Page 112 of Must Love Christmas

“Is it good?” Simon bit into the other half of the piece. “Oh.”

“Now we know why people don’t eat gingerbread houses. Shall we call this a practice run and start building another?”

Simon nodded as he spat his mouthful of gingerbread into a sheet of kitchen roll. “Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and make the next house even better.”

“Och, now who’s metaphor-ing?”

Working together, it took but a few minutes to erase all evidence of the gingerbread disaster from everything but their memories. Then Garen carried the reeking bin bag outside to the rubbish skip.

The sky was clear and star-studded, but clouds were easing in from the west, and the crisp air smelled like snow. He took a moment to look up and down his quiet street, where even after midnight, most windows still glowed with Christmas lights.

In his own flat, the living room window had gone dark apart from Simon’s tasteful white electric candles, but their kitchen now shone brightly. Simon was probably making a list of ingredients for their next gingerbread project, which would no doubt be ten times as ambitious as the first.

Though the rising wind bit at his skin, Garen crossed the narrow lane to the wrought-iron fence bordering Kelvingrove Park. If he stood on his toes and leaned to the right, he could see the top of the Stewart Memorial Fountain, where he’d made a wish sixty-four days ago for a good flatmate who wasn’t a morning person.

The wish had only come half true, but as he’d told Simon the day they’d met,“Often what one prefers isn’t what one truly needs.”

The Lady of the Lake statue glowed against the dark sky. Garen tipped an imaginary hat to her, whispered, “Cheers, lass,” then turned for home.

Chapter 23

2 Days UntilChristmas

“How much time left?” Simon asked as he placed the eighth and final ghost-gray reindeer atop the roof of the haunted gingerbread house.

Nikolaj checked his watch. “Forty minutes, probably more.” Using a pair of sugar tongs, Karen’s partner adjusted one of the headstones in its chocolate digestive biscuit–crumb soil. “Karen said Garen’s friends know they should never arrive on time, because he’s never ready.”

“Wise.” Simon had convinced Garen to keep this party minimalist, rather than throwing in every possible food, drink, and game he could think of. As a result, they’d both kept their sanity thus far.

This second attempt at a gingerbread house was coming down to the wire, though, having taken all week to create. Karen and Nikolaj had helped them get over the finish line after arriving yesterday from Bulgaria.

The final product, encompassing half the dining table, stood about two feet high at the peak of its deliberately cracked chimney. Inside each of its eight windows stood a different monster, including tiny versions ofNightmare Before Christmascharacters. Around the base of the house curled a black-and-yellow licorice replica of Poppy. Garen had put the licorice python in an elf costume, naturally.

The house wouldn’t win them a spot onBake Off, due to Garen’s lack of patience and Simon’s lack of fine-motor skills, but it was bound to please their friends. More important, they’d had a laugh constructing it together, despite—or maybe because of—several mishaps involving load-bearing walls.

Simon tested Ghost Blitzen’s grip on the roof before letting go of it and sinking back into his chair. “That’s us done.” He shared a high-five with Nikolaj.

Just then the front door opened to the rustle of bags, stomping of boots, and the chatter of Garen and Karen.

“Yaldy!” Garen unwound a snow-soaked scarf from around his neck, nearly knocking off his be-jingled Santa hat. “Looks a white Christmas for sure this year.”

Nikolaj took the bags of booze from Karen’s arms. “Is it not always a white Christmas in Scotland?”

“Sometimes up north,” Karen said, “but here in Glasgow it’s usually a wet Christmas, so you and Simon both got lucky.”

“Brrrrrr.” Garen set down his shopping bags, then hurried over to the fake fireplace and held his hands in front of it. His sister joined him, shivering and rubbing her palms together.

Nikolaj and Simon exchanged athey’re-so-weirdlook, then Simon said, “A wet Christmas would’ve felt more like home. Home like Liverpool, I mean. Not like Greece.”

His parents had already texted him several photos of themselves and his three grandparents on the beach near Lindos, where it wasn’t warm enough to sunbathe but still fair enough to stroll in the sun. Seeing their happiness had confirmed to him he’d done the right thing by convincing them to go.

As Karen and Nikolaj went to set up the drinks in the kitchen, Garen started his “Christmas Bangerz” playlist, then bopped over to Simon in time with the bouncy beat of the first song.

He gasped when he saw the gingerbread house. “It looks amazing!”

“It’s not much different than when you left,” Simon pointed out.

“I know, but there’s something about leaving and coming home again that makes it that much more striking.”

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