Holly’s task for the next hour was to make Danny believe she was a bumbling fool and Elda was the master decorator, all while trying to win the dang thing. Tall order.
Holly snuck a peek at Danny. He was working from a chair with his leg elevated and was loading his piping bag with royal icing. He shot the girls a smile—a gorgeous, happy smile—and a thumbs-up. Holly nudged Elda to smile back at him as Holly pursed her lips and stared at her cookie. Her joints had turned to jelly.
She picked up her own piping bag and started dictating the assignment in her mind, trying to force out all thoughts of Danny Garland. First, she snipped off the corner of a plastic bag. Then she stuck a decorating tip through the hole and filled the bag with icing. Each person had to decorate twelve gingerbread humans in a half hour—yes, teams of two had to complete twenty-four cookies.
She handed the bag she’d prepared to Elda, who’d never done it before. Without a second thought, Elda started piping icing onto the cookie in a jagged pattern. Parts of her line were way too thick; parts were too thin. In some spots, the line had been broken. This wasn’t going to work. If Holly left the decorating to Elda, they’d be in last place when all was said and done.
Holly reached past her cousin and pulled Elda’s pitiful cookie toward her. “Damn it!” she said out loud, slapping herself on the forehead.
Danny glanced over at Holly’s outburst, and she held up Elda’s tragically decorated gingerbread person. “I’m hopeless.” She slumped her shoulders and pouted.
“At least you’ve got Elda on your team,” he said.
Holly patted Elda’s shoulder. “Thank goodness.”
She bent over the cookie and started wiping off Elda’s piping work while Elda started another cookie.
“Thank you.” Elda hovered close, talking through her teeth like a ventriloquist. She gave Holly’s wrist a quick squeeze.
“No problem.” Holly patted Elda’s hand. “Like Danny said, we’re a team. You do what you can. I’ll work as fast as humanly possible.” Holly was going to have to decorate all twenty-four. There was no way around it.
She craned her neck to see Danny’s work. His piping was perfect, and he was already on cookie number two. This was the kid she remembered. This guy was precision personified. Despite the sinking feeling in her gut that she and Elda were going to completely bomb the first round, she couldn’t help smiling. Maybe he was a total fox now, but he was still a gingerbread dork at heart.
Holly and Elda tacitly worked out a system. Elda would slowly, methodically work on one cookie, doing her absolute best, and Holly’d rush through the rest of them. It was their only hope.
“Hey,” Danny whispered from the table next to them.
“We’re working,” Holly said. She clumsily shot a clump of frosting onto Elda’s sleeve for good measure while he was watching, then she grabbed a wet towel to wipe it off.
“I know. I wanted to say I watched that documentary you told me about last night.” Danny smiled at Elda.
Holly’s stomach dropped to her knees. Shoot. The documentary.
After Danny had left yesterday and Elda had returned to the garage, the girls talked about the whole Danny situation. He’d just sent Elda another message restating how much he loved the candy bars. “You need to keep helping me with him,” Elda had said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I never would’ve known about the Take 5 bars. Now he thinks I’m, like, this incredibly thoughtful girl.”
“Well, you are,” Holly said. “And you’d totally have bought him those candy bars on your own if you’d known they were his favorites.”
Elda narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, probably.”
“Definitely.”
“I think he actually likes me.” All the blood had drained from Elda’s face.
“Which is the point of all this.” Holly’d pulled out her sketch pad and started working. She had a showstopper to build.
“Right,” Elda had said. “But Danny likes me because of something you did. What if we go out and he’s totally bored with me?”
“You could never be boring,” Holly’d said. “Give yourself a little credit. But if you want me to keep chatting him up for you, I will.” Holly loved the rush of seeing how grateful Danny had been for the kindness. He deserved someone good and sweet and awesome, someone like Elda. Holly was more than happy to choke down her own feelings for that.
So she and Elda had hopped on the phone with Danny again last night. The girls had made an evening of it—eating popcorn on their pull out couch in the attic, while Holly’s thumbs did the talking and Elda brushed makeup all over Holly’s face. Danny and the girls texted back and forth about all kinds of things—from North Pole gossip to how they were never going to watch Game of Thrones because it was too popular.
Elda had screwed the cap back on her mascara and passed Holly a hand mirror. “But I like Game of Thrones!”
“No, you don’t.” Holly grimaced at her reflection. Elda hadn’t done beauty makeup, like Holly had assumed. Her face was covered in bruises and scars. “Not liking Game of Thrones is better, more interesting.”
Elda shrugged. “You know best.” That was when Elda had traipsed downstairs to play hide-and-seek with Aunt Vixi’s kids.
Danny filled Holly in on everything from who was hooking up with whom in town to the drama between her grandma and the town’s baker, Nancy—both of them liked Frank from the hardware store. Frank was a player! Holly had told Danny to check out a Netflix documentary about the Mitford sisters from the book she was reading.
And she’d forgotten to tell Elda to study up on the rest of their conversation.
“Totally fascinating.” Danny was on his sixth gingerbread person by now. “You were right. I did some digging on the Mitford sisters last night. Who do you think was the worst one?”
Elda would not have an answer for this question. She knew nothing about the Mitfords.
Holly broke off the head of her current gingerbread figure on purpose, to create a diversion. “Oh, no!” she cried.
“What happened?” Danny craned his neck to see their station.
“One of our cookies broke.” Elda held up the headless cookie to show Danny. She patted Holly on the shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll get a new one.” She turned back to Danny. “And obviously Diana was the worst sister.”
Good save, Elda. Though she should’ve spoken up before Holly went and destroyed one of their cookies.
Elda, still taking charge, raised her hand and caught the attention of the mayor. “One of our cookies broke.” She put on a pouty face that had probably gotten her out of many a traffic ticket.
The mayor shook his head. “Sorry, ladies. Twelve cookies each. That’s all you get. Make sure the ones you have left are perfect.”
“Shit,” Holly said. She never would’ve sabotaged a cookie if she had known.
“I’ll give you one of mine.”