Then next morning I was up by six. Remember how I said that it should be illegal to wake up early on vacation? Yeah, well, when you have a sex dream about the person sleeping next to you, you tend to forget that and get out of bed as quickly as possible.

When I slipped out of bed he was still sleeping peacefully. His chest rising and falling in slow breaths, his face was relaxed, and the sheets were down just enough to see part of his bare biceps and chest.

It took me a second to realize how long I was standing there staring at him before I looked away and mentally did a dance in thankfulness that he didn't wake up and catch me.

As I grabbed some clothes and slipped into the bathroom to change I reminded myself that it was just the dream talking; that or maybe it was the kiss we shared not long ago in a stupid game of truth or dare that was just now wanting to rear its ugly head into my life, or how he hovered just inches from my lips just hours ago. Maybe it was a combination of all those things bringing up these weird feelings that obviously weren't real, but just wanted to make this stay here together awkward.

I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and stepped back out into the room. He was still sleeping, but had moved from laying on his side to on his back, and the sheets had somehow managed to move further down lying just at the waistband of his boxers.

Shaking my head, I left the room, closing the door quietly to not wake him, and headed down the stairs. The house was quiet, so quiet you wouldn't think anyone else was here, but then I heard a banging noise coming from the kitchen.

When I walked into the kitchen, I noticed Heather standing at the counter with a bowl on the counter in front of her. "What are you doing?" I asked and her head shot up noticing me for the first time.

She looked back down and when I followed her gaze, I noticed the recipe card setting on the counter. "Trying to make cookies." She grabbed the card and flipped it over to the blank backside. It looked as though she thought the other side would have all the answers on how to make the cookies. Then she flipped it back to the recipe side and set it back on the counter with a sigh. "Usually Leanne makes the cookies for Christmas, but I guess having a baby fogged her brain. She completely forgot and didn't even remember until they got here and grandma asked where her delicious cookies are."

I grabbed the recipe and looked at the top; Gingerbread Cookie Recipe, it read. "I can help," I told her. "I mean, if you want," I added when she just looked at me with a blank stare.

A smile spread across her lightly freckled cheeks. "That would be great." She reached for a cookie cutter and held it up. "As long as you don't mind trying to make them into little gingerbread men. Grandma loves that. She thinks it's festive, and seems to think they taste better in gingerbread man form."

I could believe she loved them, and I could believe she thought it was festive, but I could not believe that she thought they tasted better. In no way, shape, or form did they taste any different when they were nothing but a round cookie.

"Personally, I think she just likes to see people suffer by having to cut out all the cookies," Heather said, and that I could believe.

I washed my hands and got down to helping Heather make the cookies. While she grabbed the ingredients, I stood at the counter looking over the recipe card. I started to think my original guess on why she was eyeing the card so hard was wrong. Maybe she was studying it so intently to, actually make out what it says. It looked like it was written many years ago and had gone through its fair share of wear and tear, but after putting our heads together we managed to make out what was wrote, or so we at least think so.

We followed the recipe to a T, putting the ingredients in when noted; her adding each to the bowl as I read them off.

We used an electric mixer, something I assumed might not have been invented yet when this recipe card was written.

I propped myself with my elbows on the counter and stared into the bowl watching all the ingredients spin around and around. I felt like that was my mind; so many things going around at once, though my thoughts didn't seem to be mixing properly.

"Okay, it looks mixed enough, don't you think?" Heather asked bringing me from my thoughts and back to the task at hand.

I shifted slightly to peer into the bowl, pretending I hadn't been fixated on it this entire time. "Looks good to me."

We separated the dough, wrapping each part, and then placed them in the fridge. The dough needed to chill for a couple of hours, to make it easier to cut out later, so we decided to clean up the kitchen.

Everyone seemed to still be sleeping even though it was edging closer to seven in the morning. While we were preparing the dough, Heather didn't do much talking, and neither did I, but while cleaning the conversation picked up.

"I'm still wondering what you see in Grayson," Heather said as she placed the dirty bowl into the sink.

