Page 6 of My Secret Santa Daddies

“What the hell took you so long?” He glances at his watch. “You told me lunch and it’s practically dinner.”

“Work bullshit.”

“Don’t you make enough to stop and retire young?”

Cody throws his heavy bag over his shoulder. “If Griffin stops working, he’d actually have to live his life.”

“Harsh,” I wince.

Cody slams the truck door shut behind him, grumbling under his breath as he grabs another bag from the back. “Griffin also drives like an old man.”

“Figured you two would’ve hit a bar on the way or something.”

“The roads were shit,” I say, walking up toward the porch.

Wyatt chuckles, then his eyes meet mine, his expression more serious now. “Good to see you, man. It’s been too long.”

Ithasbeen. Too long since I’ve been back. Too long since I’ve seen Wyatt and Cody outside of rushed visits and quick phone calls.

Cody comes up behind me, and throws an arm around Wyatt’s shoulders. “Save the heart-to-heart for later. Right now, I need a drink, and we’ve got work to do. I don’t know why the hell Griffin thought this was going to be a relaxing holiday.”

Wyatt laughs, but there’s an edge of something deeper in his voice. “Don’t worry, the place is stocked. I’ve been holding down the fort. Got in last night.”

Jack, sensing the change in the air, comes running up to my side, tugging at my hand. “Dad, can we go inside? It’s cold out here.”

“Yeah, let’s get in.”

I hold out my free hand to Wyatt, who takes it in a firm grip. “It’s good to see you, man. It really has been too long.”

Wyatt grins. “The feeling’s mutual, brother.”

Jack races back up to me, grabbing my hand and tugging impatiently. “Come on, Dad! Let’s see our new home!”

I ruffle his hair. “Alright, alright.”

Together, the four of us trudge up the snow-covered steps and into the lodge, our footsteps echoing off the old floorboards as we go.

The place is huge—too big, really. It was an old lodge back in the day, built in the fifties, back when Silver Ridge was still on the map for vacationers and skiers. Now, it’s a relic, a forgotten structure tucked away in the mountains, and I can see why it sat on the market for so long. The walls are lined with dark, rough-hewn wood, cracked in places, and faded from years of neglect. The floor creaks with every step, and the corners are cluttered with old furniture, most of it covered in dust. The windows, large and bare, let in the faint, gray light of the storm outside, but I can already tell the insulation is shit—there’s a cold draft leaking in through the edges of the frames.

The stone fireplace takes up almost an entire wall in the main room, stretching up to the high ceiling.

The roof, though, is holding up. It was the first thing I had someone check when I bought the place. The last thing I need is to worry about leaks on top of everything else. The generator was next on the list and thank God I replaced the old one.

Everywhere I look, I see more work that needs to be done. The kitchen is barely functional with appliances from the early nineties—yellowing, outdated, and definitely not up to code. There’s a crack running along the ceiling in the hallway that leads to the back bedrooms.

Cody’s heavy hands slam down on my shoulder. “Holy shit, you weren’t exaggerating with the amount of work this place needs.”

Wyatt grins. “Told you it was a fixer upper.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting to renovate the damn Taj Mahal.”

I chuckle. “It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? Look at this place, man. It’s massiveandcrumbling. We’ll be lucky if we make it halfway livable by next year.”

“We have time,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “Besides, we’ve got each other. How hard can it be?”

Wyatt claps me on the back and grins. "You say that now, but just wait until you see the bathrooms."

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