The Prospects and the Christmas Cookies.
Since Jax had been a kid the prospects had been forced to bake Christmas cookies and most have failed horribly and ended up having to prospect for two months longer. That was until the year a Puerto Rican from Queens prospected.
Juice had to make twelve dozen cookies for charity and they had to be decorated. The bake sale was on the monday before Christmas and he had Sunday to work on them but as a prospect his time was spent between cleaning on Sundays and covering the garage so he really didn't have a lot of time.
Juice got up early Sunday morning which with him being the bartender on Saturdays nights was really hard for him. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and headed down the hall to the kitchen of the clubhouse where he found a few crow eaters and two Sons who claimed they were too old to do that partying shit any more and a man knows when to give something up.
He just shook his head and moved toward the laptop he had placed in here last night. He started looking for Cookie recipes and they had to be the best. He spent two hours researching ingredients and how to bake just the right cookie.
Once he found the perfect one, he made a list of things he needed for it and then grabbed the list of things the clubhouse needed, "killing two birds with one stone" plus he wasn't allowed to spend club time on these cookies. He could argue that technically they needed everything on his list for the clubhouse.
After he got back from the grocery store and put up everything he headed to clean the Church and then the main room of the clubhouse. That took about three hours and not to mention he had to sanitize everything; last week Tig had cut his hand open on the bar and it became infected the doctor said it came from the bar. So Gemma had freaked out and now everything had to be cleaned with bleach.
Juice shuddered as he remember what Tig's hand had looked like. He put up his cleaning tools before heading back to the kitchen. He pulled up the recipe again and began to mix the ingredients together. He was so focused on doing so he didn't notice Chibs and Opie watching him. They didn't say anything but left once they were sure they had enough information.
Chibs walked into Church and sat beside Tig, "Alright I'm ready. A hundred that he succeeds tomorrow." Chibs pulled out the bill and threw it in the middle of the table.
Tig snorted, "You've lost your fucking mind. The boy fell off the fucking ladder last week hanging Christmas light. He'll burn those cookies and the decorations'll look like shit."
Opie who was looking for his wallet in his jacket, "I'm with Chibs. Aha. Here. He'll be the first and last one to do it." Jax shook his head at his best friend.
"Okay, All bets in?" Bobby asked. Everyone nodded. "Okay, 2 to 14 say Juice will succeed."
Juice finished mixing up the batches and wrapped them in plastic wrap before placing them in the fridge. He then headed out to work on the cars that were due to be picked up tomorrow morning. As he worked he thought about the shapes he wanted to make and how he wanted to decorate them. He finished replacing the brakes on a Ford Taurus, wiped his hands off and headed to cut out the cookies and bake them.
The bake sale was set to start at noon but he had to have them ready for Gemma that morning when she go to the office. He worked his ass off making icing, he painstakingly made sure the sprinkles looked perfect, and lastly he place them gently into cookie tins and put a ribbon around each tin leaving one without so Gemma could give them out as samples. He also put two aside for the boys.
It was almost 1 am by the time he finished he didn't trust the crow eaters are the guys around the cookies; he ended up staying up all night just to guard his hard work. By the time 7:45 rolled around he was ready to kill. Many of the crow eaters had tried for his cookies but he had chased them off most giggling at him and not to mention the hang arounds were eyeing the tins. Gemma walked in causing him to sigh in relief. "Alright let's have a look." Juice stood from his stool and wave his hand at the tins that lined the counter. "Huh. How do they taste?" Juice picked up the sample tin opening it so he could offer her one. "Oh." She gasped. "They're pretty Juice." The one she picked up was a christmas tree with blue sprinkles and white icing for garland.
She bit into it as he anxiously waited. "Mmmhmmm." She wiped the crumbs from her lips and looked at Juice. "I don't know how you did it but these are the best damn cookies I've had in a long time. Do you have extras?" He grinned at her as he opened a drawer and pulled out a blue tin with a hand painted snowman on top and a pretty ice blue ribbon tied around it and a tag that read: For Gemma.
She patted his cheek. "Thanks. can you load these into the car. I let Clay know how well you did."
He nodded his head and set to doing as she asked. "Oh before I forget the guys' are over there beside the stove."
She smiled as she looked over and saw 14 tins that looked very different from the ones he was loading into a box to put in the car and the one she currently had in her hand. She shook her head as she texted Clay: He Passed. Left you cookies in kitchen. Better hurry and come get them before they are gone.
Clay and the guys made it to the kitchen just in time. "I thought she said he left us some."
Opie walked over to the stove, "He did." Opie picked up the tin with his name on it. The tin was black with a reaper painted on the front. "The boy is talented." He opened up the tin. "Whoa." He pulled out a snowflake with red sprinkles. He bit into it and grinned. "Pay up."
The guys grabbed their individual tin. "Damn it." Tig spoke after shoving a cookie into his mouth.
Piney chuckled, "He'll be a legend."
Years later.
"Half-sack," Juice spoke with authority. "Your duty as a prospect is to make Christmas Cookies for the charity bake sale. We need 12 dozen and they have to taste good and they need to be decorated. I wish you the best of luck we've had men quit because they couldn't handle it." Juice grinned as he patted the prospect's back.
Juice moved away from him to go help a Chibs with a car he was working on. Half-sack watch as the mokawked man left. He looked at Tig, "Did he pass the cookie test?"
Tig bit into his bologna sandwich, "Yep, only one to ever do it."
Piney shook his head, "Yeah and every year Tig hopes he gets Juice as a secret santa so he'll get those cookies although if you just asked the boy he'd make them for you any time you want. Clay does."
"Clay does. I thought Juice was just buttering him. HEY JUICE." Tig walked away from Piney and Half-sack.
Piney looked at the younger man, "You're screwed. If I was you I'd be asking Juice for some tips." Piney laughed at the horror on the prospect's face.