The following morning, I bounced out of bed, feeling far happier than I had the last few days. It was amazing what a bit of human connection and festive magic could do to a girl.

Dressing quickly, I skipped down the stairs and into the kitchen. Henry was sitting at the breakfast bar, frowning at paperwork and eating a bowl of what appeared to be oats and fruit. The sight made me grin after the last few mornings alone.

"Morning," I said, heading to the kettle to start on my coffee, "How did you sleep?"

Henry glanced up from the paperwork, looking surprised, as though he hadn't heard me enter. "Good thanks. How about you?"

I just loved his husky morning voice, but resisted telling him as much. "Good too. Ready to bring your best gingerbread building skills later?"

"Of course," Henry grinned, "If kids can do it then it should be no problem for us!"

I added a splash of milk to my coffee and then shot him a look. "Is that so? I think we are going to have fun then."

"How hard can it be?" Henry joked, returning his attention to his breakfast as I began pouring my own.

His muesli looked far less appetising when laid next to my coco pops, but he seemed to like it. Scooping up the bowl of cereal and mug of coffee, I carried both to the breakfast bar and sat alongside him.

He definitely wasn't the sort who normally ate coco pops, and it made me smile to see the little bits he had ordered that he knew I would like.

Looking up at him through my lashes I wondered, not for the first time whether I was doing the right thing by keeping the distance between us.

I had caught Henry watching me a few times now. Always when he thought I wasn't paying attention. If it had been anyone else, I might have found it creepy but something about the longing in his eyes made me feel guilty instead.

I wanted him as much as he seemed to want me and yet denying and pushing those feelings aside still seemed like the sensible, logical thing to do.

Maybe it was just a case of wrong time, wrong place? Maybe in the future things would be different? When there wasn't a pandemic and we weren't trapped together against our wills?

I dragged myself from my thoughts. There was no use playing the what-if game.

"-hopefully won't be long." Henry finished just as my attention returned to the room.

I startled, "I'm sorry what."

Henry laughed, a sound that I wished I could hear more often. "I just said my call starts in a few minutes so I'm going to go up and take it if you want to set up. Hopefully, I won't be too long." He repeated.

I nodded, "No worries."

It sucked that he worked just as much on the weekend as he did during the week. Like he didn't know how to switch off and fully relax for a couple of days. All the more reason he needed to embrace Christmas and learn that he didn't need to work every minute of every day!

It was almost two hours later when Henry finally emerged. He looked tired, "Sorry for the delay, I was trying to sort out a new ingredients supplier and they drove a hard bargain." He explained as he came into the living room.

I sat, curled in the armchair with one of his books. The Great Gatsby was clearly a well-loved copy, with dog-eared pages and creases up and down the spine. I tucked in the piece of old receipt I was using as a bookmark and pulled it to my chest.

"It's ok, I entertained myself, I hope you don't mind." I said uncurling myself and stretching like a cat before returning the book to his shelf.

"Not at all, do you like it?" He asked somewhat curiously.

I shrugged, "I haven't read it since school and I had to read it so many times there I had started to hate it if I'm honest. But it wasn't quite as awful as I remember it being so that was nice."

"It's one of my favourites." Henry admitted.

"I think my favourite book is Little Women. It was one of the first books my mum gave me that was hers when she was growing up, so it has always been special to me." I replied, shooting him a smile.

Look at us. Bonding over mutual interests and making conversation.

We stood for a moment before I broke the silence, "Were you ready to start or did you want to take a break first?"

I knew my hopeful tone suggested I didn't want to take a break, but I offered more out of politeness.

Henry stretched his arms over his head, "No breaks needed, I am ready and raring to go!"

I squealed, grabbed his hand, and dragged him through to the kitchen.

Under my expert hand, the breakfast bar had been transformed. A stack of gingerbread pieces sat on a plate in the middle, surrounded by various treats in bowls. The whole thing was helpfully labelled "decoration station" with an old company post-it and my familiar handwritten scrawl.

