Chapter 6
Me:
Operation: Naughty List has officially commenced.
Piper:
Dare I ask?
Remember that holiday date I told you my brother made for me?
Of course. I’m still trying to retrieve my jaw from the core of the earth over the fact that you agreed.
I shouldn’t have. It’s all a scam.
Come again?
Ryan bribed Nick to come, or Nick owed him a favor. Something that means he definitely didn’t just want to. I was tricked.
Ugh. I’m guessing this isn’t exactly going to help your I Hate Christmas stance, is it?
On the contrary. Nick hates Christmas too.
Oh no. So this means…
I’m about to Christmas his face off.
With a smile that I’m certain revealed green teeth, I offered the piping bag to Nick. “Here you go. Have at it.” The only way I’d managed to suffer through the Christmas music playlist Lydia eagerly supplied for our cookie setup in the breakfast nook was to eat my feelings.
Most of which tasted like Green dye #3.
Nick hesitantly accepted the icing bag, his snowflake cookie sitting before him on a sheet of wax paper.
Across the table from us, Ryan and Lydia decorated their tree-shaped cookie, which already resembled something out of a Better Homes& Gardens magazine.
As for my Santa, I’d gone for quantity over quality and generously gooped the red icing.
All part of my master plan.
I forced myself to cheerily sing along with “Jingle Bell Rock” as I added an edible silver bell to the Santa hat.
Dad had helped Kat and Olivia take all the luggage to the designated rooms, and Mom had simply vanished.
Again.
Mason and Janie were busy decorating their cookies outside on the porch—an idea that Olivia had insisted on, to which Mom had protested, to which Olivia had insisted on again, and then, after Janie squirted Mason with icing, Mom had agreed to.
Now the kids were huddled over their project outside, surprisingly working together to turn their cookie into a triple-decker sandwich.
Brilliant. Sort of like my Operation: Naughty List. But with great brilliance came great pain, and this playlist was starting to make me want to gnaw my arm off.
Next to me on the bench seat, Nick fumbled with the piping bag. Heat radiated off his body. Was I making him nervous? Or was that just the guilt over his lies? Either way—good. He should feel nervous and guilty. At this point, I’d take either.
I channeled my fresh burst of indignation into another green smile and batted my lashes at him, grateful I’d sprung for my waterproof Falsies mascara before my drive over. “You just squeeze it.”
He looked up, his brown eyes catching mine. Confusion lingered in their coffee-colored depths—over my sudden personality change or the piping bag mechanics, I couldn’t be sure.
I was sure, however, that staring into his eyes at this proximity was not a good idea.
Scooting a few inches away, I reached to demonstrate. “I’ll show you.” My wrist brushed against his forearm. We’d both pushed our sleeves up while working, and my bare skin grazing his sent a jolt of electricity that could’ve burnt the rest of the cookies. I quickly pulled my arm back to my side.
Of course I couldn’t have amazing chemistry with a handsome, honest man. At this point, Nick had more red flags than a bullfighter.
“I got it.” He squeezed the white icing, his smile a little wobbly.
I was definitely making him nervous. “I can see that. You’re doing great.” I gushed more than the icing oozing from the tube and piled the flattery on thick. Like the red globs that dripped off my Santa. “You’re a natural, really. Have you ever done this before?”
Nick shifted a little on the chair next to me, not meeting my gaze. “Not really.”
“It’s just cookie decorating, Holly. Hardly an Olympic sport.” Ryan didn’t even look up from his meticulous placement of glitter balls.
“But if it were, we’d totally win.” Lydia giggled.
I tried again. “Still, your snowflake looks great. So detailed.” He’d literally made three white stripes of icing so far, but I made sure my tone sounded genuine and not sarcastic. Because I was Nick’s biggest fan. I was Christmas’s biggest fan.
Ryan shot me a curious look across the table. “Holls, are you—”
“Babe, don’t forget the sugar crystals.” Lydia urgently patted his arm.
Ryan ducked his head back toward their masterpiece, my one-eighty personality change forgotten.
I cleared my throat. Time to pull out the big guns—my memorized Google results from half an hour ago. “How do sheep say ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other?”
Lydia carefully used her fingernail to smooth the green icing along the edge of her cookie. Then she squinted at it with a satisfied smile and Ryan rubbed her back in approval. “I don’t know.” She tilted her head toward me. “How?”
I grinned, waiting until I had Nick’s seemingly reluctant eye contact before answering. He was going to hate this one. “ Fleece Navidad.”
The oven timer beeped. Lydia smiled politely. The guys gave me nothing.
