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“Hey, hon,” El said from the kitchen when Peter opened the door, hurrying to shut the cold out behind him. The December temperatures had dropped from mild to frigid over the past couple of days.
“Hey, hon,” he said. “Bitter out there.”
“Feels like Christmas.” She finished setting the table for dinner and then headed over to pick out a bottle of wine. “How was the office party?” Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday that year, meaning non-essential FBI agents got the weekend plus Monday and Tuesday as holidays. The white collar division had decided to dedicate the last couple of hours on Friday to a party.
Peter appeared next to her, the container she’d sent full to the brim with homemade cookies now completely empty. “Those vultures ate every single one of your cookies. I didn’t get one bite, not even one measly chocolate chip.”
El patted his cheek and took the container from him. “Poor baby.”
“I think the party was good, though. Everyone seemed to have a good time. I have to say,” Peter leaned against the counter, where she was putting the finishing touches on a salad, “I feel kind of bad for Neal, though.”
She looked up, concerned. “For Neal? Why?”
“I don’t think there was a single bit of food at that party that didn’t have a main ingredient of sugar. He couldn’t eat anything.”
She made a “tsk” sound. “That isn’t much fun. Couldn’t he have done a higher dose of insulin and had a treat?”
“Probably, but this is all still so new to him, and when he doesn’t know the ingredients or the carbohydrates, the last thing he wants is to overcorrect and have low blood sugar at the office…”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah, I guess I don’t blame him. Christmas without any cookies or candy canes or egg nog, though…”
“Unless they’re the sugar free versions.”
An idea pinged in El’s mind. “That’s it!”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “What’s what?”
“We don’t have any plans tomorrow, do we?”
“No. We were supposed to have Kristen’s party, but since her family got strep throat…darn shame by the way…”
El rolled her eyes. Peter had practically cheered when her friend Kristen and her somewhat dislikable husband had to cancel their annual holiday party. “Right, so let’s invite Neal over. I’ll make more chocolate chip cookies–”
“Neal can’t have those.”
“He can if I use sugar-free ingredients.” Just because El had never used sugar-free ingredients in her cookies didn’t mean they didn’t exist. There were all kinds of “one for one” baking swaps that would allow her to safely give Neal freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
Peter considered and made a “go on” motion.
“Then we can relax and watch Christmas movies and maybe drink sugar-free egg nog or hot chocolate or something.”
“Won’t all of that sugar-free stuff give us stomachaches?”
“Like the sugar-filled stuff-wouldn’t?”
“Touché.”
“I won’t go overboard. Just enough to make him feel included.”
Peter sighed. “Fine.”
El squealed with delight and kissed her husband, setting the salad fixings aside. “You call Neal. I need to go to the grocery store.”
“What about dinner?” Peter asked.
“Dinner can wait,” El called as she put on her jacket, pleased as punch to put her plan into motion.
# # #
Neal raised a gloved hand and knocked on the Burkes’ front door.
Peter opened it. “Come in before you turn into an icicle.”
“I’m only about a third of the way there,” Neal promised as Peter closed the door behind him.
“Let me take your coat.”
“Wow,” Neal breathed, taking in the Burkes’ living room as he carefully slipped off his jacket without dropping the bottle of wine he’d brought. There was garland on the banister up the stairs, flickering candles in every window, and a gorgeously lit tree against the wall to the right of the couch. “Your decorations are gorgeous.” It was then that he heard the sound of the oven opening and closing and got a whiff of something delicious, like freshly baked cookies. “It smells amazing, too.”
“All El’s doing, of course,” Peter said.
“Hi, Neal,” Elizabeth called from the kitchen.
Neal followed her voice, pausing only to give Satchmo a pet on the head on his way. “Elizabeth, your house belongs on the cover of one of those Christmas decor magazines.”
She looked up from where she was transferring cookies from a baking sheet to a cooling rack and smiled. “Aw, thanks, sweetie. Peter doesn’t appreciate my efforts.”
“All that work for less than a month!” Peter scoffed.
Neal rolled his eyes at his handler. “I brought you two a bottle of wine. Would you like me to pour you a glass?”
“That’s very kind of you, but I have an alternative beverage planned,” El said.
“Is it milk to go with those cookies?” Neal asked. “Because they smell amazing. Did Peter make you bake more after everyone at the office ate the first batch? I thought we were never going to hear the end of that.”
“Vultures,” Peter repeated. “Didn’t leave a single crumb.”
El put the baking sheet in the sink. “Peter will survive. But actually, Neal, these are for you.”
Neal hesitated, confused. As good as they smelled, Elizabeth knew exactly what sugar and chocolate chips would do to his blood sugar. He’d made it this far into the Christmas season without sending himself into a crazy sugar high, and he wasn’t particularly planning on changing that. “El, that’s… They…” He searched for the right words to let her down gently.
“They’re sugar free,” she said. “I used sugar-free substitutes for the sugar and brown sugar, plus sugar-free chocolate chips.”
Neal was stunned that El had gone to all of that trouble for him. “Seriously? You did this for me?”
She smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “I wanted you to be able to enjoy at least one Christmas treat. Oh and this,” she pointed to a crock pot sitting on the counter, “is sugar free hot chocolate with sugar free whipped cream. Make yourself a mug if you’d like. As soon as this last tray of cookies is out of the oven, we’ll have cocoa and warm cookies and a Christmas movie on the couch. Sound good?”
Instead of reaching for a mug, Neal wrapped Elizabeth into a hug, where he caught just the faintest hint of her perfume at her neck. “Thank you,” he said gently into her ear.
She hugged him back. “You’re welcome, sweetie.”
