Chapter Thirteen – Noelle #2
Nico has a witty retort at the ready, and a few feet to my right, Miranda sighs heavily, like she’s never heard something more disappointing in her life.
“I’m sorry about them,” she tells me. “Believe it or not, they’re actually on their best behavior this time.
You don’t want to know how messy this place normally ends up during these things. ”
I imagine she means they throw candy at each other and maybe even try to sabotage the other, though I have no idea what said sabotage would entail. For a competition with no prize, only bragging rights, they sure do take this seriously.
And me? Oh, it’s very clear I’ve never built a gingerbread house before.
Nico made fun of the window on Felix’s house, but he should take a look at mine.
Nothing is straight, not even the corner of the house—which is just ridiculous, because the kit comes with a piece of laminated board with outlines where you’re meant to stick the edges of the house.
It’s nowhere near done, and I already know mine is going to be the worst out of the lot. But, unlike the rest of them, I don’t really care about bragging rights. The most important thing is having fun.
“Matteo,” Nico drawls out his name dramatically, “are those supposed to be bushes around the house, or splotches of frosting, hmm? You can shape ‘em better than that—”
The über alpha growls, “Keep talking, Nico, and I’ll put this frosting where the sun don’t shine.”
That was the last thing I expected to come out of the pack leader, so I laugh. I can’t help it. And once I start laughing, Miranda laughs with me.
“For your information, if you think something like that would shut me up, you’d be wrong.” Nico sounds proud of that, for some odd reason, and he works on carefully placing the roof of the house on top of the erected walls.
“Have a lot of things up your ass, meathead?” Miranda asks innocently. She’s met with a glower from the island, which she clearly doesn’t care about.
The ding of a phone rises in the room, and whatever retort Nico is readying has to wait as Felix goes to the sink and washes off his hands. Once they’re dry, he reaches into his pocket and reads whatever message popped up.
“It’s from our parents,” he says. “They’re finally boarding a plane, but they have a six-hour layover. If all goes well, they should get here sometime on Christmas Eve.” He types something back to them, then returns his phone to his pocket.
“That’s good,” Miranda says. “We’re going to need some third-party voters here, because I have the feeling you three jerks are going to vote for Noelle’s house.”
“Hey,” I say, taking a step back and studying my house. “What’s wrong with mine?” My fingers are sticky from the frosting—and I think I even managed to get some on my nose, somehow. It’s clear I don’t deal with frosting on a daily basis. The stuff is way stickier than you’d think it is.
I hear one of the alphas abandon his post, and he comes over to me.
Based on the smell, I know who it is: Nico.
He stands behind me, staring at my pathetic attempt at a gingerbread house, and heaves the world’s most disappointed sigh.
“All I can say is,” he pauses for what must be dramatic effect, “at least you’re pretty. ”
I bust out laughing. “That bad, huh?”
“Oh, it’s that bad. I think a baby could make a better house than that.” He cocks his head. “Those walls… were you going for a slanted look?”
“No,” I say, holding my frosting-covered hands before me.
“Maybe the others will let you phone a friend—and by friend, I mean a mate. It’ll take a minute, tops. I can get those straightened out for you. I mean, let’s be real: there’s no way a house like this would ever pass inspection.”
Miranda makes gagging noises. “Just help her fix it then get back to your own, weirdo.”
Nico shakes his head and leans down to me to whisper, “She’s so mean. Why are you friends with her again?”
All I do is smile and watch as he reaches around me and helps straighten out my house’s walls. He has to add extra frosting to bolster the house—and he even helps me lay the roof, making sure the gingerbread sheet is fixed to the house before stepping away.
“There,” he says with a triumphant glimmer in his hazel eyes. “Now you can focus on making it pretty, and the gingerbread pack who lives inside won’t have to worry about their house falling down on them.”
When he moves back to his station, Miranda mutters under her breath, “Kiss-ass.”
Even though it might technically be considered cheating, I am glad Nico came over and helped.
Now that the walls and roof are up and stable, I can start to focus on, in his words, making it pretty.
I mean, that’s the best part of all this, isn’t it?
