Chapter 14 #2
"My favorite strategy," I admit.
The next hour becomes the kind of chaos that'll be whispered about at committee meetings for decades.
We perform "Silent Night" with an interpretive dance that Teddy describes as "aggressive ballet.
" Malcolm and Anastasia attempt "O Holy Night" with yoga poses that June documents as "inadvisable and potentially blasphemous.
" Giuseppe performs a solo rendition of what might be "Jingle Bells" in Italian or might be a recipe for marinara sauce—nobody's quite sure.
The three-legged gift wrapping goes worse. Malcolm insists on optimal paper-folding techniques while Anastasia live-streams the whole thing. Wren and I just throw paper at our box until it's covered in what she calls "festive chaos”, and I call "abstract art."
"This is ridiculous," Malcolm complains, his perfectly wrapped box looking somehow worse than our disaster.
"This is tradition," Delia corrects, making notes on her clipboard.
Then comes the mistletoe gauntlet.
"The rules are simple," Teddy explains, now wearing his drums as a hat. "Each couple walks through the tunnel. You must kiss under every mistletoe bunch. There are seventeen."
"Seventeen?" Wren squeaks.
"Should we do this?" I ask Wren quietly.
She looks at the tunnel, then at Malcolm, who's explaining to Anastasia the optimal kiss duration for public displays, then at me.
"Seventeen kisses?" she asks.
"Seventeen chances to annoy Malcolm," I point out.
"When you put it like that," she says, taking my hand.
We enter the tunnel, which is basically a hallway someone has attacked with mistletoe and Christmas lights. The first kiss is awkward—a quick peck that barely qualifies.
"We can do better," she whispers.
"Much better," I agree, pulling her closer for the second one.
By the fifth mistletoe, we've forgotten about Malcolm. By the tenth, we've forgotten about the audience. By the fifteenth, Wren's lipstick is gone, and my ability to think has followed it.
"Two more," she breathes against my mouth.
"We could go back and start over," I suggest.
"That's cheating," she says, but she's smiling.
"It's practice," I correct.
The last kiss is different. Slower. Like we're both trying to memorize it.
When we emerge, the entire room is staring. Delia's actually stopped taking notes. Giuseppe's crying into his flask. Even Malcolm looks speechless.
"Nine point eight!" Teddy shouts, holding up a scorecard.
"Only nine point eight?" I protest.
"Deduction for excessive enthusiasm," Delia explains, though she's fighting a smile.
"How is enthusiasm a deduction?" Wren asks.
"When it threatens the structural integrity of the mistletoe," Delia says, pointing to where several bunches have somehow gotten tangled in my hair.
"Your turn, Malcolm," June announces with obvious glee.
Malcolm and Anastasia's journey through the tunnel is professionally adequate. Each kiss is exactly three seconds, perfectly positioned, and completely soulless.
"Four point two," Teddy announces.
"That's not fair!" Malcolm protests.
“Life’s not fair, Malcolm,” Delia scolds.
The evening continues with more competitive activities that make less sense as Giuseppe's mystery flask makes the rounds.
There's ornament juggling where Malcolm drops three, cookie decorating, and something Delia calls "festive trust falls" that results in Teddy getting stuck in the gingerbread nativity scene.
"Joseph's down!" Finn shouts. "We need extraction!"
"This is why we have protocols!" Delia announces, consulting her binder.
As they work to free Teddy from the structurally unsound manger, I pull Wren onto the balcony that overlooks the town square.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
"For what?" I ask.
"For making tonight bearable," she says. "For a few kisses that made me forget why I was mad at you."
"Only a few?" I ask. "Because I counted at a lot more if you include the dancing dips."
"Those don't count," she says.
"They all count," I correct. "Every single one counts."
She looks at me, really looks at me, and I see the moment she makes a decision.
"I forgive you," she says simply.
"Just like that?" I ask.
"No, not just like that. Like this—after watching you destroy your inheritance, change your name, learn to change oil badly, and save me from Malcolm," she explains. "After a few kisses that tasted like Giuseppe's chaos flask and felt like home."
"Home tastes like chaos flask?" I ask.
"Our home does," she says, then looks surprised at herself. "I mean—"
"Our home," I agree, pulling her closer. "I like the sound of that."
Inside, someone screams. We look through the window to see the gingerbread nativity has completely collapsed, covering half the committee in frosting and dread.
"We should help," Wren says.
"In a minute," I say, not moving.
"Teddy might be trapped," she points out.
"He's resourceful," I say.
"Giuseppe's crying," she observes.
"He always cries," I remind her.
"Malcolm's having a breakdown about structural frosting," she notes.
"Now that's a bonus," I say, and she laughs.
"We're terrible people," she informs me.
"The worst," I agree, staring at her and not the chaos inside. "Want to go be terrible together?"
"Yes," she confirms, and kisses me once more—number eighteen, or twenty-one, or who's counting anymore—before we head inside to help with the great gingerbread disaster.
Inside, Malcolm's trying to explain to Anastasia why the frosting-to-gingerbread ratio matters while Teddy emerges from the wreckage wearing what looks like a candy cane crown. Giuseppe's already planning Nativity 2.0 with 'better structural integrity.'
Wren takes my hand, sticky with frosting, and we wade into the chaos together.
This is home—not a place or a building, but this moment, these people, this beautiful disaster we've chosen. Even Malcolm, covered in frosting and shouting about optimal cleaning techniques, is part of it.
Though we'll never tell him that.