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“I don’t want to eat it,” Dylan said. “I want us to build it. It’ll be a decoration. And then we can put it out for the birds after Christmas.”

“We could make our own gingerbread in pieces and build it into a house?”

“That sounds like it will take forever, and the kits are what the kids used to have when I was at school.”

Lucy saw a shadow pass over Dylan’s expression and she immediately picked up one of the boxes and put it in their shopping basket. There was no way that she would deny him anything when that look came over him. Not that it was up to her to allow him to do anything.

“Let’s get some extra sweets to go on it,” Lucy said, determined to lighten the mood. “The teeny packet of jelly tots that come with it are nowhere near enough.”

They headed for the sweets aisle and chose so many sweets that if they used them all, the gingerbread structure would undoubtedly collapse.

“OK, is that everything?” Lucy asked, smiling at the overflowing basket Dylan was holding.

“I think that’s everything, for now at least,” he said with a grin.

He paid, waving away Lucy’s attempts, and carried the two bags of groceries home, popping in briefly to pick up the requested DVD from Carrie.

“What would you like to start with?” Lucy asked as she began taking off her top layers of clothing as soon as they were back in her flat. She was absolutely boiling.

To his credit, though Dylan’s lip twitched as he watched her, he didn’t say anything.

“Sugar cookies, I think,” he said, after a little deliberation, “and then we can make Christmas sandwiches with some of the turkey and stuffing from downstairs.”

“Aren’t you bored of turkey sandwiches yet? You’ve been living on them since we put them on the coffee shop menu.”

“I am definitely not bored of them. They’re delicious and festive and full of protein, and I shall continue enjoying them until the new year when my rations are cut off.”

Lucy laughed. “I’ll certainly not be the one to stop you. I’ll just pop downstairs to get some cookie cutters. Back in a minute.”

She returned with a tub full of cutters and smiled as Dylan sat down with it at the kitchen table and began sorting through them, putting the ones he liked to one side.

“That’s a rather large pile,” Lucy pointed out. “How many cookies are we making?”

“We can make extra to give to people,” Dylan said.

“I’ve got some gift bags downstairs that we can put them in.”

“Excellent!”

“I didn’t envisage you as someone who felt the need to gift people bags of homemade baked goods.”

“Well, that just goes to show how little you know me,” Dylan said.

Lucy’s heart flipped a little as she considered how nice it was getting to know him. “Shall we use the bigger kitchen downstairs?”

“No, it’s cosier up here,” Dylan said, “and we can watch movies while stuff’s baking without having to go up and down the stairs all the time to check nothing’s burning.”

“Good point. You get some Christmas music on, and I’ll find the gift bags.”

Lucy soon returned with the bags. Slade was screaming, ‘It’s Christmas!’ from the speaker Dylan had brought into the kitchen and connected to Spotify via his phone. “That wasn’t quite the type of Christmas music I was meaning,” she said.

“It’s a Christmas party playlist, and I think it’s rocking,” Dylan said. “It’ll keep our energy levels up.”

“Fine,” sighed Lucy. “OK, it’s a really simple recipe, but I usually make a huge batch so it does the coffee shop a couple of days. Do you want to just make half?”

“Nah, go big or go home.”

Lucy took her food mixer out of the cupboard. “Fair enough. We can always freeze any extra if we get fed up with baking them.”