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There was nothing worse than seeing someone you cared for upset. I didn’t know what to do about it because he hadn’t told me what was really going on. From all the information he’d given me and also the way Mick had talked about him, I knew had something going on mentally, so when I saw him suddenly look dejected, I had to take it into my own hands as a Daddy who had been a little rusty to the kink, but was more than willing to do what it took to see a smile.

Tommy had made a lot of his feelings clear, even if they were behind a lot of other things, like his want to stay with me for as long as possible, and also his comments about how he felt like he could work so much better here rather than his apartment. I should’ve taken the hints earlier and asked him to stay, but I didn’t want to come on too strong, I was still having a hard time for the emotional expression of it all.

Cooking was my love language, and after we finished the morning round with all the animals, I showed him just what my love language meant to me. The recipe cards I used were still in my grandmother’s handwriting, and now they were protected behind plastic wallets after I left a coffee stain on the back of one. The coffee cake recipe ironically.

Tommy wasn’t in a onesie for the first time, it was safer not to be especially with how he seemed to slip around everywhere in them.

“There’s only one rule, other than washing your hands. And that rule is, there is no limit to the amount of chocolate chips you need,” I started with. “My grandma said you feel that with your heart.”

“And I would agree,” he said. “But I also need to know if you have things to decorate them with and also cutters.”

“Of course.” They were buried in the depths of the cupboards. I never used them, but there was an entire box of metal cutters in all different shapes. They weren’t all my collection. I liked to stick with the circles, a nice, uniform shape, but those were already in one of the drawers from the being used to cut circles in pastry for pot pies.

As I gathered all the ingredients, Tommy rummaged through the box of cookie cutter shapes. He found many festive shapes hiding in there, and I knew there were plenty.

“Where do you get all these from?” he asked.

“June, mostly,” I said. “She knows I like to cook and stuff. And I’ve been known to donate cookies to the town events. Although I always make sure June tells them they were made by someone else.”

Tommy laughed, sitting on the floor with the box between his legs. “That sounds like you’re going through a lot just for people not to know how nice you really are,” he said. “I bet the people in town are nice.”

“They might just be, but I’m happy to live here without too much interference from them,” I said. “And before you say it, I don’t really mind being left alone to my own devices.”

“If you want to be alone, I can—”

“Don’t you dare,” I said, knowing he was about to tease me with the idea of letting him leave. “You’re staying right where you are. In fact, remind me, once the cookies are in the oven, I’ll call Mick and tell him about the change of plans.” I should’ve done it earlier this morning, but we both got carried away with the cookies and I just wanted to make him happy.

Cookies were one of the easiest things to make, and understand. I vividly recalled my grandma with her wooden spoon in hand, beating all the ingredients together, and if I dared try scoop a finger into the batter, she’d whack my hand away, but then let me eat the batter once the cookies were all cut and laid out on the baking tray. She taught me more about the way to a person’s smile than anyone else—it was food.

Together, we mixed one large bowl of cookie dough. We took it in turns, he would use all his power and get red in the face, then hand it off to me to finish. Once it was all combined, I dusted a little flour on the counter and rolled the dough out into a sheet of a quarter inch thick.

“I have a lot of shapes,” Tommy said, holding all of them up on individual fingers. “We don’t have to use them all, but I—”

“We absolutely do, if you want them, we’ll use them,” I said. “You made sure to wash them with warm soapy water, right?”

“I have to wash them?”

“Yes, they’ve been in that box for a long time, they’re probably covered in dust,” I said. “Give them a wash.” I was going to mentally plan out the most efficient way of cutting them up with all his cutters. From what I’d seen, there was a tree, a snowman, a candy cane, and a gingerbread man. But there were more, some of them with more intricate cuts like the reindeer and snowflake. They could both go horribly wrong with how finnicky the shapes of those were.

Once he was done, we cut them out and placed them on a baking sheet. Some of them weren’t used in the end. He wanted doubles of some, like the reindeer and the snowman.

“You know, because they need a friend,” his reasoning behind it. “And the gingerbread man too, well, person, because you don’t know.”

“I guess they need a friend as well.”

“A gingerbread them,” he said.

I understood the reference to non-binary but being this far detached from society, I hadn’t met anyone who identified with it. In fact, I was mostly educated by the term from reading Tommy’s book. He had plenty of non-binary teddy bear characters.

“Ok, now, once I put these in the oven, no opening,” I told him. “It’s a precise science.”

He didn’t seem too bothered about that, more excited about being able to go change into a onesie and eat the cookie batter from the bowl, just like I used to as a kid. And since I was in the kitchen, I went through some of my grandma’s recipes to see her quiche recipe. I missed that a lot, and I was already in the mood to make food.

Tommy was full of questions when he came back to see me mixing ingredients together in another bowl. “More cookies?”

“Short crust pastry for a quiche,” I told him.

“Oh I didn’t know you knew how to make that.”

“I know a lot more than you might think, kid.”

He took the other bowl from the counter. “Well, I’ll take this before you wash it away.”

“As long as the dogs don’t get into it,” I said.

“I promise they won’t.” Although the moment they saw Tommy going into the lounge, they hounded him to know what was in the bowl.

Cookies didn’t take too long to bake, they were ready just in time for me to put the quiche in, it was inside of a large round ceramic dish with a fork pruned edge to give it some detail.

