Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
AVERY
“Mel, I’m telling you, it was the most intense snowball fight I’ve ever been in,” I say, talking into my wireless earbuds as I place non-perishable goods in a hamper to be delivered tomorrow.
“And how many snowball fights have you been in, exactly?” she asks. I know she’s half distracted with her kids yelling in the background. I smile, picturing my niece and nephew running amok in the living room while Meg attempts to have an adult conversation.
“I’m an elf, Meg. I have at least five a year. But this was intense. There were cutouts that had to have been at least fifteen feet tall and snow mounds that were like boulders.”
“I have so many questions, but we don’t have a lot of time before my kids start to destroy my living room.” She covers the phone so all I can hear is muffled yelling before she comes back. “And what about that app? Anything new on that front?”
“Yes, actually. There was another post late last night. This time, InsiderCookie chose a picture of Cal and McKenzie emerging from the snowball fight—quote, ‘like the true champs they are.’”
“Pfft. Sounds biased to me.”
“No kidding.”
“Anything about you and Matthew?”
“Just a very unflattering picture of both of us being pelted in the face when we were knocked out of the competition.”
“So are you both out?” she gasps.
“Thankfully, no. We didn’t win the event but we managed to stay in it long enough to avoid elimination.”
“No creepy snuffing ceremony of you?” she laughs.
“Not today.” I shudder, thinking about the oddly dark portion of the games. For a town that is supposed to be celebrating all things light and seasonal, it was not a curve ball I was expecting from Gingerbread Grove.
“Tell me more about what Matthew said.”
“How long were you waiting to be able to change subjects and bring that up?”
She laughs. “How long have we been on the phone? Now, come on, tell me.”
“You mean how he alluded to the fact that we may not be all that fake?”
“Yeah, that. Tell me about that.”
“He just said we’re on the right path. I mean, he didn’t say we were anything more, but he was acting like maybe it could be?”
“Do you want it to be?”
I still. “I don’t know how to answer that. Would I like Matthew and I to be more than just a fake relationship? Yes. He’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met. But he lives in Vancouver and I’m here. I can’t do another long-distance relationship.”
“Have you actually spoken to him about this?”
“What? No, of course not. Why would I?” I start busying myself again, placing boxes of stuffing and dried mashed potatoes into the hamper.
“Avery, you can’t just assume the worst because you don’t want to have a serious conversation with him.”
“He didn’t know who Ross was,” I argue.
“Not everyone lived and breathed Friends, Avery.”
“He didn’t get my unagi joke.”
“You can’t avoid a person because they didn’t get your obscure reference.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s never heard of Stars Hollow, either.”
“Avery! Stop deflecting!”
Uh, oh, she used her mom voice on me.
“I’m not deflecting. I just don’t want to get hurt again.”
“Matthew isn’t Maxwell.”
“I know that,” I huff, fighting the urge to stomp my foot. I don’t know why I’m turning into a toddler having a tantrum, but I feel like it.
“Do you?”
“Avery, can you please come to the front desk?” Our speaker system sounds.
“Sorry, Meg, I gotta go.” I place the last food item in the hamper and mark it with a red check mark, letting the team know this one’s ready to be loaded onto the truck.
“Funny, what good timing you have,” she muses.
“Must be a Christmas miracle,” I say as I start walking toward the front office.
We say our goodbyes and I click off the call, just as I’m walking through the door to the front office, greeted by Sally, our receptionist, and a grumpy looking delivery man.
“Oh, Avery, thank goodness you’re here,” Sally says, looking and sounding frustrated. “This gentleman is saying that there’s a large order, but I don’t have anything recorded.”
“And I’m telling you, there’s a paper here that says that there is,” the man huffs.
Sally wasn’t kidding; he is grumpy. And this close to Christmas.
“I’m sure it’s just some sort of mistake,” I croon. “We have all of our deliveries.”
The man huffs and looks down at the paper in his hand. “Are you Avery Geller?”
“Yes...”
“And this is C.O.C.O.A.?”
“Well, yes…”
“Then this is yours. All paid for. Where do you want it?”
He shoves the paper at me, which has an incredibly long list of goods on it. There are twenty fresh turkeys, boxes of stuffing, cans of cranberry sauce, and enough sides and both perishable and non-perishable items for twenty families to have a complete turkey dinner with all the fixings.
Twenty dinners.
To complete the twenty families I thought I would have to turn down this year.
My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water as my eyes scan the page in my trembling hands.
“Unless you’re refusing the delivery…” he says.
“No!” I exclaim, my free hand darting out as if I could grab him and prevent him from leaving. “I’m sorry; I just wasn’t expecting this.”