Adding the candy decorations and lining the roof with extra frosting or tons of sprinkles.
I don’t care so much about winning, but at least I am in the running now—though that thought is put on hold when I look at Miranda’s house.
She’s currently lining the edges of the roof with some kind of red and green candy, alternating the colors like they’re Christmas lights.
Her brow is furrowed in concentration, and she nibbles the inside of her cheek as she works.
It’s the same look she always gets when she tries to lock in on something—the same look she’d wear when picking outfits for a night out or taking a test in school.
A quick look over my shoulder tells me the guys have their own unique expressions of concentration.
Felix wears the most relaxed face, his mouth pursed just a bit as he tries to make trees made of licorice.
The licorice can only be so tall before they flop over, but he finds a workaround by taking a few pieces and twisting them together, bolstering them before fixing them to the base of the kit.
Nico has his eyes squinted at his house, currently working on adding more windows to his multi-story gingerbread mansion. He must’ve gotten a huge kit, but the alpha works fast. Out of everyone’s, I hate to say it, his is looking like the clear winner so far.
Matteo, on the other hand, has his tall, wide frame bent, his elbows on the island countertop as he works on the bushes around the walkway he made leading up to the house’s outlined front doors.
Such careful, meticulous work as he uses small, round sprinkles to line the bushes much like Christmas lights.
His whole demeanor radiates intensity, even now—which is kind of amusing, given the fact he’s building a gingerbread house.
They really do get into it. I suppose if it’s been a competition their whole lives, this is normal to them.
Honestly, I find it adorable, and my mind wanders to something I never thought I’d catch myself thinking: they’d make good dads.
I can easily imagine having a kid or two and continuing this tradition.
The guys would probably still have a competition of their own, but they’d abandon their efforts to help our kids build an impressive house.
Holy crap. Here I am thinking about possible kids.
Who am I? Who have these guys changed me into?
The strangest thing is, it’s not a bad thought, and I don’t immediately shy away from it.
Once it’s there in my head, I can’t help but think about the other traditions we’d make, how we’d do everything in our power for our kids to have a truly magical holiday.
It’s a nice thought. For the first time ever, I’m not apprehensive about the future.
I don’t know how long it takes until we’re each done, and it doesn’t matter.
In this cabin, time doesn’t really factor into anything.
It might be an hour, it might be multiple.
I may or may not be the last one working on their house, too—and it’s only when I step back and survey the others that I realize just how silly mine looks in comparison.
All I know is, thank goodness Nico helped me straighten out the walls and put on the roof.
Even with straight walls and a roof that doesn’t look like it’s going to slide off, mine is still the laughing stock of the group.
The odd friend who’s really more of an acquaintance that the main friend group feels bad for and invites, the black sheep of the family.
Miranda’s house is cool in that it has a main color scheme: she only used red and green candies to decorate. It sets hers apart and gives hers a nice, Christmassy look.
Felix’s is unique in that the ‘land’ before the house has multiple trees.
He fixed them by thickening the licorice up and twisting multiple together, and then he even dotted the top of the licorice with fluffy frosting.
The frosting on the trees got a dusting of shimmer, sparkly silver sprinkles, which he dubbed fresh snow.
Matteo’s meticulous work on the bushes surrounding the walkway up to his gingerbread house paid off. Somehow, the über alpha got the small, round sprinkles to look like Christmas lights strung along them. He did the same thing with the roof of the house, too.
And Nico’s? Nico used a heck of a lot of frosting, coating the entire roof of his multi-story house in it, in smooth, curved strokes. His house has many windows made of frosting, and each window is decorated with brightly-colored candy.
Mine… well, mine just looks silly compared to theirs.
Mine is clearly the worst. When you set them side by side, mine looks as if a second grader did it, a kid with clumsy hands.
Or, at the very least, someone who has never seen a gingerbread house before.
I was very conservative with the frosting, which now that I’m thinking about it, is just silly.
If there’s one time to go ham with frosting, it’s now.
Taking a quick glance around at the other houses, it’s very obvious to me that you simply cannot have too much frosting.