Okay, fine. I frowned as I reached for the snowflake sprinkles. “What kind of money do elves use?”
Lydia scrunched her face. “Jingle bills?”
Drat. “That’s right. Okay, what about this one—what do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”
Lydia shrugged, probably too kind to guess the right answer again.
I shot a sideways look at Nick, whose expression remained neutral. “Frostbite.”
Lydia pity-chuckled. Ryan shook his head. And still, Nick offered nothing—literally nothing. I squinted. Was he even breathing? Not that I had expected a true laugh, but a groan would’ve been nice.
Something to show he was being tortured.
“Oh, come on, guys.” I leaned forward. “That was a great one.”
“Please. Stick to your day job.” Ryan blew out his breath.
My hand stilled on the sprinkle container.
Lydia elbowed him in the ribs and Ryan’s eyes opened wide. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
My throat tightened. The slip wasn’t a big deal—shouldn’t have been a big deal, anyway. But on the heels of his betrayal…
I sniffed. “Careful, big bro, or you might get coal in your stocking this year.”
Ryan smirked. “If you haven’t by now, I should be safe.”
“ Ryan, ” Lydia gently chastised.
“It’s okay.” I slowly got up from the bench. I just needed to regroup. It wasn’t like I missed my job specifically, but being reminded of my recent failure was certainly un-festive, and I was already struggling to fake Christmas spirit as it was.
Moving to the counter, I adjusted the Santa hat on my head—the real one, not the cookie version.
Sweat beaded on my hairline. The kitchen was warm from the oven, but I couldn’t ditch the faux-fur torture device now—and not just because I’d have horrific hat hair.
Because Operation: Naughty List was in full effect and there was no going back.
Even if it didn’t appear to be working yet—Nick was way too unbothered by my current level of obnoxiousness.
Olivia appeared in the kitchen, heading straight for the un-iced cookies sitting on the cooling rack. She still wore the same pink sweatpants she arrived in, but her long hair hung loose around her shoulders now. She’d always had the best hair in the family, though Kat wasn’t far behind.
Of course, I was the only one to end up with unruly red waves.
Olivia helped herself to a snowman and bit off his head with a loud crunch. “Something is up.”
“Besides the way you just casually committed murder?” Ryan arched his brows.
Nick snorted his appreciation.
Oh sure. Laugh at his jokes. I narrowed my eyes at Ryan as I removed a tray from the oven and set it on the stovetop, then remembered he didn’t know I was mad. Couldn’t know I was on to him and Nick, or it’d ruin everything.
The best revenge was to simply Christmas like I’ve never Christmas’d before.
I tossed the oven mitt on the counter next to the stove.
Maybe I needed to take the Christmas-love up a notch.
After all, Ryan hadn’t said a word about my outfit or questioned my sudden heart change other than that one distracted comment.
Maybe I wasn’t being hardcore enough. It was going to take more than a Santa hat, a red skirt, and some icing to become unbearably Christmas.
Unfortunately, just because those things were unbearable for me didn’t make them universally so. Maybe Nick’s holiday tolerance was higher than mine.
I was going to need more time to google.
Olivia waved her snowman corpse toward me. “Don’t you think so?”
“I think…” What did I think? I quickly replayed the conversation in my head. She walked in and said something was up. Was the something referring to my Operation: Naughty List? I paused, unsure how much to give away.
“With Mom. ” Olivia bit off the snowman arm.
“Oh, that.” I grabbed the spatula and scooped cookies off the tray. I’d almost forgotten how weird things were before my change of heart. “A little, maybe.”
“Make that definitely. ” Ryan glanced over his shoulder toward the door that led to the living room, then lowered his voice. “Where even is she?”
“Is this about the Christmas decorations?” Nick looked up from the table. A dot of icing lingered on the corner of his lips, and if he hadn’t completely betrayed me and shown his true colors, I’d have daydreamed about removing it for him.
But not now. I looked away, back at the oven mitt that was decidedly not holiday-patterned, and frowned. Olivia had a point.
“Exactly!” Olivia pointed with her cookie. “ What decorations? No Frosty, either. He’s literally a staple of our childhood. Something is going on.”
“Maybe she just didn’t feel like decorating this year.” Lydia leaned back in the breakfast nook. “She did seem a little tired to me.”
“Mom? Not feel like decorating for Christmas?” Olivia bit off the other snowman arm. “That’s like saying elves don’t feel like making toys.”
“Well, maybe they don’t.” Ryan grinned as he shook sprinkles onto the cutout tree. “Have you ever asked them? No. Because you’re s- elf -ish.”
Nick laughed out loud. I fought the urge to roll my eyes.