I grabbed the bowl and began cleaning it, opting to not use the dishwasher since it wasn't mine. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he's cool and all I guess, but still. Grayson?" she said his name like a girl even liking him was a crazy thought and I laughed.

"We're not dating," I told her as I spun the brush around the inside of the bowl. "But he's not bad. He's cool and all I guess," I mimicked her, while turning to glance at her, seeing her run a wet rag across the counter wiping away the spilled flour, before turning back to the bowl to scrub the outside.

"So, you don't have a thing for him at all?"

"A thing for who?" Grayson's voice filled the room and I spun quickly, slinging soapy water across the room.

"Hey! What was that for?" Heather asked as she wiped the back of her arm.

Grayson was leaned against the counter in nothing but sweatpants staring at me. I tore my eyes from him and turned back to the bowl to rinse the soap off. "It's rude to butt in to someone else's conversation," I told him.

"My bad," he said, and even with my back to him I just knew he had his hands held up in defense.

"Where does the bowl go?" I asked Heather.

"Top cabinet by the fridge," she said as she tossed the wet, dirty, rag into the sink. "I'm going to go take a shower really quick."

I could hear her footsteps fade away as I dried off the bowl. I walked over to the cabinet she said and opened it up, reaching up to place it inside.

"Are you going to tell me who you two were talking about?" Grayson's breath hit my neck and I jumped almost dropping the bowl, but he grabbed hold of it and placed it into the cabinet.

I shut the cabinet door and turned around. My lower back was pressed against the counter with how close he stood. "It's none of your business," I told him blankly.

"Fine, it doesn't matter. What I really want to know is what your dream was about."

My brows creased as I stared up at him. "Why?"

He placed each hand on the counter on either side of me and leaned in close. "Because it must have been about something if you had to call Lana at two in the morning."

"But why do you care?"

He shrugged. "I just feel like if it was nothing you could have talked to me about it. We've talked about serious topics before. What made this so much different?" His eyes were boring into mine and I could feel the heat radiating off of me. "Was it a bad dream or a good one?"

"Depends who you ask."

"Was it about me?" A small smile started to creep onto his lips and I wanted to smack it right off for thinking that, even though he wasn't wrong.

"What?" I spat.

"It was!" His smile grew wider.

"No," I said in disagreement, my face giving off a hint of disgust.

I slipped under his arm and started to walk away but felt his hands wrap around my arm and spin me around. "You had a dream about me." His smile and tone of voice gave off his cockiness.

"First of all, your arrogance is showing, and you're not that special." I slipped out of his grip. "Second of all, it was a dream. I don't get to choose what I dream," I said matter-of-fact, yet his smile never left.

"Was it good?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. You never finished."

That comment was all it took for his lips to fall from that smile of his. "Shut up."

"What? You didn't. I woke up before anything happened."

"Your dream cockblocked me."

My eyes grew wide. "Grayson!"

"What?" He laughed.

"Nothing." I shook my head. "Anyway, it was just a dream. Don't let it go to your head." I realized what I said. "Wait, wrong choice of word, never mind."

He laughed. "It's not that big of a deal. I've had dreams about you."

I raised my brows in surprise. "Dreams?"

He shrugged. "What? I don't get to choose what I dream." He used my own words against me. Clever.

I headed to the couch and plopped myself down, thinking that would be the end of the conversation, but he sat down beside me and said, "so, tell me about this dream."

"No," I shook my head. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because nothing really happened."

"Well, then, it should be a boring story."

I sighed. "Okay then." I pulled my leg up onto the couch and turned my body to face him as he stared intently at me waiting for me to tell him every detail. "Well, I was just lying there minding my own business, and then I felt your hand creep up my shirt, and a tingle ran from the skin at your warm touch right down my body. Our lips touched and the kisses turned from soft and sweet to hot and passionate, and when you pulled me into you, I could feel you against my thigh letting me know you were just as turned on as I was, sending this moan from lips, and just as I was about to," I stopped talking when I noticed Heather coming down the stairs. "Oh, hey Heather!" I gave her a warm smile.

