Page 41 of Decked Out with Ivy

“I told you… we take this seriously.”

Dad and Uncle Richard walked into the kitchen and Mom clapped her hands together. “Just in time. On your mark, get set, go!”

Everyone ran to their station, and Ivy laughed when Cody stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking like a lost puppy. She tapped his shoulder and guided him to the station beside her.

“Good luck,” she said. “You’re going to need it.”

Chapter 13

Ivy wasn’t kidding when she said her family was competitive. But what she failed to mention was they were also a bunch of saboteurs. Cody lost count of how many M&M’s Trey ate out of his bowl. Or how Cynthia kept bumping into his station. Or how Ivy kept sucking frosting off her finger, completely distracting him and causing him to waste precious time.

Every time she stuck that finger in her mouth, he had to hold back a groan. There was no way she wasn’t doing it on purpose, and when she winked at him, he knew damn well she was. That little minx. He was going to make her pay later.

Trey disappeared from the kitchen and returned with a bag. He placed the brown paper bag on the floor and reached in, pulling out a box of ice cream cones.

Cody watched as curiosity got the better of him. Trey took a cone out and covered it in frosting before placing all green M&M’s on the cone to make it look like a tree.

“Hey!” Cody said. “Is that why you kept taking my M&M’s?”

“I was running low. Had to improvise.”

“Maybe if you stopped eating them,” Cynthia spat as she focused in on unwrapping an entire bag of tootsie rolls she was using as logs for her log cabin.

Cody took a sip of the Five Leaf Brewery IPA and was grateful he found people he could trust. He didn’t expect these pictures to be in the tabloids the next morning. And with the way Trey, Rome, and Cynthia handled that asshole paparazzo, he felt like he could put his guard down and just be. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relaxed, despite the competitive tension.

Cynthia bumped into Rome’s station as she reached for the sprinkles.

“Watch it!” Rome exclaimed. “There is a master at work here.”

“I can see why you sell houses and don’t make them,” Cynthia quipped.

“I can see why you choose to argue with people for a living,” he rebutted, and Cody tipped his beer to his lips to hide his smile.

“He did that on purpose, just FYI,” Poppy said. Poppy might have been out of town, but she had said there was no way she’d miss the competition, so she was in her hotel, going to town on her own gingerbread house.

“I’d believe her. She has the best view,” Ivy said, and Cody couldn’t stop the laugh.

If anyone had told him a month ago, he’d be decorating gingerbread houses and having fun. He would have told them they were out of their fucking mind. But hewashaving fun. He never got this experience growing up. Christmas was just another day on the calendar. “A waste of money and nothing but aggravation!” his mother used to say.

They didn’t have much, so maybe she was trying to not get his hopes up. But what he was learning from Ivy, her family, and this entire town was that Christmas was as expensive as you wanted it to be. Singing along to Christmas songs on the radio, walking around to see the decorations in the windows of stores and on the houses… None of that cost a dime. The only cost was time.

It was painstakingly obvious his mother couldn’t even afford him that. He’d been nothing more than an inconvenience from the moment he was born.

He wondered how differently his life would have been if his mother put in just a little effort when it came to Christmas. They could have bundled up and took a walk around the neighborhood. They could have driven downtown to see the citytree or put the radio on and sang like no one was listening. Anger rose inside of him, but it dissipated as he caught Ivy’s eyes. She dipped her finger in her mouth again, and his lip quirked as he shook his head.

“You play dirty,” he mouthed.

Her eyes widened, making her look almost cartoon-like. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sex,” Rome said. “You’ve been making sexual gestures at him all night.”

“I have not!”

“Mmmhmm.” Aunt Claire nodded. “Suck that finger any harder, and you’ll pull the skin right off.”

Ivy gasped, and he bit away a laugh.

“You’re more than welcome to forfeit and go back to your place,” Cynthia said.

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