Page 45 of Daddy's Little Christmas

Now, standing in a sugar-scented community center, my pulse roared in my ears. My skin buzzed. Every nerve ending from my spine downward came online all at once, waking up after a very long sleep.

“Good job on the roof,” he said, voice warm. “I’d trust it in a snowstorm.”

A laugh startled out of me before I could stop it.

“Thanks,” I managed. My own voice sounded thin, shaky. “You, uh, really committed to the gumdrops.”

He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “What can I say? I’m a man of excess when it comes to candy landscaping.”

The ridiculousness of the sentence saved me. I snorted, then clapped a hand over my mouth, embarrassed. He smiled, full and open and so fond my chest physically hurt.

We kept working, passing the frosting bag back and forth, fixing a leaning wall, sticking gumdrops where they covered mistakes best. At some point, Rosa drifted by and made a pleased noise, sprinkling powdered sugar over the roof like a blessing.

The room filled in around us as people finished and gathered, voices overlapping, kids tugging on sleeves to be lifted up for a better look. Someone bumped my elbow. A shoulder pressed into my back.

Graeme’s hand settled at my lower spine without comment, warm and steady, exactly where it needed to be. I leaned into it without thinking, my body deciding before my brain could argue.

“You’re doing great, sweet boy.”

God, those words made my insides go soft, unspooling toward that familiar, hazy place. I could’ve curled into it right there, let the noise and the lights blur while he steered me through it.

Instead, I took a slow breath and stayed where I was—grown, present, over-aware of the way his body brushed mine through layers of winter clothes.

Applause broke out near the front of the room.

“And this year’s gingerbread champions,” someone announced into the mic, “are the Fitzgerald twins—again.”

Good-natured groans followed. Someone whistled. Rosa clapped like she’d personally trained them.

Graeme leaned slightly toward me. “Figures.”

I smiled, surprised by how little I cared. Our house sagged a little on one side, frosting smudged where we’d fixed mistakes, gumdrops unapologetically overused.

“Charmingly whimsical,” Rosa declared as she passed, tapping our table. I took it as a win.

Graeme tipped his head toward the exit. “You want some air?”

I nodded.

We didn’t head back toward the inn. Instead, Graeme angled us down a narrow side lane that skirted the community center, the noise fading behind us until all that was left was the soft crunch of boots and the hush of falling snow.

My fingers tingled inside my gloves.

“You did well,” Graeme said quietly.

“At piping?” I asked. “That roof is a structural hazard.”

“At letting yourself have fun,” he corrected.

I watched the snow gather along the edges of the path, untouched except for our steps, the white unbroken ahead of us.

“It was easier,” I admitted. “With you there.”

“Good,” he said simply.

We slowed near a stand of bare maples where the path opened onto a small, plowed clearing—nothing special, just space andquiet and the glow of one streetlamp set back from the road. Graeme stopped, turning to face me fully.

“Rudy?” he said softly. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”