She returned the smile. "I think it's been long enough for the dough, don't you?" she asked, but gave me no time to reply as she disappeared into the kitchen.

I turned back to Grayson, who had yet to take his eyes off of me. "I thought you said nothing happened?" he questioned.

"It didn't. I made half of that story up." I shrugged.

"You what?" he asked in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

I shook my head. "No." I laughed. "But maybe you should go take a shower," I told him with a pat on his shoulder before standing up. "A cold one," I said glancing down him and then meeting his eyes, once again.

I rounded the couch to head back into the kitchen, but not before catching him, out of the corner of my eye, glance down and then jump to his feet and race for the stairs.

Heather already had the dough out on the floured surface rolling it out with a rolling pin. I washed my hands and watched as she finished rolling the dough to the preferred thickness, or at least what the recipe said it was.

I grabbed the gingerbread cookie cutter and started to cut little gingerbread men out of the dough while Heather picked each up and placed them on the pan. "Do we have to decorate them, too?" I asked as I angled the cutter just perfectly at the dough's edge to get one last cookie before the dough needed rolled, again.

"Grandma says they taste better that way," she told me with an eye roll.

"Of course, she did," I said as I began to roll out the dough, switching jobs with Heather for the second go around.

Once we had all the cookies cut out and placed on cookie sheets, we placed them into the oven and let them bake.

While we waited for them to bake Heather grabbed out the icing and tools needed to decorate while I cleaned the counter giving us room.

It was just when the cookies were setting out on the counter to cool that I heard what sounded like a stampede coming down the stairs. I looked up to see everyone making their way into the kitchen.

"Oh, gingerbread cookies," grandma cheered as she eyed each one.

"We still need to decorate them, but they're cooling," Heather told her.

Mrs. Pierce began breakfast with the help of Leanne while everyone else stood around talking.

Grayson was standing near the table talking to Will about who knows what. The room went from zero to one hundred really quick with the volume change, I could barely hear my own thoughts. I looked him over, noticing he was still in sweats, but instead of the black ones from earlier, he was now in a gray pair, and he had on a black long sleeve shirt.

"Tell me again how you don't have a thing for him," Heather's voice whispered beside me, pulling my eyes from Grayson to her.

"I don't."

"Yeah, okay," she said while patting my arm. "Well, anyway, the cookies are cooled down, now."

Everyone gathered around to help Heather and me decorate the cookies.

I was sat at the bar sandwiched between Grayson and Max. "I didn't know you knew how to bake," Grayson said.

"Are you saying you didn't think I was smart enough to follow a recipe?"

His eyes darted from the cookie in front of him to mine. "What? No!"

"Good one, dude," Max told him.

I saw Grayson look around me to him. "Shut up," he told Max.

I laughed. "I used to bake all kinds of desserts with Delora when I was younger."

"Who's Delora?" Max asked.

"Our cook."

"You have a cook?" he gasped in shock.

"Well, used to, I guess," I told him, thinking about how I didn't live at home anymore, so technically, she wasn't a cook for me, anymore.

"That's so cool," he exclaimed.

"Yeah, I love her. I spent a lot of time with her growing up, I can cook and bake quite a bit of things."

I spent more time with Delora than I did with my own parents. There was a countless amount of times I spent in the kitchen with her, but thinking back on it, we never made gingerbread cookies, except for one time. My mother said she hated the taste of them, and we never made them again.

"So, if you have a cook, does that mean you have a maid and a butler, too?" Max questioned me.

"Max," Grayson warned.

He shrugged. "What? I was just wondering."

I laughed. "I don't live at home anymore, but when I did, yes I had both, but I never thought of them as that. They were family. Still are." I placed a smile on my cookie. "I've spent more time with the three of them than my own parents."

"How come?"

"They work a lot." I shrugged. "No big deal." I held my cookie up for them to examine. "What do you think?"

"That's really good," Grayson told me, and I looked down at his cookie, which, didn't look great but I've seen worse.

I watched Grandma Georgia hold up her nicely decorated cookie with a smile before taking a huge bite out of it. "Just perfect," she mumbled through her mouth full of chewed up gingerbread man.