“It’s okay, I don’t mind. You said there aren’t any in my rooms, right?”
“Of course not!” Orion hastens to say.
“No, I wouldn’t do that without—I wouldn’t do that. The closest one is in the hallway outside your rooms,” Henri says.
“That’sfine then,” I say.
Cato catches my eye and smiles as he adds another tiny black licorice dot to his castle. It’s covered in them, and it takes me a second to realize the licorice is supposed to be little cameras. I huff a laugh.
We finish our gingerbread houses without further arguments or revelations.
Henri shoos us out of the kitchen temporarily while he prepares some surprise for us.
We go to the living room to relax while we wait.
I’m on the couch, my legs stretched out toward the fire. Magnus and Charm are next to me, close enough that our sides are pressed against each other. Cato slid in to sit on the floor between my legs.
None of us comment on it.
Henri calls us back to the kitchen where we walk in to find the sideboard converted into a gingerbread village. It has the houses (and castle) we decorated, but now they’re surrounded by candy landscaping. There are evergreen trees made of green licorice strips, a gingerbread sidewalk, and marshmallow mountains in the background. The marble countertop is covered in a mix of sugars to mimic rolling, snowy hills.
I move closer to admire everything, noticing the small details Henri added, like the little marshmallow bushes covered in “snow” and a pond made of coarse blue sugar.
The gingerbread house Charm and I made is in the center. The garden path I laid lines up perfectly with the sidewalk Henri created.
Cato’s castle is on the edge of our village, all pointy ends and solid walls surrounding the central tower. I don’tthink there are even any decorative pieces on it, everything he added is some sort of defensive mechanism. It’s alarming but surprisingly well-constructed.
Orion’s house ended up being neat and simple. The few decorations he got to stick look nice, and he even managed to remove the excess frosting that he kept accidentally dripping on it.
Henri’s house is so realistic, he even colored in some of the windows with yellow frosting to mimic the glow of the lights inside.
Magnus’s gingerbread house looks just as sweet as he smells. It’s the classic style with scalloped shingles and little decorations on the sides. The door is flanked by candy canes, and it has a peppermint walkway. In the yard, there’s a small mint green marshmallow cut into a frog shape.
“I thought the house needed a Pete to protect the gardens,” Magnus says.
“It looks so cute! He’s much sweeter this way.” I think I accidentally mutter that last part out loud.
I can’t help it though. The other day when we were gardening, Pete kept kicking dirt on me whenever Magnus looked away. I made him mad because I repotted a plant that apparently he uses as one of his homes. Pete has plenty of nests in other places, so it’s not like I took away his only one. Magnus repots plants all the time and Pete never gets mad athim.
“How do you like our village?” Henri asks me.
“I love it. It’s so cute, and it smells amazing,” I say, inhaling the sweet and spicy aroma of the gingerbread and candies.
“Our gingerbread house turned out great, thanks to your ideas,” Charm says.
“It did turn out well, didn’t it?” I say.
Our house isn’t as perfect as Henri’s replica or even Orion’s simple gingerbread house, but its mismatched decorations have their own charm. I’d describe it as whimsical because I kept thinking of new things I wanted to add as we went.
The others compliment our house too, and I quickly realize I need to get them to stop. It’s reminding me too much of the way they talked during my heat. I might not have asked them to talk me through it if I’d known it would make me this hot when they praised me from then on.
“Thanks for putting this together,” I tell Henri, attempting to turn the attention away from me. “I had fun. It’s been years since I did that.”
“It was my pleasure. We’re on call a lot, but we should still take time to ourselves when we can. We need more than the job, as important as it is,” Henri says.
“Right,” I say, looking away.
Chapter 40
