The competition started at three o’clock, and we were home from the bookstore in plenty of time. I texted Lauren first in an attempt to guilt her into meeting me there, but she did not respond. Carina, however, was surprisingly excited about the prospect.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said, clapping her hands giddily as we walked into the spice-scented meeting room. “Being a rock star’s daughter doesn’t leave a lot of time for traditional projects like this. Most Christmases we didn’t even have a tree.”
“That’s so not cool. Not even on the tour bus? A little fake one?”
She shook her head. “My dad did have one tattooed onto his leg one year when I complained, though. Said we’d never be without one again. Does that count?” She raised an eyebrow at me, and I laughed. “Anyway, thanks for bringing me here. It’s so cool!”
I had to agree. Little stations had been set up around a half dozen tables, each with the pieces for constructing a modest-sized house, along with bowls and bowls of colorful candies to use in decorating. I saw bags of multicolored frosting at each chair as well, and remembered how my dad used to like to squirt it directly into his mouth, making it difficult to get any sort of cohesive design scheme going. It was a fun memory, but it also might be nice to build a gingerbread house without having someone there to eat the possibilities.
“I don’t see Loretta, though,” Carina added, rising up on her toes to search the room.
She was right. My grandmother was nowhere to be found. A few aproned lodge workers were corralling the guests, showing them to their stations and helping them get started, but Loretta was not among them.
“Maybe she’s running late,” I said, glancing at my phone. Still nothing from Lauren. Or Christopher for that matter. “Come on. Let’s grab seats.”
We took two chairs next to each other at a relatively empty table, and I showed Carina how to use the white royal icing to cement the walls of her gingerbread house together. While we were working, I noticed that Damon was one of the worker bees roaming the room, stopping to help whenever someone flagged him down. He caught my eye and smiled, and I smiled tentatively back. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about Damon at this point. I wondered what he would say if I asked him point-blank what had happened with Christopher. Was it odd that he hadn’t brought it up, considering he knew that Christopher and I were friends? Did he even know about the lawsuit?
“Hey! How’re my two favorite ski bunnies?” Damon asked, stepping up behind our chairs.
Carina and I exchanged a look. “What is this, the nineteen seventies?” Carina said. “You can’t call girls that.”
“Sorry.” He raised his hands. “How are my two favorite people? With whom I have gone skiing?”
“Better,” I replied with a nod. “We’re fine. We’re going to build the coolest gingerbread houses here.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Felicia over there has mad skills.”
He nodded across the room toward an old lady with purple hair who was already putting a second story on her house. It looked like it was going to be a high rise.
“Wow. I cannot compete with that,” Carina said.
“You don’t have to. You’re a rookie,” I told her, and squirted some icing down the side seam of a corner on my house.
“We missed you at the party last night,” Damon said to me.
The party. Right. I had temporarily spaced on that. “Oh, sorry. Turned out I was pretty exhausted after the skiing and the almost-dying.” I threw that last part in for good measure, hoping it would make him back off.
“Got it,” he said. “Well, we have a second chance, anyway. One of my friends from school is having a party at his house tonight on the other side of town.” Damon leaned his hands on the backs of our chairs and hovered his face between ours. “His parents are away, so it should be pretty epic. Are you two ladies in?”
“Do you guys have a party every night around here?” I asked, incredulous.
“It’s holiday break.” He shrugged and smiled. “Besides, what else is the point of working at a ski lodge?”
I didn’t exactly follow his logic there, but I let it slide.
“What about when you’re in school?” I asked.
“What’s school?” he and Carina both said at the same time, perfectly straight-faced.
“Oooookay,” I said with a laugh, and attached another wall to my house. It was kind of amazing that my type A self had found the two most not-type-A people in the world to hang around with. I looked around for Loretta again, half wishing she were here to rescue me from having to say yes or no to this party. She must have had something planned for me and Lauren tonight, not that I could remember what it was. But there was still no sign of her. The clock over the door read 3:30. I had just over thirty-two hours to complete the last four things on my list. Maybe there would be sushi at this party? There would certainly be guys whose names I didn’t know that I could potentially smooch with, though the very idea gave me the sweats. I considered Damon. We’d already kissed once. Maybe I could just get it over with, with him.
How very romantic.
Although, there was one other thing.
“How close are you with this guy throwing the party?” I asked.
He stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps flex attractively, I couldn’t help noticing.
“Pretty close,” he said. “I’ve known him since kindergarten. He once helped me get a marble out of my nostril. After he’d shoved it up there, naturally.”
Carina and I locked eyes again and laughed. “Charming,” Carina said.
“Random question: Is he the type of person who would mind if we TP’ed his house?”
Damon laughed. “Mind? He’d probably love it. Dude, he’d probably help.”
Carina eyed me curiously. “TP his—”
I gave her a pointed look, and her eyes lit up. “Oh…right! Brilliant!”
“Why do I have a feeling you two are leaving me out of something here?” Damon said.
“Because we are,” Carina told him.
“Text me the address and time,” I said. “And I’ll be there.”
“Me too,” Carina said. “Sounds like fun.”
“Perfection!” Damon said with a grin. He took out his phone and texted the details right then and there. “See you tonight.”
He moseyed away, still tapping on his phone.