1 MONTH LATER

Nickels pov

"C'mon pickle, you have to tell him soon enough" I say. Pickle shifts a little.

"I don't know, man. I don't think he'll return the feelings" he says, holding his other arm nervously.

"You can't be serious. Knife would literally die for you. He even said it once!" 

"That was for a video game!"

"Ok, but still. The way he looks at you is enough. The first thing he does after coming to the hotel is ask where you are!"

"Fine, i guess... may i ask, how did you and balloon get together?"

"Well... i went to a nice place and confessed to him there, you can ask soap for advice, she has some good stuff"

"Oh alright" pickle says. Just then a raspy voice calls his name.

"Hey pickle!" knife says waving, at the hotel entrance. Pickle blushes a little and waves back.

"Alright, thanks bro" he says, rushing off.

"No problem man" I say, watching them fist bump. I smile at them and walk back into the kitchen.

"Hey nicks, could you pass suitsy the flour?" balloon asks. I climb up onto the counter and move the bag towards her. We're baking cookies with baseball and suitcase, who are currently chopping a chocolate bar for chocolate chunks and making the dough. Balloon is stirring something in a pot over the stove.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Salted caramel, I was thinking of trying a new recipe. What do you think of gooey warm salted butter caramel cookies?"

"It sounds like something I'd eat only once, and then die of diabetes" I retort.

"Oh shut up" balloon says, giggling a little. Then we hear a click, while a bright light flashes in suitcases direction.

Trophy stands there, smiling. He shows the picture to suitcase and she gasps.

"The lighting is so good in that picture!" She says. I walk over to check it out.

"Whatcha got there?" I ask. 

"Oh hey man, look at how this turned out" trophy says. He shows the photo and it's a picture of suitcase kneading the dough. It looks like a professional took it, with suitcases eyes glimmering and the background blurred.

"Hey, this one looks really nice!" I compliment. 

"Send that to me" suitcase says, running back to the dough.

"I'm saving this in my photo journal" he says, clicking a small green button on the side.

"I'm glad you found something useful to do with your camera" I say, proud of him.

"Yeah, photography is like my therapy, whenever I'm feeling down, I take this bad boy out" he says, patting his chrome black camera.

"And that journal keeps all of the hotels memories" he continues. Suitcases picture goes off the screen and a picture of cheesy appears.

"Hey... what's that?" I ask, smirking a little. He looks confused but then he looks at his camera and his eyes widen. He quickly swipes left, blushing. Except another picture of cheesy appears. And another, and another. At this point he is vigorously swiping his finger on the camera until a photo of salt and pepper posing shows up. He sighs of relief, but that's short lived as he realises I'm still there. I raise my eyebrows.

"Why is cheesy most of your camera roll?" I ask, smirking.

"I-i don't know... he's always in the best places!" He shouts defensively.

"Really? Your camera blurs the background trophy" I say. He nervously looks around. Suddenly Cheesy comes out of nowhere and waves at him, smiling brightly.

"Hey trophsterr" he shouts. Trophy takes it by surprise and lifts his hand up slightly.

"H-hey uh- cheese...ster?" He nervously shouts back. Cheesy skips away while trophy puts his head in his hands in dismay.

"Ughh I did not just say that...." He says, embarrassed.

"Yup, you definitely did" I smirk. I gotta admit, even I am internally DYING in second hand embarrassment.

"Not helping nickel" he groans. 

"Hey hey look, don't remember the embarrassing times, alright? Look, he didn't even care" I say, comforting him.

"Besides, he totally likes you back" suitcase shouts over. 

"Not so loud" I say, glaring at suitcase. She rolls her eyes.

"Well sorry" she says smiling, putting emphasis on the "r" and "y". Trophy gets over his crush simp-toms, and gets back to taking pictures.

Balloons pov

As nickel finishes talking to trophy, the oven dings, signalling that the first batch of cookies are finished. I take the chocolate chip and caramel cookies out and reset the oven settings for the second batch.

"Hey baseball, how are those chocolate chunks going?" I ask, walking up to him.

"Just mixed them into the dough that suitcase finished kneading and now six more chocolate chip cookies are ready to bake!" He says, showing me a tray, half covered in cookie dough balls.

"Thanks guys" I say smiling. I get the salted caramel sauce and start mixing some of it in with the cookie dough. Suitcases runs up to me.

"Look what I got" she says, opening and passing me a bag of soft caramel cubes.

"Aww these are perfect! Thanks suitsy!" I say happily. She smiles and goes back to the rest of the dough. I start mixing the caramel cubes into the dough. Nickel walks up to me and tries to peer at what I'm doing, but he's too short, so he climbs onto the counter.

"What're you doing?" he asks, up on his knees. 

"Mixing up those "diabetes" cookies" I laugh, pecking him on the nose.

"Shut up..." he says, looking away and making a face, blushing. He watches as I stir everything up and make little balls out of the dough.

Paintbrush comes towards the kitchen, with lightbulb on their shoulders. Lightbulb has her face in paintys bristles.

"Hey lovebirds" they say, smirking at us, especially nickel. 

"Could say the same to you two" he replies smirking back.

"What's that?" Lightbulb asks, pointing at the dough.

"They're gooey salted caramel cookies, balloons recipe" baseball says from across the kitchen.

"That sounds absolutely delicious, not gonna lie" Paintbrush says. 

"Everyone can try them when we're finished baking" I say, smiling at the compliments.

"I can't wait! I'll call test tube and fan down" paintbrush says.

"They probably aren't as good as oatmeal raisin, but they sound cool, loonster" lightbulb says, shooting finger guns at me. They walk to the entrance of the hotel, texting probably test tube and fan. Oj walks into the kitchen as I put the cookies in the oven.