“Will one of you make me a cup of cocoa?” Peter asked. “I’m going to take Satchmo out so he’s all set before we start the movie.”
“On it,” Neal said.
A short while later, the three were side by side on the couch – Elizabeth in the middle, Peter on her right, Neal on her left, Satchmo at Neal’s feet – covered in soft blankets, the living room only lit by the Christmas tree and the glow of the television, where Miracle on 34th Street was just starting to play. Neal was pretty sure if you looked up “cozy” in the dictionary, the definition was simply a snapshot of this exact moment in time.
“Neal, do the honors?” Elizabeth asked, holding out the plate of still-warm cookies to him.
Neal shifted his mug of hot cocoa to his left hand and took a cookie from the plate. “Thank you, El.”
“You’re very welcome. Peter?”
“I’m taking two just because I didn’t get one yesterday.”
“Fair enough.” Elizabeth took one for herself and set the plate on the coffee table in front of them, just far enough that Satchmo couldn’t get to it.
“To Christmas treats for everyone,” Elizabeth said.
“Cheers to that,” Neal said, clinking his cookie against hers.
“Here here,” Peter said, also joining in.
Then, Neal took a bite of the cookie. Or…at least he tried to. He bit with his front teeth, but nothing happened. Even though the cookie was still warm, it had somehow already hardened to the point that he had to shift it back to his molars and try again. The second time was successful, but he immediately wished it hadn’t been. Oh no. The cookie tasted awful. In addition to the bitter, chemical taste of the artificial sweeteners, the chocolate chips had the consistency of what he imagined chewing silly putty would be like, and further chewing the bite of cookie only seemed to make the flavor and consistency worse, not better.
But El went to so much trouble to make these for him, and he was going to have to eat at least one, maybe two, and he was possibly going to break a tooth, and if the cookies tasted this bad, what were they going to do to his stomach, and oh my gosh how was he still chewing this one bite?
He forced himself to swallow and almost choked, but held back the cough. “Wow,” he said and cleared his throat. Were his eyes watering? “Wow, El. No wonder all of your cookies were gone at the party. They’re so good.”
“Yeah,” Peter said, around a mouthful that he clearly hadn’t managed to swallow yet. He set his mug down on the coffee table. “I’m going to get a napkin. Does anyone else want a napkin?”
When he returned a moment later, Neal highly suspected the mouthful of cookie had been deposited into a napkin and into the trash can.
“Delicious, hon,” Peter said. “Great job.”
El, however, didn’t say a word. Instead, she put her hands up to her face and leaned forward with shaking shoulders.
Neal froze. Was Elizabeth crying? He exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Peter behind El’s back.
Thankfully, before either of them could say anything, El said, “They taste like shit.” She wasn’t crying. She was laughing. When she composed herself and sat up, she turned to Neal. “I’m so sorry, Neal. I used my same recipe. I just didn’t think…that would be the result.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” Neal said with a smile. “And now we all know that the thing that makes chocolate chip cookies good is actually the sugar.”
“Definitely the sugar,” Peter agreed.
“Next time, make the real deal and I’ll just do bolus insulin, okay?”
“You got it,” El promised.
“Now wait, wait, we haven’t even tried the hot cocoa yet,” Peter said. “It might be delicious without the sugar.”
“I think after that experience, we might want to lower our expectations,” Elizabeth said.
Peter was the first to take a sip. “Mmm. Hot brown water.”
Neal took a sip and found that Peter was right. It definitely wasn’t good, but it was at least a drastic improvement over the cookies. “It’s like water that wants to be hot cocoa when it grows up.” He took another sip. “But hey, the whipped cream on top is fantastic.”
Elizabeth nodded. “The whipped cream is the only good thing we’ve tried.” With that, she got up from the couch, removed their still-full mugs and the still-full cookie plate and said, “Stay put.” When she returned, she was carrying the aerosol can of whipped cream. She cuddled back between Peter and Neal under the blankets and handed the can to Neal.
He studied her, unsure of what she wanted him to do with the can. She tipped her head back and mimed squirting a can into her mouth.
Neal smiled, shook the can, and did as she suggested. “Mmm,” he said, licking a little extra whipped cream off his lower lip. “Delicious.” He passed the can over to Elizabeth, who did the same.
“I haven’t done that in about a decade.” She held the can out to her right. “Peter?”
“No, thanks,” Peter said, as if he couldn’t possibly participate in something so immature.
Neal gently elbowed Elizabeth and made a scratching motion at his nose.
With a grin, El shook the can and squirted some of the whipped cream directly onto the tip of Peter’s nose.
“Hey!” he shouted, causing Satchmo to bark. “Give me that.”
“Nope,” Neal said, snatching the can back and eating another mouthful.
Peter wiped the whipped cream from his nose and licked it off his finger. “Hm. Yeah. Okay. Fine. You two were right. It is good. Give me that.”
Neal handed the can to El and it was only as she was handing it to Peter that he realized they’d fallen directly into his trap.
“Suckers!” Peter yelled, and started squirting whipped cream at both Elizabeth and Neal.
“Hey,” Neal said, arms up in an effort to keep the whipped cream out of his hair, “don’t waste the only good sugar-free food we have!”
# # #
A while later, the can of whipped cream was empty and the movie was coming to a close. El had snuggled up next to Peter, but her left hand was still resting protectively just above Neal’s knee. He let it stay there.
Was Christmas a minefield of candy and cookies and other sugary-treats? Yes. Would Neal miss being able to eat most of those things without careful doses of insulin? No, not really. Christmas wasn’t about those things. It wasn’t about food or gifts or office parties or even magazine-worthy home decorations. It was about people. About acts of kindness and thoughtfulness and moments like this.
And Neal was going to savor this moment for a long time to come.