“No! Well, once.” He sighed. “It’s about…our plan.”
Her expression brightened. “Oh! The Operation Gingerbread Romance Initiative?”
“I thought it was…Mistletoe Madness or something.”
“Whatever. My dad’s so excited! He showed me the sketches and told me they are going to the meeting together tonight.” She held up her leash-free hand for a high-five. “WTG, soon-to-be stepbrother.”
He groaned. “Olivia, you have to stop.”
“What? Why? Don’t you want them to fall in love and get married?”
“Not as much as you do,” he said, kicking at a patch of snow. “Anyway, it’s not about…all that stuff. They’re doing it for marketing reasons, so no more dumb…romance.” The word tasted like dirt in his mouth.
Olivia frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. My dad’s excited. He was humming while chopping carrots last night.Humming,Benny. He likes her. I can tell.”
“That’s not proof.”
“It’sdata,” she insisted.
“Olivia,” he said patiently, “we can’t interfere anymore.”
“But—”
“My mom told me to stay out of adult stuff. So we’re staying out. End of story.”
Kat barked as if she agreed, but Olivia planted her boots and lifted her chin. “No. We’re not giving up.”
“Olivia!”
“Come on, Benny. They’re already working together. They have chemistry. They’re single?—”
“Stop saying that word!”
“—and they like Christmas!”
“Everyone likes Christmas.”
“Exactly! Common interests!” Her eyes gleamed with determination. “We just have to…increase the probability of romance.”
He groaned. “You can’t make people fall in love. It’s not like science.”
“Says who? There’s chemical attraction, emotional resonance, shared responses?—”
“They’re not your personal lab experiment, Olivia.”
She just grinned, which made him so mad, he could scream.
“If I canprovethey like each other, will you help me, Benny?”
Benny could probably already prove it with one picture of his mother blushing every time Marshall’s name came up. “How?” he asked.
“The usual—observation, testing, controlled conditions. Maybe a little…” She fluttered her fingers like the Wicked Witch about to throw apples. “Assistance.”
“Olivia.”
“Come on,” she said, laughing like this was a game. “We’re the smartest kids in sixth grade. We can solve this.”
“There’s nothing to solve,” he said. “Just leave them alone and maybe…”