"Everyone alright? Smells great!" He says, walking around a bit. We assure him that we're all fine and he walks off into the lobby.

Meanwhile nickel is still sitting on the counter, staring at the first batch of cookies.

"What's up nicks?" I say, putting my hand on his head. He starts swinging his legs in response. 

"Just wondering what your cookies taste like" he says, eyeing the light brown caramel ones. They cooled down to the perfect warm temperature and are pretty gooey. I pick the one that is closest to us and break off a piece. The inside is soft and smells amazing. I bring it close to nickels mouth.

"Wha- I thought we were gonna give these out to everyone at the same ti-?" He says. But before he could finish I stuff the cookie into his mouth. 

Nickels pov

Balloon puts the cookie piece in my mouth suddenly, and my mouth closes over his pointer finger. I blush a little as he pulls it out and licks a little crumb off of it. I chew the piece down and my eyes widen in surprise.

"Holy shi- balloon this is amazing!" I say. He smiles brightly. 

"Really?" He says. He looks a little to the side and giggles.

"Aww you got a crumb on your face" he says. Before I could respond, he leans forward.

"Lemme just..." he says, before kissing my cheek and eating the crumb off my face. But instead of moving back, he looks into my eyes and places his lips on mine. Even though we've been dating for a while, this still feels like the very first kiss I shared with him. I close my eyes and melt into it just like the chocolate is melting in the oven.

He lifts my face up slightly and comes closer, bringing his hand up my back and his other hand on my side. Our lips move in sync and if I had hands they'd be all over him. I couldn't help but smile mid-kiss. His hand moves up and cups my face. I could taste the chocolate from him. It feels a bit different since I'm at the same height as him this time, sitting on the counter. 

"AHEM" a voice says. Balloon accidentally bites my lower lip in surprise. We both move apart suddenly and he whispers 'sorry' as I lightly bite the same area, in an attempt to ease the slight pain. It didn't hurt that much anyway. I look over to where the voice came from.

"Are you guys done making out now?" She says, with the widest smirk plastered on her face.

"WHAT, SUITCASE YOU LITTLE-" Balloon shouts playfully, before getting interrupted by her again.

"Look, I'm all in for your cute relationship guys, but I won't let half the cookies burn because you were too busy being all lovey dovey" she says pointing at the oven.

"Oh..." balloon says. Before running off to open the oven, he turns to me smiling and says,

"You're right, the caramel cookies do taste amazing" 

Balloons pov

As I quickly take the second batch of cookies out of the oven and place the trays on the dining table, people rush to grab a cookie. Almost immediately I get compliments from all four corners.

"These are delish!" Test tube says, taking another. Pickle and knife pull a cookie in half and share it between themselves while cheesy tries to throw and catch a piece of cookie in his mouth while trophy watches. 

Lightbulb jumps around the entire lobby.

"I think these are as good as oatmeal raisin! No wait, oatmeal raisin is superior. HEY LOONEY! YOUR CARAMEL COOKIES ARE MY NEW SECOND FAVOURITE COOKIE" She shouts. 

"What was your second favourite before?" Paintbrush asks, attempting to calm her down by grabbing her and pulling her back to the table.

"ALMOND BUTTER BRAN" She shouts. Paintbrush shakes their head disappointedly, but still smiles.

Nickel quickly grabs a cookie and swallows it down quickly.

"Balloon you have to bake more often!" He says, mouth full of another chocolate chip cookie. I shyly take the compliment and mutter a thanks.

"Yeah" baseball says.

"Call us when you bake anytime and we'll come if we're not competing" suitcase says, helping herself to the leftover caramel cubes.

"Suitcase... why are you eating that?" Nickel says.

"I dunno" she says, mouth full. Baseball and I laugh at that. I sit down on my usual seat on the dining table and nickel sits next to me.

"How come I never knew you could bake?" He says.

"We learn new things everyday" I shrug.

"Hehe, I know so much about you and I still have stuff to learn, you're such a cool person," he says.

"You too nickel, all those memories we made together, I'll never, ever forget them" I say.

"Ha, remember that time you fed me strawberry waffles" he says.

"Yeah, I still remember how cute your reaction was" 

"Hey!" He laughs.

"Remember when we saw that sunset and the picture we took?"

"Yeah... ughh I still remember how bad it was" he replies. I laugh lightly at his reaction. 

"I can't believe we were once not friends" he says.

"Yeah, and look how far we came" I say, kissing him on the nose.

"We did so many things together, it's beautiful" he says.

"Yeah, and to think we're still going at it" I say. I look around at everyone, enjoying the cookies. I look at suitcase and baseball, laughing with each other. I smile brightly, and feel a warmth in my heart.

"Yeah, we're still developing our relationship- oh ew, that sounded too nerdy" nickel says. We both laugh together. I peck him on the lips and look him in the eye.

"How about this, we're still..." I say, pausing to find the right words. Both me and nickels eyes widen in realisation as we say the same sentence out loud.

"...Building it up"

_______

AHHHHHHHH HELLOO EVERYONE

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THAT CHAPTER

OR SHOULD I SAY, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE BOOK!

ITS SAD NEWS BUT, ALL GOOD STORIES MUST COME TO AN END

2014 WORDS

ILL POST ANOTHER PART SOON,  WHICH IS GONNA MY FULL THANKS AND MY PLANS FOR THIS BOOK AND THE FUTURE

THIS WILL NOW BE MARKED COMPLETE, BUT ONLY BECAUSE THE STORY IS OVER, NOT THE BOOK!!

BUT FOR NOW, GOODBYEE <3

________