“I didn’t expect structural engineering to be part of it. My mom always made gingerbread men, not a house.”
“Well, it’s a house,” he said, deadpan. “Structure is important.”
“Oh my God, you’re taking this too seriously.”
“You said this was part of your Christmas tradition,” he replied as though it were obvious, sliding the gingerbread pieces into the oven with quiet precision. “Traditions are important.”
Every year on Christmas Eve, my mom and I baked gingerbread men for Santa. Since I wasn’t able to spend Christmas with my family this year, I wanted to keep up the tradition but alter it a little bit. A gingerbread house seemed like the perfect idea.
But Enzo’s OCD was making me reconsider.
The oven door shut with a soft clink. He stood, wiping his hands on a towel, completely unaware that watching him do even simple things like that had somehow become dangerous for my heart.
While the gingerbread baked, I mixed the icing, humming along to the quiet holiday music playing from Enzo’s tablet. At some point, Enzo drifted behind me—close enough that I could feel the warmth of him at my back, the solid presence that always made me feel steadier than I wanted to admit.
Now that we’d been intimate, I didn’t know how to act around him. It had been almost a week and things were weird to say the least. We’d spend the days acting like nothing was going on between us, but once we got ready for bed, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
“You’re making that too thin,” he murmured near my ear.
I froze, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. “No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I am not.”
He reached around me—slowly, carefully—and took the bowl. His hand brushed mine, just lightly, but it scattered my thoughts like the powdered sugar on the counter.
“Here,” he said. “Let me thicken it.”
“This is my mom’s recipe” I muttered.
“Well, structural integrity is at stake. It needs to be able to hold the walls together.”
I snorted and bumped his shoulder with mine. He didn’t move away.
When the gingerbread finally came out, we set up all the components at the table, then let the cookies cool. Once they had, Enzo held the front piece of the house while I piped icing along the edge.
“Hold it steady,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I am.”
“You’re tilting it.”
He huffed in annoyance. “No, I’m bracing it. There’s a difference.”
“It looks crooked.”
“You’re crooked,” he countered flatly.
I snorted. That subtle warmth in his eyes deepened even though he fought a smile.
We got the second wall on, then the third. The roof was a whole different story. I tried to hold one side while he balanced the other, and the whole thing wobbled so violently. “It’s falling!” I gasped.
“It’s fine,” he argued, sounding far too calm for someone lying.
“It’s definitely falling!”
“Just hold—”
