Chapter 15
Four Days Before Christmas
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” Nick finished cutting out the star he’d drawn on a scrap of yellow felt and held it up to Holly. “It’s crooked.”
“That makes it even better. Ugly sweater, remember?” Holly dotted the back of a red pom-pom with glue. “We’re going to win.”
“I kind of feel like I’ve already lost.” But complaining felt more like a habit at this point. Because sitting across from Holly at the kitchen table, surrounded by glitter glue and arts and crafts materials while yet more cookies baked in the oven, wasn’t all that bad.
Ironically, neither was karaoke the other night. Nick frowned as he reached for another piece of felt. Though the most ironic part about hating Christmas tunes was when one realized they were falling for someone while singing society’s most annoying Christmas hit.
Theoretically, of course.
He glanced at Holly. At the smattering of freckles she hadn’t bothered to cover with makeup, at the fact that her hair seemed to have a mind of its own, and at the way her green eyes narrowed in concentration as she cut out a—Was that a cat ?
He fought to cover his smile. There was something appealing about a woman who could embarrass herself so shamelessly in front of her family and a near stranger who’d already humiliated her once.
But they weren’t near strangers anymore, were they?
He forced his eyes back to his project. “Pass the sprinkles.”
“It’s called glitter.” Holly handed him the container. “We’re not baking cookies.”
“Speaking of, are they done yet?” Nick’s stomach growled as he craned his neck toward the oven, as if he could see inside from this far away. Maybe he had issues with the holidays, but he sure didn’t mind the food at the Sinclair farm. “Do you think she put chocolate chips in them again?”
“The kids helped her, so you can guarantee there’s as much sugar crammed into that dough as possible.” Holly pulled another pom-pom from the package, then paused to cover a yawn with the back of her hand.
Nick fought one of his own. Last night the family had stayed up late playing charades after eating dinner at a local burger joint and then caravanning around Point Bluff to look at Christmas lights. “The block party is tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. That’s why Mom has been baking extra today.” Holly frowned at her sweater. “I’m hoping the glue holds out long enough to get through the contest.”
“Like I said, I can’t believe you talked me into this.” Nick rubbed one hand down his cheek and then winced as he remembered the glitter. That’d be fun to coax out of his beard later. “I thought once Operation: Naughty List ended I’d be off the hook for ugly sweaters.”
“New operation, new plan.” Holly sprinkled more glitter onto her heap of already-sparkly glue without breaking eye contact. “We can’t let Lydia and Ryan beat us at a couple’s contest. How would that look?”
Normal, probably. Nick picked up the fabric tape. This was important to Holly, so he’d play along.
Even though he fully planned to set his sweater on fire when the party was over.
“So why the permanent Christmas grumpies?” Holly uncapped a Sharpie. “I never heard your story.”
“I never heard yours.”
Holly winced. “Can’t we ignore that part and you just answer?”
“What if we did like all those movies you love so much and both say our reasons on three?”
Holly lit up. “That’s a great idea.”
Oh, shoot. He swallowed and set down the fabric tape. “Okay. One.”
“Two.” Her green eyes twinkled.
He nodded at her. “Three.”
“Birthday.”
“Jail.”
“Whoa.” Holly reeled back in her chair. “That escalated quickly. I was expecting you to say snow globe.”
He hesitated. Was he really going to go there? Yet somehow, it felt right. After all he and Holly had been through, she deserved the explanation. He drew a breath. “They’re connected.”
“Okay, this I must hear.” She capped her marker and crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you get arrested over a snow globe?”
“I didn’t.” Nick dusted glitter from his hands over his sweater. What was a little more at this point? Then he leaned back in his seat, matching her posture. “I’ll tell you. But first—why does your birthday make you hate Christmas?”
“It gets ignored.” Holly shrugged, averting her eyes. “I know that sounds really petty. But growing up in a big family, as a middle child no less, sharing your birthday with a major holiday is sort of a bummer.”
“I can see that.”
“Mom and Dad tried, but they had their hands full with all of us. It’s not like they forgot I was born on Christmas, it just always got put on the back burner.
I was thrown an extra gift that night, or maybe some of my Christmas gifts just counted as birthday, too, because they said they spent a little more money.
” Holly visibly swallowed. “But it wasn’t ever about the price for me. ”
Nick lowered his voice. “It was about the attention?”
