December 20, Friday

"STEADY NOW," Kelly instructed as I piped royal icing along the edge of a gingerbread panel. "That's going to be supporting the whole third floor."

I concentrated on making the line as straight as possible, my tongue caught between my teeth. The kitchen smelled of spices and sugar, and every surface was dusted with powdered sugar and scattered with candy decorations.

"How did you learn to do this?" I asked, watching Kelly expertly assemble what looked like a tiny Victorian bay window, complete with delicate crosshatching.

"Trial and error, mostly." She attached the window to the second story. "Though YouTube tutorials helped. The trick is getting the icing consistency exactly right."

I licked a stray bit of icing from my thumb. "This is way better than the kits I used to buy."

"Those aren't real gingerbread houses. They're just graham crackers pretending." She stepped back to survey our work. "What do you think? Should we add a wraparound porch?"

"Absolutely." I grinned. "We can show it off at Christmas dinner. You and Uncle Pete are coming, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it." She began cutting thin strips of gingerbread for porch posts. "Though Uncle Pete's already complaining about having to wear a tie."

"Tell him it's not that formal." I dabbed at more icing on my fingers. "Sawyer's smoking a ham. I'm hoping everyone will bring a dish… or two."

She grinned. "I got you covered."

"Um… you can bring a plus one, too, if you want."

Kelly's cheeks turned pink. "Maybe I'll do that."

Josephine gave her a pointed look. "Okay, now you have to spill. Who is it?"

"Promise not to laugh?" She concentrated very hard on her porch posts. "I kind of have a thing for Dilbert. From the post office."

"Dilbert Newberg?" I smiled. "He's cute. Those dimples..."

"Right?" Kelly sighed dreamily. "And he always saves the best shipping boxes for me when I'm mailing stuff. Last week he gave me Christmas stamps with puppies on them instead of the regular ones."

"Sounds like love to me." I reached for more icing, but Kelly swatted my hand away.

"Stop eating the building materials! Here." She pushed a bowl of scraps toward me. "These are for snacking."

I popped a piece of spicy gingerbread in my mouth. "So you're going to ask Dilbert?"

"I don't know… what if he says no?"

"What if he says yes?"

She smiled, adding a snowdrift of coconut around the base of our creation. "You're right. I can do this."

"Yes, you can." I surveyed our work. "This is amazing, Kelly. Thank you for teaching me."

"Thank you for asking." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "It's nice having someone to build with."

We worked in comfortable silence, adding finishing touches to our masterpiece.