Monthly Bonus Content #4—'At All Costs!' (Ava Winter Special) (Patreon)

Haley’s Bakery is creaking at the seams with the sheer amount of people piled inside. Close to the wrap-around counter has been set three silver tables. Each of them is laden with bowls of colourful candy sprinkles, fat tubes of frosting tipped with silver nibs, and on each—most importantly—rests a naked gingerbread house awaiting decoration.

“Teams, I hope you’re ready to get decorating!” Mayor Friedman announces, his voice ricocheting through the busy space and quieting the spectators’ excited chattering.

Ava’s fingers strangle an icing bag in preparation, some of the sickly-sweet frosting squeezing out of the tip.

I glance at her with pursed lips. Her narrowed gaze slices across the room to assess the other teams.

The competition.

I’m suddenly regretting asking her to team up with me for this.

“Remember, this is a fun competition to raise money for charity! So make sure to enjoy yourselves!” Mayor Friedman swings his arms outwards, knocking a few nearby spectators back. “Get ready!”

Some of the sprinkles crush beneath Ava’s palm as she leans onto the metallic counter, ready to spring into action.

I’m suddenly really regretting asking her to team up with me for this competition.

“Get set!”

A breath blows out of me, disturbing some of the icing sugar piled into a small powdery mountain.

Ava’s eyes cut to me. “Be careful!”

“It’s just a bit of icing sugar,” I state, but quickly sweep it back into a neat pile beneath her intense stare.

“Anything that is even slightly out of place may cost us time, Detective.” Her expression falls. “Might cost us the win.”

I’m not sure whether to burst out laughing…or drag her out of here before things get really heated.

I rest a hand on her forearm. “Ava. No one here is expecting to win. It’s for charity.”

It takes her a while before she can drag can her gaze away from my touch, her voice stammering. “…I expect to win.”

“Yep,” I say with a shake of my head. “I totally should have been expecting that reply.”

“Go!” Mayor Friedman’s announcement sends the teams into a sudden frenzy.

The couple next to us begin squeezing out globs of icing like its silly string across the roof of their gingerbread house.

The trio on the far side are already in fits of laughter as their jelly buttons keep falling off their doors.

And then there’s Ava. I’ve barely picked up a bowl of chocolate drops and she’s already a flurry of activity. Lines of frosting stripe the roof, sprinkles stick to the windows, and small blobs of candy sit at the front in some kind of sweet-based landscaping.

…I’m not even sure why I bothered coming along. Her muscled form takes up most of the space, blocking my attempts to add even a little of my own flair to the house.

I lean back against the wall and begin popping the chocolate drops into my mouth, enjoying as they melt with velvet richness across my tongue.

The time ticks down.

Ten minutes.

Ava throws icing sugar in clouds across the roof.

Five minutes.

Snowmen formed of frosting drip down onto the cardboard base as she pokes candy drops into their rotund icing stomachs as buttons.

Two minutes.

Panic sets in, and suddenly she’s flinging anything on hand at the creation.

I’m on my last couple of chocolate drops before the bowl is whipped out of my hand and the drops smacked onto the biscuity chimney with such force that a crack forms through the foundations.

“Time!” Friedman calls to a raucous cheer and applause. “Now let’s see what delicious creations we have to look forward to enjoying!”

The commanding agent finally steps aside to allow me close enough to stand beside her as the team we were supposed to be.

Finally getting a look at the gingerbread house, I press my fingers tightly to my lips and rub at them to hold back the laugh which wants to force past the barricade. “Oh no, Ava…”

She stiffens, rolling her shoulders back with her hands clasped behind her with a deepening frown. “I may have become a little…enthusiastic.”

A chuckle finally blurts out of me. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

“And just what aesthetic would you call it?” she demands.

I stare over the finished product. It glitters with sugar dust, but the glimmer is not enough to cover the absolute mess that coats every bit of gingerbread. The frosting snowmen have dribbled into sad puddles, the windows are partly broken and leaking crumbs everywhere, candy is strewn across the whole thing in lumps of sugary shrapnel, and I have no idea what kind of pattern she was even attempting for the roof with the frosting.

A murmur sounds behind us as Mayor Friedman’s presence wraps around me like a chilling shadow. I swing around and step back to Ava’s side. Her proximity eases the tension instantly.

“Oh my…what do we have here?” The mayor asks, dropping his gaze to the…thing before us then up to glance between us. “Did you even try to make an effort for this, Detective?”

Anger simmers beneath my skin, but I cool it long enough to grasp at Ava’s arm as she tips forward about to answer.

“An effort?” I ask through a scoff. “We’re the only team that used every decoration, every last drop of icing. I’d say our effort will make this the sweetest treat of all.”

Mayor Friedman lifts a brow, stares at the disaster house with a grim stare, and then moves onto the team beside us.

I let out a long breath.

“You did not have to take the burden of this on yourself, Detective,” Ava says from beside me as the crowd does its best to shuffle on with the mayor in the confined space.

I shrug. “It’s hardly a burden. Remember that this was supposed to be fun. And watching you today was actually the most fun I’ve had in ages.” I meet her gaze with a laugh that’s framed by a smile. “I’m just grateful you came at all.”

“Knowing that you would be here was the only incentive I needed to attend,” she replies. Her eyes glimmer with the sparkling brightness of snow on grass.

Her hand slides across the table to cover mine.

My lungs squeeze. But as I press in closer to her space, my chest eases and I can breathe clearer than ever.

We’re so lost to each other in that moment that neither of us hear the announcement that we actually won.