Page 61 of Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane

“Brilliant!” Mr. Bailey yelled. “Quickly, James, let’s do what she says.”

Brilliant?

Maybe it was the plume of powdered sugar in the air, but that Scrooge just sounded almost…excited?

An hour and a half later, we had created our best version of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The new batch of frosting worked perfectly to hold up the crispy rice spires, and James even added some indentations. Gumdrops were placed around the entire structure, and Twizzlers ropes hung down to make each spire look longer and taller.

But Mr. Bailey surprised us all when he melted the Red Hots to give the appearance of stained glass. He dripped them inside mini pretzels before sticking them to the sides of the cathedral.

This Scrooge was definitely on his way to finding some Christmas spirit.

“Not bad,” he said, stepping back to survey our work. “Not bad at all.”

“It just needs one final Christmas touch,” I said, gently lifting up the small wreath I’d made from halved green gumdrops.

“Here, let me help,” James said. He took one of our bowls of frosting and a small knife, smearing some onto the front of the graham cracker door. Together, we pushed the wreath above the door, our fingers touching as we did.

Tiny sparks prickled their way around my wrist and up my arm.

Well, this is…new.

“Thank you,” James said, his face close to mine.

I tried to slow down my heartbeat but failed. “No problem.”

What the heck was wrong with me, swooning twice in one day?

My conversation with Nona ran through my head.

You know who he is.

I’m just making sure you do, too.

And I did.

This is James, and we are fake dating.

But since when did fake dating make someone so breathless?

“Can I eat the rest of this?” Leo asked, holding up the bowl of frosting and melting whatever that was between us.

I made a face and said “No” at the same time James said “Sure!” and the kitchen erupted with laughter once again.

Chapter Sixteen

“Traditions change. Right? The new ones are scary, but they might be great.”

—Noelle

Later that afternoon, Mullings Creek’s annual Gingerbread House Contest was in full swing at The Market. Per tradition, everyone who participated wore their favorite ugly Christmas sweater. Mine said Meowy Christmas with a huge fuzzy cat draped in tinsel, and Jo wore one with a lit-up goat dressed as Scrooge that made noise thanks to a button near the hem. We pushed the stands to one side, making room for a new row of foldouts for the contest entries. Then Jo and I draped each table with deep green cloths.

“So, Eve was looking at sales reports the other day, and she said my Christmas pastries and cookies have doubled the café’s numbers from last year,” Jo said, smoothing out one of the cloths.

“Why am I not surprised!” I said. “She’s probably regretting not letting you sell your stuff in mid-November like you’d wanted.”

“ ‘Christmas falls after Thanksgiving.’ ” Jo mimicked Eve’s voice, which had the slightest New England accent, before pressing the button to make her sweater scream, BAAA HUMBUG!

I handed her another cloth that we opened and shook out together. “Well, at least she’s appreciative of you.”