"So how do we do this? Where are the instructions?" Henry asked, searching the empty box on the side.

I snorted. "No instructions. You just do what feels right."

"No instructions? So how do you know when you're doing it right?" Henry sounded concerned as he examined the picture on the side of the box which showed two perfectly decorated houses.

"It's a gingerbread house Henry. There's no right or wrong way to do it, it's just a bit of fun!" I elbowed him in the side and laughed at his serious expression.

"Ok," Henry didn't look convinced, "How do we start though?"

I was in my element. "So first step is building the house, there's some icing in that piping bag so do you want to be on icing duty or gingerbread scaffolding duty?" I asked.

Henry took the piping bag with a look of grim determination that had me giggling as he squared up to the tray I had set up for us to build on. "So these are the four sides," I explained, laying them out and setting aside the two roof pieces.

I picked the back piece and offered it to Henry. "Ice me up Mr Carter!"

Henry's tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration as he ran the line of icing down the edge of the piece. It was frankly adorable and very distracting, I thought as I pressed the piece against the edge of one of the other bits and held it firmly.

After a few minutes of repeating this on each side we carefully stood the structure up and held our breath as we waited to see if it would collapse. When it didn't, we high-fived and did a little dance together, linking arms side spinning around the kitchen.

If snowball fight Henry had surprised me by how much he let his hair down and had fun, then gingerbread decorating Henry blew me away.

"Now just the roof and then we can decorate!" I said excitedly.

Henry sat on one of the breakfast bar stools and twirled the icing bag tighter in preparation, "I wish I knew it was the IKEA version of the gingerbread house before we started. This is way more intense than I thought decorating a little cookie house was going to be!"

I snorted and picked up the first roof panel. "I did wonder if you fully understood the process when you mentioned it this morning!"

Carefully we began the meticulous process of attaching the roof. When the panels didn't immediately fall off I did another victory dance. As soon as I stopped I noticed Henry looking at me with an odd expression on his face.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. What's next in this afternoon of stressful festivity?" Henry gave a dramatic sigh as he placed the piping bag down.

"You're going to need to pick that up again because we've got decorating to do and those gum drops aren't going to stick themselves to our gingerbread house!" I laughed.

Henry looked over at the box hopefully, "Is that a design guide?" He asked, pointing to the pictures.

"I mean we could copy their boring one I guess or we could come up with our own fun one! I'm thinking peppermint candy windows, a line of gumdrops on the roof and a path of sprinkles?" I suggested.

"What about the white chocolate buttons?" Henry asked, examining the bowls of treats to attach.

"Roof tiles?"

Henry braced himself as though going into battle, "Ok, let's do this."

It was slow progress but the little gingerbread house soon came to life under my expert festive guidance.

"Stop eating the peppermints." I said, flicking his hand away from the almost empty bowl, "We still need two more windows on this side."

Henry grumbled a little, but did as he was ordered. When those were finally stuck down I took a step back to take it all in.

"Now what?" Henry said, looking at our masterpiece with pride.

"Now we eat it!"

Henry gasped, "No! You're not eating my beautiful building!" He placed a protective arm around it. "Not after how long it took us to build the bloody thing."

I burst out laughing, "But that's the point of them! To eat them!"

"But not right away? We have to enjoy it a bit first!" Henry looked aghast.

My eyes widened, "I'm sorry did I just hear Henry Carter admit to enjoying a Christmas activity?"

"No, I just want to... look at it for a while." Henry replied defensively, still refusing to let go of it.

I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture before he could react. "Hey, delete that. No one can see me like this." Henry sprang out of his seat and dived for the phone.

"Like what?" I asked innocently, dancing out of his reach.

He raised an eyebrow and I squealed as he began to chase me around the breakfast bar.

"All... just all.... not me." Henry fumbled for the right words.

