Page 26 of My Secret Santa Clayton

"Damn this frosting," Grace muttered, gripping the icing bag like it had personally offended her. I couldn't help a short chuckle, which earned me a glare.

"Here," I said, reaching for the bottle of peppermint schnapps intended for the hot chocolate. "Let's make this more bearable."

"Wait, what are you—" she cut herself off as I unscrewed the cap and poured a generous amount into my mug. The sharp scent of peppermint tickled my nose.

"Like you said, let's find a way to enjoy this." I raised my mug in a half-hearted toast.

Grace rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She grabbed the bottle and filled her own mug, then tipped it back. Her face contorted into a grimace as she swallowed the boozy hot chocolate.

"Ugh, that's awful," she gasped, setting down her mug with a thud. "It's like Christmas came in a bottle and then died."

"Sounds about right," I agreed, taking a cautious sip. The taste was like swallowing a candy cane that'd been soaked ingasoline. I made a face, but the warmth spreading through my chest wasn't unwelcome.

"Okay, maybe this will help," Grace said, rallying herself. "Now, let's see if we can put this house together without it collapsing again."

"Or without us collapsing," I added, raising an eyebrow. We both laughed, the tension easing just slightly. With peppermint schnapps fueling our efforts, even the disaster that was our gingerbread house seemed a little less catastrophic.

"Hey, before we go any further with this...masterpiece," I said, picking up a gumdrop and examining it as if it held the secret to life itself, "I've still got your truck. Been meaning to return it, but I fixed it all up."

"Keep it as long as you need. It's not like I'm hauling lumber or anything," she replied, her attention on squeezing out an even line of icing along the gingerbread wall.

"Always thought of you as a woman on the go,” I muttered. “You should have it back.”

“I mean…I am, I guess. A woman on the go, I mean.” She paused, looking up at me with those keen eyes that saw too much. "So, what's life been like for you since high school?"

The pivot felt strange, but also perfectly natural. This was the first time we’d really talked since we met up again—and it was an opening to heal some hurt.

I shrugged. "Joined the Army, then the Marines. Saw some things. Came back."

“Where were you deployed?”

“Afghanistan, three years.”

“When?”

“Let me think…would have been mid-2010s?”

She let out a surprised laugh. “Huh. I guess we were there at the same time. I was covering the war, embedded with the Army.”

"Really?" I couldn't hide the astonishment in my voice. Grace, the girl who used to be afraid of spiders, had been in a war zone. "Guess we both ended up far from Silver Ridge for a while."

"Guess so." She gave a half-smile, dipping her brush into food coloring.

We fell into a rhythm then, decorating the gingerbread house while swapping stories about desert heat and sand that got into everything. We talked about the camaraderie, the fear, and the longing for home.

And something…well, it was like building a bridge between us.

Even if the gingerbread house we were building was trash.

For the first time in a long time, talking to Grace felt right. There were no accusations, no bitterness—just two people who'd seen too much trying to make sense of a world that had once seemed so simple.

"Look at this mess," Grace chuckled, holding up a cookie wall that had more frosting on it than the actual paper plate beneath it. "You'd think after dodging gunfire, I could build a damn gingerbread house.”

"Hey, don't look at me," I grinned back, "I'm just the muscle here. Delicate artistry was never my thing."

"Clearly, Picasso." Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she glanced over at my side of the roof, where the icing sagged. “And here I thought you were in construction.”

"Ouch," I laughed, reaching for a gumdrop to cover a particularly bad spot. "But you’ve gotta forgive me; working with cookies isn’t even close to the same as working with lumber and tools.”

---