Page 58 of Don't Leave Me

“I’ll take the built one. I'm not sure I'm talented enough to keep it together. Thank you, Mrs. Robinson.”

“Please, don’t call me that!” Mom giggles. “You can call me Addi.”

“He’ll be calling you mom soon enough,” Dad mumbles under his breath. My gaze snaps over to him and he peeks up at me, winking.

He’s already hard at work, putting a much more complicated gingerbread house together. Every year he takes it as a personal challenge to make a bigger and more intricate design. Uncle Nick helps him plan it out and sometimes Uncle Blake helps himbuild it. They act like it’s a real house. Sometimes they even build it floor by floor and decorate the interior of the house.

If Uncle Linc finds out he’s working on it, he’ll come over to do the outside landscaping. He pipes these trees out of icing and makes sure they’re perfect. Uncle Cole will draw an entire Christmas scene on a cookie, or make detailed gingerbread people so Dad has people in his house. It’s insane.

They could win any competition, but I don’t think any of them would be willing to join one. Maybe we should enter them in one next year without telling them.

“Who’s going to make the best house this year?” Charlie leans into the table, but her belly keeps her from getting too close. She looks so uncomfortable, but she still has a few weeks left before the baby is supposed to be born.

“I am,” Dad scoffs like it should be obvious.

“You don’t count, Papa.” Wyatt lifts his chin enough to stare at him like he’s crazy. “Though I think he should have to teach Peanut how to do this.”

“It’s easy. I don’t know why all of you have such a hard time. It’s just like building a house. Simple as can be.” He takes another piece of gingerbread and pipes the perfect amount of icing on it before sticking the railing on the porch.

“How do you get it so smooth and perfect?” I stare at him. Sometimes I swear the man is great at everything.

“Because I’ve used caulk every single day of my life for the last forty years. I think I can pipe icing.” He rolls his eyes. “Building this is easy when you have an architect help you with the plans.”

“That sounds like you’re cheating,” Jax singsongs. “If you were good, you wouldn’t need Uncle Nick’s help.”

“I'm good at building houses, I'm still not going to do it without Nick planning it out. That’s just stupid. Plus, your mommy still builds your house, so I don’t know where you havea leg to stand on,” Dad mumbles, too focused on his house to actually care.

“I have two legs to stand on, thank you very much.” Jax puffs out his chest.

“You didn’t in that last game,” Peck whispers. He thinks it’s only loud enough for me to hear, but the whole table hears and we all burst out laughing. Even Jax smirks. He knows he looked like a baby giraffe trying to figure out how to walk. I swear he fell more than he skated.

“Yeah, what was up with that?” Wyatt asks. “I swore your coach was going to bench you the entire game.”

“There was a bet going and I won.” His smile widens even more.

“What was the bet?” Peck places too much icing on his gumdrops and they slide down the roof and plop onto the bottom board. He frowns and stares at it like he doesn’t know why this keeps happening.

“Coach said I couldn’t play like an idiot and still score goals. I proved him wrong and won a hundred bucks because of it. Now, he isn't going to be up my ass when I goof around. It was worth looking like I didn’t know what I was doing for one game.” He shrugs, putting way too much candy on his house.

“I told the reporters you had a one-night stand and got a urinary tract infection from the puck bunny. Old people like to fall a lot when they have one.” Cody chuckles.

“A one-night stand?”

“No, a urinary tract infection. What old person is having a one-night stand?” Cody’s brows draw together to form a deep V and he shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder how we’re twins and yet your brain is so wildly different than mine.”

“Because you got all the brain cells when you were in the womb and Jax got the-” Wyatt starts.

“Hot genes. I took all of them from you, bro. Sorry.” Jax pats Cody on the back, pushing him a little harder than he needs to. They do this every year and most of the time end up breaking each other’s houses.

I don’t know how Mom and Dad do it. They handle each of us with such grace. They let Jax and Cody be themselves, but they know when they need to reign them in. They’ve never gotten upset when they make a mess or get into a physical fight. They take it all in strides with a smile on their face and Mom wasn’t afraid to get in the middle and wrestle with them.

Yet, they’re able to handle Charlie and me when we have a meltdown. When hormones were high, Dad didn’t shy away from anything. He was right there in the middle of the chaos. He’d hold us for hours while we cried over something stupid. He’d tell us when we were overreacting, but he wouldn’t do it in a way that belittled our emotions.

They let us feel. They let us express ourselves. They let us grow into the adults we were meant to be without trying to change us. I hope I can be like that when I have kids.

Pecker lets out a sigh and sits back in his chair. His house looks like a child is making it and I giggle. He’s so frustrated.

“You’re putting too much icing on them.” I slide my chair closer and show him how to do it right.

---