“Babe, don’t forget the sugar crystals.” Lydia urgently patted his arm.
Ryan ducked his head back toward their masterpiece, my one-eighty personality change forgotten.
I cleared my throat. Time to pull out the big guns—my memorized Google results from half an hour ago. “How do sheep say ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other?”
Lydia carefully used her fingernail to smooth the green icing along the edge of her cookie. Then she squinted at it with a satisfied smile and Ryan rubbed her back in approval. “I don’t know.” She tilted her head toward me. “How?”
I grinned, waiting until I had Nick’s seemingly reluctant eye contact before answering. He was going to hate this one. “FleeceNavidad.”
The oven timer beeped. Lydia smiled politely. The guys gave me nothing.
Okay, fine. I frowned as I reached for the snowflake sprinkles. “What kind of money do elves use?”
Lydia scrunched her face. “Jingle bills?”
Drat. “That’s right. Okay, what about this one—what do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”
Lydia shrugged, probably too kind to guess the right answer again.
I shot a sideways look at Nick, whose expression remained neutral. “Frostbite.”
Lydia pity-chuckled. Ryan shook his head. And still, Nick offered nothing—literally nothing. I squinted. Was he even breathing? Not that I had expected a true laugh, but a groan would’ve been nice.
Something to show he was being tortured.
“Oh, come on, guys.” I leaned forward. “That was a great one.”
“Please. Stick to your day job.” Ryan blew out his breath.
My hand stilled on the sprinkle container.
Lydia elbowed him in the ribs and Ryan’s eyes opened wide. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
My throat tightened. The slip wasn’t a big deal—shouldn’t have been a big deal, anyway. But on the heels of his betrayal…
I sniffed. “Careful, big bro, or you might get coal in your stocking this year.”
Ryan smirked. “Ifyouhaven’t by now, I should be safe.”
“Ryan,” Lydia gently chastised.
“It’s okay.” I slowly got up from the bench. I just needed to regroup. It wasn’t like I missed my job specifically, but being reminded of my recent failure was certainly un-festive, and I was already struggling to fake Christmas spirit as it was.
Moving to the counter, I adjusted the Santa hat on my head—the real one, not the cookie version. Sweat beaded on my hairline. The kitchen was warm from the oven, but I couldn’t ditch the faux-fur torture device now—and not just because I’d have horrific hat hair. Because Operation: Naughty List was in full effect and there was no going back.
Even if it didn’t appear to be working yet—Nick was way too unbothered by my current level of obnoxiousness.
Olivia appeared in the kitchen, heading straight for the un-iced cookies sitting on the cooling rack. She still wore the samepink sweatpants she arrived in, but her long hair hung loose around her shoulders now. She’d always had the best hair in the family, though Kat wasn’t far behind.
Of course, I was the only one to end up with unruly red waves.
Olivia helped herself to a snowman and bit off his head with a loud crunch. “Something is up.”
“Besides the way you just casually committed murder?” Ryan arched his brows.
Nick snorted his appreciation.
Oh sure. Laugh athisjokes. I narrowed my eyes at Ryan as I removed a tray from the oven and set it on the stovetop, then remembered he didn’t know I was mad.Couldn’tknow I was on to him and Nick, or it’d ruin everything.
