surprised either one of you managed to crack an egg into a bowl without missing."
"God, I can't wait to see how they edit that," Noel agrees.
"Oh, my word." Ginger drops the rolling pin, alarm covering her face along with a smudge of flour across the bridge of her nose. "Really?"
"Were you at the taping when they both reached for the same bottle of vanilla and he nearly kissed her?” Noel asks me, ignoring Ginger. "Hot." She waves a hand over her face in the universal cooldown gesture.
"That-t-t," Ginger stutters, "that never happened. He never almost kissed me."
"Says you," Noel and I reply in unison. Then we high-five each other in a childish display of sisterhood.
"I, um…" Ginger twists her hands in despair, her face flushed before she disappears into her bedroom.
"Bring me some condoms when you're done hiding," Noel calls out. "For Holly's Countdown-to-Dickmas Calendar."
"It's not…" I protest meekly. "I can't believe Santa brings you anything with that mouth.”
Ginger returns, her face wiped clean of baking mishaps and her auburn ponytail tightened. Along with the name Ginger and the love of baking gingerbread, she was blessed with ginger-colored highlights woven through her dark hair. She slaps a condom on the kitchen table. "For Holly's calendar. Let's focus on that."
Noel grins and grabs a marker. Then she writes Dickmas on a cardboard door and shoves the condom behind it.
I sigh and pick up my scissors. That was supposed to be the door for December eleventh. Now I've got to find a space to add yet another door to my calendar… which is very much starting to look like a defective prototype.
"Yes, let's focus on Holly's calendar," Noel agrees. turning her attention back to me and my craft project. "Don't you think an Advent calendar for the countdown to banging your boss is kind of sacrilegious?"
Mom always told me being the middle sister was good for building my character. It was also good for developing a death glare. I level one on Noel now. She simply grins in response, not the least bothered by bothering me.
"It's not a countdown to banging," I explain. "It's a reward calendar. For doing my job well despite the hardship of dealing with Nick."
"I bet it's hard all right," Noel agrees drily. I give her another death glare.
"I saw how he looked at you when we bumped into him at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago," Ginger comments while moving yet another tray of cookies to a cooling rack. "I think the two of you would be cute together."
"Who, Nick?" I ask as if I've no memory of the event. Of course I remember. It was the final catalyst to the creation of the Countdown-to-Dickmas Calendar. I mean the reward calendar. "At me?"
"Yes, Nick. At you."
"You're referring to how he stopped us in the grocery store to ask me about the Friendly Llama campaign? On a Saturday? While I was wearing sweatpants and no makeup?" And flat-heeled boots. He towered over me when he strolled toward Ginger and I in the baking ingredient aisle. I was in the midst of adding two five-pound bags of sugar to Ginger's cart when I turned around, bags in hand, to see Nick. He'd clearly just come from the gym, a damp green t-shirt clinging to his chest beneath an open winter coat, his hair messy, exactly the way I'd imagined it might look if I ran my hands through it.
Which I'd only ever do if I was trying to drown him or shove his face into a cake, obviously. There’s no other reason for my hands to be in Nick's perfect head of hair.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm referring to. When he asked you how you were spending the weekend and you responded by saying something like, ‘Nice shirt. Very Grinchy.’"
"It was green! Like the Grinch!" I protest. Fine, maybe it wasn't my finest moment.
"He makes you nervous."
"No, he doesn't."
"Because you like him," Ginger continues as if my denial means nothing.
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. And I don't know why that scares you so much. He's not Billy. Nick is here to stay."
Billy's my ex. We met at Michigan State; after graduation he came back with me to Reindeer Falls. He made it a little over a year before he decided he wasn't Reindeer Falls material. Or Holly Winters material.
"It's beginning to look a lot like Dickmas," Noel sings under her breath, but at a volume I'm meant to hear.
"The two of you have no idea what you're