Chapter 9 #2
As the judging time approaches, I notice the crowd starting to gather around her table. People whisper about how good it looks. Kids ask their parents if they can copy it. And something inside me shifts.
I look at my own house. It’s passable now—thanks to Eve and her tip to keep my frosting cold.
Actually, it’s more than passable. I was able to repair the cracks in my foundation and hide them with Red Vines and M&Ms. There’s no way I could win this contest, but I could maybe take second place.
Pam walks by and eyes me, then Eve. “Well, well, well, look who decided to show. The grinch himself is building a gingerbread house.”
But then I glance back at Eve, cheeks flushed, eyes shining with hope and smiling beside her finished house as people take pictures of her with it.
She wants this.
Badly.
And suddenly, I don’t. I don’t want to come anywhere near stealing her thunder.
I pick up a candy cane and snap it in half.
Stick it in at a weird angle so it looks like a chimney fell off.
I glob frosting on the door like it was installed by someone who’s never seen a door before.
Then I go full tilt: gummy worms on the roof, sprinkles tossed like confetti, two gummy bears fighting in the front yard and I tear another in half, laying it dead at their feet.
“Uh…” Eve watches me with wide eyes. “What… exactly are you doing?”
“Art,” I say solemnly.
“Are those bears… fistfighting?”
I nod. “A snowball fight gone wrong.”
Horrified, she points at the mauled bear at their feet. “And did they murder this one?”
I lick my dry lips, wondering how I’m gonna talk myself out of this one. “Conflict adds narrative tension.”
She stares at me for a beat, then bursts out laughing. The sound knocks the wind out of me.
“You’re the weirdest man I’ve ever met,” she says.
“Thank you,” I reply, deadpan.
But inside, I feel something warm flicker.
She’s still laughing when the judges do their rounds, pausing at my house, fully perplexed.
One judge looks at me like I’m the anti-christ.
Roscoe Jenkins mutters to the mayor as they shift over to Eve’s table, “Why did that Scrooge even come if he was going to make a mockery of the contest?”
Ten minutes later, the festival Committee announces that Eve wins. There’s cheering. A ribbon. A picture taken. She holds the gingerbread trophy aloft like she just scaled Everest.
I should feel embarrassed for throwing the contest.
But I don’t.
No one expected me to be here, let alone win the damn thing. Roscoe Jenkins was right… I’m the grinch of the town.
I hang back, packing up my strange, but creative gingerbread house, wondering what the hell I should do with this thing.
Aunt May may have a mini heart attack if she sees the gummy bear violence I’ve depicted.
Hell, maybe Blitzen will enjoy some gingerbread as a little treat.
She already ate her weight in candy canes and survived.
That damn reindeer has a stomach of steel.
Eve finds me near the fireplace, her cheeks still pink, trophy in one hand.
“I know what you did,” she says, still clutching the hot cocoa in the other hand.
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“You melted red hots so that it looked like your gummy bears were bleeding, Luke.”
“Well… I like magical realism.”
“They were wielding candy cane swords.”
“Sounds like a win to me.”
She tilts her head at me, studying my face. Like she can see something I’m not saying. Maybe she can.
“As soon as Pam called you the grinch, you leaned into the stereotype turning your decent gingerbread house into Night of the Living Gingerdead.” After a pause, her voice softens. “For the record, I don’t think you’re a grinch. A Christmas rebel maybe… but not the grinch.”
I look away. My throat tightens. I’ve spent so long hating this season—everything it represents, everything it reminds me of that I don’t know what to make of these last few days where I’ve actually enjoyed some Christmas activities.
Eve’s hand brushes mine, light as snow as though she’s reading my mood.
But she doesn’t say anything. Just lets the silence stretch comfortably between us.
After several moments, she says, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came tonight. Your gingerbread house was the most memorable, by far. Even if you are a rebel without a claus.”
I snicker at her joke. “That should be a prize they offer next year. Most Memorable.”
“Mmm,” Eve nods in agreement. “I’ll talk to the mayor about adding it.”
“Next year?” I offer. “A gummy bear Battle Royale.”
“Huh. So you’re saying there will be a next year?”
My smile twitches higher despite the aching sadness echoing in my chest. “I don’t know. Will you be back next year?”
Slowly, she nods. Then she whispers four words that gobsmack me. “I may not leave.”
For a moment, my head spins, and I don't know if it’s relief or confusion taking the wheel. She’s always had one foot out of Holly Ridge.
My throat is tight and dry. “You… you’re not going back to LA?”
She shrugs, looking both hopeful and unsure in equal measure before echoing me. “I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe not?”
This was always Eve’s thing: skipping town as fast as she could after Christmas, leaving behind empty space that swallowed everything around it until everyone forgot she was even here to begin with.
“You’re kidding,” I finally manage.
“Nope,” she says, a little breathless. But there’s relief in her voice now, too—the kind you hear when someone admits something they’ve been dying to say out loud for ages. Her eyes are sparkling as she lifts a corner of her mouth into a timid smile.
I take a step back, stunned by... all of this. By her confession. By how much I feel like seventeen-year-old me again with one missed chance after another dangling in front of my face.
She nudges me playfully. “Don’t look so shocked.”
My mind flashes back to the bookstore, to Pam’s voice and Eve’s startled expression when she mentioned the inn being in debt. That’s why she’s staying, I realize. But there’s no way she’ll ever admit that out loud. She’s too proud.
I can empathize way too much. Aunt May needs me to run the farm. I never had a choice in the matter, but to stay and take over operations with her. And Eve is suddenly feeling that same pinch. Needing to be here. Wanting to help.
We stand there, not quite touching, not quite apart, with the soft hum of Christmas music in the background and gingerbread crumbs stuck to our sleeves.
Eve glances out the frosted window, watching the snow fall in soft flurries against the darkened sky. “Anyway, time will tell,” she says brightly, though there’s a hint of something in her voice—nervousness? Hope? It sends my thoughts into overdrive.
I clear my throat, trying to sound casual. Like this doesn’t just break every expectation I had of her visit this year. “And what would you do here?”
She spins the trophy mid-air with one hand, grinning as she carefully sets her cocoa beneath it like a pedestal on her table before turning back to me with glee and recklessness written all over her face. “Well, to start with… I’d win again at next year's gingerbread contest. Of course.”
“Of course,” I echo.
I exhale, trying to process everything that just happened. Eve Winters just might be staying in Holly Ridge for good. And Luke Dawson just might be okay with that.