubt he'd have time before Ethan gets here, but maybe he can squeeze it in soon.
"Hey," Jakob greeted Alex once he'd gotten his breathing back to something approaching normal, and his hands had stopped shaking enough to pick up the tray of cookies without risking any falling overboard.
PTSD, the gift that keeps on giving. Just when you think you've finally worked through it…
He shut the oven door, careful not to let it slam before setting the hot tray of still piping hot cookies on the hot pads that were laid out and waiting for him on the kitchen table.
"Give 'em a minute or you'll burn yourself," he warned Alex, seeing the kid's fingers already reaching for the tray.
With a guilty look, Alex retracted his hand, though the scowl never once budged from his face.
Uh oh.
"So…" Jakob prodded over the sound of the sweet nectar pouring as he topped off his coffee mug. "How'd it go? You all ready for this afternoon?"
But Alex just sighed. Which… was answer enough, really.
"Fuck, I'm sorry," Jakob told him as he set down a conciliatory plate of snowball cookies in front of Alex; taking one for himself as he dropped into the opposite chair, careful not to slosh his coffee. "What'd they say?"
"Mom's having a bad day. It's — " Alex gestured vaguely towards the cooling tray of Christmas tree cookies with a heavy sigh, "It's all the holiday stuff they've got going on at the home for the other residents, like we thought. Said they'll be taking down the decorations start of next week, so… maybe Wednesday?"
Jakob glanced at the slowly growing pile of crumbs building under Alex's fingers as he absentmindedly picked the cookie apart.
"Wednesday then," Jakob nodded decisively. "Be better for you and her anyway, right? None of this holiday pressure. It can be just you and your mom, catching up."
"I… yeah," Alex muttered, blinking at his crumb-covered fingertips as if wondering where his cookie had gone. "Was only… I dunno, feeling the Norman Rockwell holiday bullshit, I guess. But between Ethan not getting released from the hospital until the day after Christmas and this… Fuck me for trying, right?"
"Don't repeat that where Cassie can hear you talking like that," Jakob warned. "Or we'll all be corralled into a full Christmas movie marathon that won't let up until well after New Year's."
Jakob tilted his head, reconsidering his words.Actually, that doesn't sound half-bad…
It got a half-hearted chuckle from Alex, at least. "Yeah, she's a regular Santa's elf, isn't she?"
"Her mom and I have made a lot of mistakes," Jakob admitted. "But I think one of the things we did right was our annual Christmas Truce."
