Chapter Thirteen: Time with Lily

Fortunately, they did work, and with a little bit of help from Spock, Jim got the front of the house looking very festive, waving light up Santa, and all.

Once back inside the house, Jim made some cocoa for Lily, coffee for himself, and  tea for Spock.

Lily decided to show Spock some of the Christmas cookies they made.

“See, this little bear? I did him.”

“Very nice,” Spock replied. He pointed a long finger at a smeared Santa Clause cookie. The white and red had mixed. His eyes had big black rings around them, and his smile looked like it belonged on a Halloween pumpkin. “What happened here?”

Lily giggled. “Daddy did that one.” She pointed at an angel Jim had done. “This one too.”

Spock arched a brow. “That is likely the ugliest cookie I have ever seen.”

“Hey!” Jim laughed. “Geez.”

He saw Spock’s lips quirk.

“Daddy doesn’t do pretty cookies.”

“I can see that,” Spock said. “Is that a Vulcan cookie?” He pointed to one with pointed ears.

“No silly! That’ s an elf.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t make Vulcan cookies for Christmas.”

The way she said it made Jim think there might be an occasion when one did make Vulcan cookies, but he decided not to question it. 

Lily nodded then and then turned away from the kitchen. “I wanna show you my drawing!” And she was off toward the living room.

Jim scooted closer to Spock and hooked his fingers into the belt loop of Spock’s pants to pull him even closer.

“Didn’t thank you properly for my rescue.”

“What is a proper thank you?” Spock murmured.

Jim grinned and kissed Spock. It was just a quick one, but it left his lips feeling warm and tingly.

“That’s perhaps a little too proper,” Spock said with a slight smile.

Jim laughed. “Well, the best I can do right now. But speaking of, Maggie’s coming over here Friday to stay with Lily. They’ll make a gingerbread house while I’m gone. So after I get off work, I’ll get Lily and bring her here and then later Maggie will come over and then I’ll come to your place.”

Spock nodded. “That will work perfect.”

“Saturday I’m going to drop her off at Maggie’s again so I can do some Christmas shopping.” Jim hesitated. He didn’t want to monopolize Spock’s time but…”You wouldn’t want to come with me then would you? I know shopping for kid stuff isn’t thrilling or anything—

“I would like to come.”

Jim smiled. “Yeah?”

Lily came running into the kitchen, holding a paper she had been coloring earlier.  “Look! I drew a reindeer.”

Spock looked. Even kept a straight face. It didn’t really look like a reindeer. Just rather a brown blob with spots.

“Very impressive.”

Lily beamed. “Want to help me color? You could do some yourself.”

“Lily—”

“Certainly, I will.”

“Yay!  Daddy can get the pizza while we color.”

“Now I don’t remember saying for sure we could get pizza,” Jim protested.

Lily looked at Spock, rather slyly. “You like pizza, don’t you, Spock?”

Jim could see that Spock wanted to sigh in resignation.

“Pizza is all right,” Spock said, clearly unable to lie.

But it was enough for Lily. “See, Daddy?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “All right. This time. But we aren’t eating pizza every night, Lily.”

“Course not, Daddy.” She grabbed Spock’s hand and dragged him out to the living room where her coloring stuff was.

“Course not, Daddy,” Jim said with a sigh. And went to look for the number for the pizza delivery place.