Page 106 of Must Love Christmas

“Oh. Wow. Yeah, great.”

“To be honest, I’d been thinking about it for weeks. But I figured it’d be weird, just the three of us. I didn’t want you to feel like a third wheel. And then when you said you and Simon were together, it just all seemed to fit into place.” She tilted her head. “Except for when you jumped the gun and invited Nikolaj yourself.”

“I’m glad it worked out.” He couldn’t bear to tell her Simon wouldn’t be here—it was too embarrassing, and she might feel like she couldn’t bring Nikolaj after all. Anyway, she’d find out soon enough. “If that’s all, I really need to sleep now.”

“Aye, right—‘sleep,’” she said, making inverted commas with her fingers. “Have fun!”

“Yep.” He shut the laptop lid to cut the connection. Then he stared across the room at the wall separating his room from Simon’s.

They should talk now and sort things out. But Simon had specifically asked for a few hours’ peace from Garen. He was probably right: By morning they’d both have cooled down and cleared their heads.

Besides, it would take more than words to fix the mess Garen had made.

Knowing sleep would elude him for hours, he picked up his beer and went down the hall. As Garen entered the darkened living room, he used his phone to start a soft acoustic Christmas playlist, first ensuring it would play at a low volume—and only on this room’s speakers—so as not to wake Simon.

Since he couldn’t sleep, Garen would make a new playlist for Simon right now. Even if it didn’t change his mind about leaving, it might make him think fondly of Garen while he was in Liverpool.

He switched on the light above the dining table.

“Oh my God.”

Their gingerbread house was collapsing. One of the walls had fallen inward—the wall Garen had worked on, of course—so the entire structure sagged to one side.

He drew close to examine it. Thus far, none of the pieces had broken. Carefully he reached into the house and extracted the fallen wall. The mortar along its edges was no longer sticky, but it could be shaved off and replaced.

He could fix this.

Returning to the kitchen, Garen went to the fridge and pulled out the small container of leftover royal icing. The mortar had hardened from the cold, so he put it in the microwave on low power to soften it. Then he brought it back to the living room, along with their tiny paring knife and one of the pastry bags.

Using the knife’s blunt side, Garen scraped some of the old mortar off the fallen wall’s edges, enough to make room for the new icing but not so much it wouldn’t fit snugly against the roof and other walls.

Just as he finished removing the last bit of mortar, the wall snapped in half in his hand.

Garen set it down, then took a long, deep breath as he massaged the sides of his jaw, which had grown so tight, it was on the verge of giving him a killer tension headache.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I can fix this, too.” He picked up the pastry bag and drew a line of icing mortar along the broken edge, then held the two pieces of the wall together until it felt solidly glued. The line in the middle of the wall looked odd, but it enhanced the whole broken-down haunted-house aspect.

Now it was time to put the wall back in place. Garen added icing mortar to all three edges, then carefully slipped the wall inside the house, tucking it under the roof. “Easy now,” he coached himself. “Slow slow slow slow…”

He nestled the wall back into place. Each of its edges met its facing surface perfectly. “Yes!” he hissed. “Yes yes yes yes—”

The roof collapsed down the middle.

“Fuck me.” Garen pushed his chair back so hard, it banged against the wall beside the window. He froze, worried he’d woken Simon. If his flatmate came out here and saw this disaster, he’d be furious.

Or maybe he’d just shake his head, unsurprised that Garen had screwed up again.

Swallowing a howl of frustration, Garen examined the gingerbread house. It wasn’t totally unsalvageable. The roof had come apart at its top seam, but only one segment had fallen, the one he’d put pressure on trying to reinsert the wall. He just had to remove both parts of the roof, mortar the repaired wall to its companions, let the house sit for an hour to solidify, then replace the roof. Voilà: Christmas saved!

He grasped the non-collapsed half of the roof and gave a gentle tug. It didn’t budge. He pulled harder, to no avail. Naturally, the side Simon had constructed was rock solid.

Garen needed to soften the mortar holding the roof to the wall. Maybe he could put the house in the microwave? No, the heat might soften the gingerbread itself and weaken the entire foundation.

He remembered Simon had a propane kitchen blowtorch as part of his baker’s kit. They’d not used it yet, due to Simon not trusting his own fine-motor skills and not trusting Garen with fire, full stop.

Garen went to the kitchen and fetched the blowtorch—as well as another beer to steady his nerves—then headed back to the living room.

He wasn’t completely daft: He knew fixing the gingerbread house wouldn’t really save Christmas or his relationship with Simon. But in the dead darkness of a brokenhearted Saturday night, it was the one thing under his control.

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