Never Enough | Luke Hemmings

Chapter 50

"This feeling, it's been awhile.
I won't say I missed you but welcome back. Take your time and make yourself at home.
Sorry about all the shattered glass, I couldn't clean it up by myself."
- Marc Razon

**

Everyone piles into the kitchen as soon as Sally announces that we are going to be baking a whole lot of treats for Christmas right after dinner ends.

Sally and Georgia pull out bags and boxes of ingredients from a couple of grocery bags and lay them out on the kitchen island in record time. "Who wants to bake?" Sally questions us and I turn to Luke.

"Cookies or cake?" I whisper to him and he looks down at me a little offended at my question.

"You're making me choose between cookies and cake? How cruel is that?" He scoffs, putting his arm around my shoulder but I shrug it off and grab one of the many aprons hanging from a hook on the wall. It is red and white with a large teddy bear in the middle holding a banner that says "Best Chef."

"Cookies or cake?" I repeat the question, amused at his distress.

"Cookies." He finally says, rolling his eyes and grabbing a green apron.

I quickly turn away from him and raise my hand, getting Sally's attention. "Yes, dear?" She asks, looking at me over the rim of her glasses.

"May I help with the cookies?" I ask tying the knot of the apron around my waist.

"Always so polite." Luke gives a breathy laugh behind me.

"Of course! Of course! Come on then." She motions at me to come to her side of the kitchen counter and I manoeuvre my way through everyone towards her.

"I was thinking about making the chocolate truffle cookies first." She tells me and I swoon a little since I haven't had chocolate truffle cookies in decades.

I nod at her list of cookies in mind with enthusiasm and smirk at Luke who is now leaning towards us from the other side with his elbows on the kitchen island. "I like chocolate." He says and Sally grins.

"Lovely then! Let's get started."

She pulls out a large cookbook with tapered and stained pages and flips through them. "Aha!" She finally points at a recipe and slides the book towards me.

I scan the ingredients and vaguely remember my mother making it one Christmas.

"I got this," I tell Sally when she hands me a bowl and whisk along with all the ingredients needed and lets me get to work.

Adelaide and Montana start to bake the first cake after Sally finally gives in and lets them after all the pleading they do. Georgia gets started on the pies, Michael hovering around her while she goes through the ingredients. They have been inseparable since the day we got here.

The kitchen is filled with homely sounds of laughter and light chatter. Kitchen supplies clinking against each other as everyone gets down to work.

Luke watches what I'm doing intently without saying much and I smile down at my bowl as I cream the butter and sugar together. He gets restless after awhile and decides to help Ashton with a cherry pie that he is attempting to make, a pie I'm pretty sure no one will want to taste for the fear of immediate death.

I almost drop my bowl with the mixture in it as my body wracks with laughter when Luke shakes half a bottle of salt into a bowl of raw tomatoes that he has spent the last ten minutes squashing with a spoon.

Luke eventually gives up on it and comes back to his spot on the kitchen island in front of me, singing and shaking a pepper shaker, I take my bowl out of his reach and put it under the mixer and blend in the flour when I'm satisfied with all the ingredients.