"You looked cute! Little king of the gingerbread castle." I cooed.

"I'm not cute, woman. I am a lot of things, but not cute."

Henry finally stopped the chase, and I froze on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. We watched each other silently as though trying to guess the other's next move. I grinned and shot him a mischievous look before stuffing the phone down my top and into my bra.

I could see Henry momentarily considering retrieving it as his eyes darkened. Then he took a deep breath, "Just don't you go showing that to anyone, I have a reputation."

"Not much of a reputation if a picture of you defending a gingerbread house can wreck it." I pointed out, "But I won't share it. Your big softie secret is safe with me. I didn't share the snowman ones, did I?"

"I'm not a-" Henry sighed as though suddenly realising how futile arguing with me was.

He looked at the decoration station for a moment and then out of the window. A smile grew slowly on his face. "What are you thinking?" I asked nervously, taking a step back.

"I'm thinking," Henry chuckled, "That there is just enough snow out there for a rematch. Winner gets ownership of Sweetie Towers and the photo?"

I squealed. "I knew there was someone fun under all those suits. Oh yes! Prepare to suffer the sting of defeat, Mr Carter! Wait, did you just name it Sweetie Towers?"

"Unimportant." Henry said quickly and then turned and raced towards the coats. I sprinted after him getting ready as fast as I could.

Just as Henry went to open the door he turned back, "We need rules."

"Oh, Mr Carter, that doesn't sound any fun unless we plan to break them." I laughed.

"No crotch shots."

"I would never," I gave a gasp of mock horror, "No face shots." I wrinkled my nose at the thought of snow in my eyelashes and hair.

"Agreed." Henry replied.

"Agreed." I nodded.

There was a moment where we both stood, looking at each other and unmoving. Then Henry's face split into a grin. "Fight!" He yelled out like a battlecry and we both dove through the door as soon as he yanked it open.

I scrambled for the spot alongside the shed with the best cover, whilst Henry opted for the lawn where the most snow was. He was just balling up his first snowball when I sent the first one flying into his back. He ducked down and turned just in time to see me send a second one sailing through the air.

"So that's how we are playing it." Henry yelled, grinning as he rolled through the snow to avoid being hit.

As he came to a stop, he balled a handful of snow quickly and sent it towards me. I just laughed and ducked out of sight. "You'll have to do better than that."

The epic battle went on for the best part of forty-five minutes and my fingers were numb with cold, but I was not about to admit defeat.

When Henry next turned to scoop up a handful of snow, I sprinted from my hiding place and ducked down behind the BBQ next to the patio. I could barely restrain my laughter as I watched my serious, sensible, gruff boss sneaking through the snow towards where I had been moments earlier.

At the moment he jumped out with a yell of "Gotcha-" I dove for him and clung to his back like some sort of monkey, squashing a snowball into his chest as I did.

"I think you'll find I have you," I shouted back.

Henry spun around trying to dislodge me as I shrieked with laughter. With one spin his foot hit a patch of ice and he let out a yell as he fell, attempting to turn onto his side as he did to avoid crushing me.

We still hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of us and I lay there a second trying to remember how my lungs worked again.

Henry immediately rolled and leaned over me, "Susie! Are you ok?"

I stared up at him slightly dazed and noted the golden fleck in his eyes looked really pretty.

"Susie?" he demanded, sounding more alarmed this time.

I sucked in air and pulled myself into a sitting position. To my relief, my padded coat had mostly broken my fall. "Yeah, I'm ok. I think I win though." I said.

"I think we should call it a draw." Henry retorted with an eye roll, pulling me to my feet.

"Fine, you get custody of Sweetie Towers and I get to keep the picture?" I offered.

Henry considered that a moment, "Fine, but if I hear about anyone in the office seeing it I'm going to be cross."

"Oh no. Whatever will I do with a cross boss?" I teased.

Henry rolled his eyes, "You never take me seriously!"