“Exactly.” She shook her shoulders a little, as if resetting. “Like I said—sort of petty.”
“Not petty at all.”
“When I got older, coming home for Christmas turned into some kind of progress report. Was I dating? Engaged yet? Successful?” She snorted. “Didn’t help that Kat got married young, and Olivia is, like, Supermom, and Ryan has the Midas touch with everything.”
“He is annoying that way, isn’t he?” Nick grinned.
Holly shook her head. “It wasn’t any better when I was young. Ryan was Mr. Popular, and half the girls my age just wanted to be my friend because they knew he was my brother.”
Nick winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. I mean, I had my own friends, but they could never come to a birthday party because of traveling for the holidays.” Holly pursed her lips. “I think I just started seeing Christmas as something that got in the way.”
“That’s a lot on a kid.”
“And bullies were real. Between my red hair and being a Christmas baby, the teasing was endless.”
Ah. “Hence the nicknames you hate from Ryan.” Good thing he hadn’t teased Holly with those names at the height of Operation: Naughty List. He wouldn’t have realized the depth of their effect. “Funny how the smallest things can be triggers, huh?”
“Like snow globes?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Your turn.”
Oh boy. Nick rolled a Sharpie between his fingers. “I’ve talked about my parents a little, right? Their perfectionist aim, Christmas always being a hollow showcase.”
“Right.” Holly nodded.
“Well, I kind of snapped one year.” Nick rotated the Sharpie faster. “I was sixteen, and it was Christmas Eve. My mom was parading around for her clients again. Dad was drinking too much—probably because Mom was parading, to be honest.”
“Yikes.”
“I got so sick of it all.” Nick stared down at the table littered with craft supplies.
But in his head, he could easily pull up the image of that year’s holiday place setting, shiny turquoise and gold.
“I was standing there in the dining room, wearing this stuffy suit and looking down at this perfect table and perfectly wrapped presents under the perfectly decorated tree, and it felt so empty. So fake.”
Holly murmured her encouragement for him to continue.
Nick swallowed. “Everyone was dressed up and making toasts, and Mom was pretending she cooked the four-course dinner being brought out by the hired staff and…I don’t know.
I didn’t want to be there, and they hadn’t let me go to my friend’s house that night.
Said our brand was our family, and I had to be there and play the part. ”
“So you also wanted attention.” Holly’s gentle tone pulled him back from the montage of images dancing in front of him.
“Yeah, I guess I did. Real attention—not the fake kind for the camera and the billboard and the newsletter.” Nick shook his head. “I ended up with attention, all right, but not the type I’d hoped for.”
“What happened?”
“I snuck out. I was going to go to my friend’s party after all, but somehow ended up just walking, hoping to burn off steam.”
Holly winced. “And I’m assuming you walked right into a situation?”
“The walking led to overthinking, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of a Christmas display at a jewelry store downtown. And I had this immature, really wild thought about how ironic it’d be if the gifts my parents opened from me that next morning were secretly stolen.”
Holly’s eyes widened. “What happened next?”
“That night, I broke into the store. Stole a watch for my dad and a bracelet for my mom.” Nick shook his head.
“Then was immediately picked up by a cop. I almost felt relieved. Until I got home and the door opened and my parents’ perfect party was interrupted by the sight of their son and a cop on the porch. ”
Holly whistled. “I bet that went over well.”
“Like I said—immature.” To put it mildly.
She touched his arm. “But you were hurting.”
“Hardly an excuse to break the law.”
“Well, of course not. I’m just saying, it doesn’t make you a horrible person.”
Nick tilted his head. “It did for a bit. I kept doing stupid stuff after that. Vandalism. Sneaking out. I was so angry, it was like a dam had burst and I didn’t know how to pile everything back in. I didn’t trust myself.”
“What went down that night? With the police?”
“Well, my mom cried for an hour—the really dramatic, victimized type of tears—while everyone quietly left. I remember being frozen there on the living room rug, staring at this snow globe on the mantel while Dad yelled at me. I think I stared at it for so long it burned into my head as this negative connotation of my failure.”
“And then I got you one as a gift.” Holly sighed as she pulled her arm away. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t know.”
“Still, I’m sorry.” Holly studied him. “I’m guessing the story doesn’t end there?”
“No. Remember the other day in the kitchen, when I said I might have found a new career path?”
She grinned. “Criminal justice system?”