“Of course I’ve been! I appreciate a good Christmas tree.”
A knock sounded on the doorframe, and we both swiveled toward Elena, who smiled at us. “The gingerbread is ready.”
Tyler sighed, transitioning to an embarrassed son. “Mama...”
“It’ll be fun,” she coaxed. “You always love decorating the houses.”
I could have sworn roses bloomed in his cheeks.
We followed Elena into the dining room. Drafting paper covered the table along with baking sheets filled with gingerbread and tubes of frosting. There were bowls of gumdrops, snowdrops, red and green sprinkles, miniature candy canes, M&M’S, and peppermints. Christmas carols played from glittery speakers. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...”
Elena disappeared back into the kitchen, and Tyler caught my arm before I sat. His hand froze me more than his lowered voice. “You don’t have to do this.”
I arched a brow. “Are you kidding? I’ve never decorated a gingerbread house before.”
“My moms—they want”—he rubbed the back of his head—“they’re into this kind of stuff.”
I couldn’t swallow my grin. “It’s cute.”
“It’s not what you came here for.”
“No,” I said serenely. “It’s not.”
And yet I didn’t mind the idea of making gingerbread houses.Maybe I enjoyed seeing Tyler discombobulated. His parents made him human, fallible, in a way I wasn’t used to. And I liked it.
Elena and Robin bustled through the door from the kitchen, each of them holding two steaming mugs. “Do you like hot chocolate?” Robin asked.
“It’s Robin’s family recipe,” Elena said. “Cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne pepper—and both cocoa powderandmelted chocolate.”
“Sounds delicious,” I said, because even if my stomach probably shouldn’t have two cups of milk in one day, what the hell.
Robin set one mug in front of me, red with white lettering. “It’s so nice to have you here,” she said. “Usually it’s just the three of us for the holidays.”
I’d been vaguely aware Tyler was an only child, but were there no grandparents? No cousins?
“You need two of each of these—the long walls, short, and these are the roof tiles.” Robin indicated different trays of gingerbread. “We used to have competitions when I was a kid. The whole extended family, day after Thanksgiving.”
“This is her way of warning you how competitive she is.” Elena handed out the pieces.
Kids my age could make me nervous, but I’d always gotten along with adults. “Do you have a big family?”
The women exchanged glances. “Big enough,” Robin said lightly. “Not as big as the Barbanels, though!”
“I blame the triplets,” I said. “As soon as people see threeidentical faces, they think, ‘That’s it, too many people.’ ”
Tyler’s parents laughed politely and asked a few more questions about my family before turning to the serious business of gingerbread-house construction. “Here’s what you do,” Robin said. “This icing’s the mortar. If you want to cheat—”
“It’s not cheating!” Elena turned to me. “We have milk cartons you can use for structural integrity, so your house doesn’t collapse.”
Tyler leaned close. “It’s cheating.”
Elena threw her hands in the air.
I swallowed a smile. “What’s the icing made out of?” I watched as Elena carefully applied it to the edge of a gingerbread piece. “It’s strong enough to hold the house together?”
“Confectioner’s sugar, egg whites, and cream of tartar,” Robin said. “And crossed fingers.”
“Here.” Tyler picked up a bag filled with icing. “Hold those two walls perpendicular, yeah, like so—I’ll put the icing on and then you hold them until they set.”
