Chapter 8 Haley
HALEY
The house glowed with warm light as I scaled the stairs, holding Jaimie to my waist.
He was wide awake at five in the morning, and while Liam usually took this shift because he liked to get a workout in, while our son did tummy time, this morning he was too exhausted.
I felt slightly guilty about that.
The past few weeks had been a little drastic, with the kids’ school events, prepping for winter break, Christmas, decorating the gym and now, with two weeks until Christmas, things were beginning to pile up.
Turning on the coffee maker, I began to thumb through a few holiday cards, while watching my son in his highchair. Staying in the kitchen was a welcome distraction because it kept me from viciously hunting down missing decorations. It started the night of Mila’s recital.
We’d come home and one of the big plastic Santa’s was missing.
I looked high and low for that thing, even going as far as searching outside and in the garbage cans.
I would never tell Liam this, but on one of the strolls down the block, I took the chance to peek into some of our neighbors’ houses, from the street of course, just to see if I could find the stupid thing.
It was nowhere to be found.
My thoughts did turn to Nora and Rae, wondering if somehow one of them broke in and claimed it, but that seemed too diabolical even for them.
Besides, I had asked Liam if he saw anything on the security footage, and he swore nothing was there and that it probably just got misplaced, or the kids had done something with it.
That was possible, Mila was known to take things to school, and Seraph would occasionally take things to her room and repurpose them, but still, they would have said something when I began asking about it.
Shaking my thoughts free, I began to plan out the day, desperate to get a leg up on the competition.
The judges from City Hall would be assessing our decorated spaces in just two-weeks’ time, which meant I needed to begin to think creatively.
The gym was nearly finished but it still needed a few finishing touches to really put it over the top.
It did slightly bother me that the townsfolk who’d be giving their opinion would be traveling so far just to judge the gym, and there really wasn’t much to work with.
Not like Davis Brenton’s tourist shop down on Main Street.
Having a prime location with recess lighting and an aesthetic already tailored to a mountain town Christmas village really wasn’t fair. How was I supposed to convert an old lumber yard turned boxing gym into a beautiful winter escape?
Biting my nail, I began to mull over idea after idea, all of which kept taking me back to Main Street. I needed something in the central part of town, something that could flow with the lamp posts and brick buildings…something that would look beautiful with overhanging pine branches and bulbs.
I mean…technically, I could lease out one of the empty spaces down on Main Street.
There would be no harm at all in creating a second location for the gym.
I mean, we had discussed franchising and before we went into other towns, we wanted a more accessible option here in Macon.
I wanted something that offered spin classes, dance yoga, and Pilates.
Would it be so terrible if I got a jump on the second location?
Two weeks wouldn’t be enough time to really do anything other than decorate. I could turn the entire location into Santa’s Village, complete with a real live Mr. and Mrs. Claus, where kids would get to have their pictures taken with both, and reindeer.
I grabbed my cell and began jotting down ideas.
This could work.
A devious smile overwhelmed my face as I began to plot and scheme. I could actually win this thing, and neither Rae nor Nora would see it coming.