I wished I could’ve bottled up the glee in Tommy’s eyes when he saw the cookies had retained their shape. It was a surprise to me as well, but only because I’d never used the reindeer before.

“You know who would love these,” he said.

“You?” I asked.

“No, Santa Daddy,” he said. “We’ll have to make some more and leave them out for him on Christmas Eve.”

“We will,” I said. “What about snow Daddy outside?”

“Maybe not him. I don’t think he could stomach them,” he said.

“Noted.” I nodded. “What about me?”

“I think these might be too sweet for you,” he said, closing his eyes and inhaling the sweet cookie smell. “In fact, I think the only person, other than Santa Daddy who could eat them would be me.”

“Damn, well, then I guess if you think that’s the case, I should just hand them all over to you right now.”

He licked his lips. “If you—”

“I was kidding. Don’t you dare,” I chuckled. “You’ve got to wait for them to cool. Then we can eat them, with some milk. Don’t worry, I know exactly what pairs well with a good chocolate chip cookie.”

Tommy continued to moan about smack his lips. He’d really found his voice and positivity from this morning. “How long do I have to wait?”

“Ten minutes,” I said. “But you gotta save room for lunch. That’s in the oven now.”

Moments like this were like pictures on a postcard, a sweet moment I wanted to be framed and kept forever. I wanted it documented, the first time we made cookies together. I blinked with intention, almost like they were capturing the moment of him wafting a hand over the cookies to get more of the smell in his nose.

After that, I made the call to Mick and he was surprised to hear that I’d changed my mind. He didn’t need to know why, or all the details around the change, but I had changed my mind and maybe I’d lied a little about the condition of the snow. Tommy was spending Christmas with me.

Time really didn’t stop for anyone, and the longer you tried to live in a moment, the faster time seemed to go. I wished that wasn’t the case, but it really was. Time was merciless, it took no prisoners in its rampage of ticking.

The closer it got to Christmas, the more productive and excited Tommy was about his book. June had visited again earlier in the week, dropping off a rather large wrapped box. It made my gift under the tree look like nothing in comparison, although I knew my gift to Tommy was going to light up his world.

One evening as I sat by the tree and he drew on the floor by the fire, he came to me with a piece of paper. He stood in front of me with the biggest smile on his face. “I’ve got something for you,” he said.

“Christmas isn’t for another couple days,” I told him.

“This isn’t for Christmas.”

“Oh?”

He pressed the paper to his chest. “Do you want to see?”

“I’m a little nervous to see it. You said it was going to be a spoiler last week.”

“No, no, no, this is different,” he said. “This isn’t a Christmas present, this is an I like you present.”

Caught off guard with his admission, an obvious admission given how much we were going out of our way to spend the holidays with each other, but still, I was caught off by it. “Oh.”

“Do you want it?” he asked.

“Please.”

“Not even a pretty please?” he giggled.

“You know it doesn’t have to be pretty.”

He turned the paper and on it, a drawing in detail of the two of us. We were together, embraced, there was a Santa hat on my head, which was a choice, and we were both biting into the same candy cane. I welled up looking at it, my eyes obviously glossy in the colorful flickering lights on the tree.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I absolutely love it.”

“It’s not a picture for the fridge or anything, but something you can have in your room maybe.” He shrugged and handed it over to me.

“Are you kidding? This is absolutely going on the fridge, and I’ll use that magnet you got me.”

He giggled. “You mean the magnet that looks like every other magnet on the fridge?”

“The very one.”

I never had anything to put on the fridge door. June and Sully would if they came by and they wanted to let me know they’d taken eggs or something, but it wasn’t used for art, at least not by me.

“It might actually suit a frame better,” I said, straightening it out from where he’d creased it against his chest. “I think I can find something somewhere.”

“Oh no, if you’re going to frame it, I can draw a better one.”

“Nonsense, I’m keeping this one.” And he wasn’t going to take it back ever. I considered myself someone who wasn’t sentimental, but then I was quickly reminded about all my grandma’s recipe cards, and about all the small trinkets I’d kept from everywhere I’d ever been.

He sat on my lap after that and we almost fell asleep together. I’d never fallen asleep on the armchair before, and for good reason, that thing would break your back if you tried resting on it for too long. Tommy, on the other hand, did fall asleep. So, I carried him to bed.

I was going to miss him when he wasn’t here. I think even the barn cats were going to miss him when he wasn’t here. As much as I didn’t want to have my brain twisted and mangled by the ideas and thoughts of him leaving, it was impossible not to. We’d switched spaces mentally, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to sleep again without him by my side. It had been a wile since this type of anxiety was rife through me, not since I was a kid searching for work and being forced to prove myself amongst all the cowboys with decades of experience.

Turning to him in bed, his sleepy face in mine.

“I think I love you,” I whispered and gave his forehead a kiss.

He smiled. “I think I might too.”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

With his eyes still closed, he instinctively cuddled his head up against my chest. “I am trying.” He let out a yawn, his body shuddered as it sought the warmth of my body.

I hadn’t told someone I loved them in—my brain didn’t know. It wasn’t a full confession. It was the thought of one. And Tommy reciprocated it. No pause, no hesitation, he said it back immediately.My heart was his for the taking. I just hoped he’d take care of it.