“Do you think it’s a last minute donor?” Sally asks.
“It must be. But how would they know that’s exactly how many we needed?”
“Can you please just sign the order so we can get this unloaded? We have other deliveries to make.” The delivery man says gruffly, crossing his arms.
The sewn on name tag reads ‘Dan’ in bold red lettering, making it stand out against the light blue shirt.
The ends of his dark brown hair poke out from behind his backwards cap, curling towards his neck.
He’s got a neatly kept beard and intense green eyes that say he would rather be anywhere other than here.
He would be handsome if it weren’t for the scowl on his face.
I wonder if anyone’s ever told him that.
The only thing I know is, it’s not going to be me that does it.
Grabbing a pen from Sally’s desk, I scribble my signature on the bottom of the page and thrust it back at him. The only thanks I get is a grunt as he turns and heads back out the door.
“Well, he’s full of the holiday spirit,” Sally muses. “I’m surprised he didn’t leave with a ‘Bah Humbug.’”
“Just wait. Maybe after he drops everything off.”
“Do you have any idea who would do this?” Sally’s eyes track Dan as he opens the front door, his dolly stacked high with boxes.
“No, I…” But then I stop. There’s one person outside of Victoria and my boss that knew that I had set that goal, let alone that I was twenty families short. Just one person that I’d confided in and told how much it meant to me that I didn’t turn any families away this Christmas.
But twenty families is a lot. There’s no way that he would have been able to do that, would he?
“You know who it is!” she exclaims, drawing the attention from Dan as he shifts the boxes from the dolly to the floor. He rolls his eyes as he turns and pushes the dolly back through the door.
“I don’t know, but I suspect.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” she squeals. “Your mystery guy from Gingerbread Grove!”
I reel back. “How do you know about that?”
“Oh, please,” she waves her hand in front of me. “We all know about him; we just don’t have details.”
I should ask more questions about how word spread about Matthew around the warehouse, but really, I shouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t tell Victoria it was a secret, and as she put it, my behaviour with leaving on time was out of character for me.
Dan forcefully opens the door with another dolly filled with boxes, letting a burst of cold air and snow follow him. I shiver as the blast hits me, and I don’t miss the annoyed look on his face, as if it were my fault he was out in the blustery weather.
“Are you going back there tonight?” Sally asks, her eyes also tracking Dan’s annoyed movements.
“Yes. It’s the final event. The gingerbread house competition.”
“Oh! What are you going to do? Santa’s Workshop! A snow cabin! A barn!”
“A barn?” I turn to her, giving one last look at Dan as he pushes the boxes off his dolly a little harder this time.
“I don’t know. Don’t all small towns have barns?”
I chuckle. “I’m sure they do, but no, I’m not doing any of those. It has to be a structure from the town.”
“And?” She’s practically standing on her tiptoes, her hands clasped under her chin.
“The hardware store.” The butterflies in my stomach aren’t just fluttering, they’re crash landing and exploding. They’re doing cartwheels and loop-de-loops and flying off the edge of the runway.
“Interesting choice…”
“It’s Matthew’s family’s store. I thought it would be a nice nod to them.” I don’t want to get into the sorted history between Matthew and his family, especially since it’s not my place to say.
What really makes me nervous is that I haven’t run the full plan by Matthew.
We talked about basics, things to buy, and what needed to be pre-built.
He was in charge of picking up the starter package earlier in the week and I gave him a list of supplies that we’ll need in order to complete the finishing touches, which we’re required to do at the event tonight.
It wasn’t that I was keeping him in the dark or keeping it a secret, but he’s been so busy and tired with running the shop, doing the games, and keeping up with his own business that I didn’t want to add yet another thing onto his plate.
Not when I’m the one that pushed for us to really try to go as far as we can in these games.
“That’s really sweet, and a good way to get into his family’s good books,” she jokes.
“Yeah…” Looking down at my hands, I start to pick at nothing, avoiding her eyes.
“What?” she asks.
I open my mouth to reply with my standard ‘nothing’ or ‘everything’s fine,’ but I’m cut off when Dan forces open the door again, sending in another burst of cold and snow.
“This is it,” he says, shimmying the boxes off the dolly and stomping toward the door, little piles of snow trailing behind him.
He’s almost out the door when Sally stops him. “Merry Christmas, Dan!”
He stares at her blankly for a moment before mumbling something that sounds awfully like ‘bah humbug’ before letting the door close forcefully behind him.
“Ha! I knew it!” I say, pumping my fist in the air. “He said it.”
Sally rolls her eyes. “You don’t know what he mumbled there.”
“It doesn’t matter. What I want to know is, what was that?” I ask.
“What was what?” she shrugs.
“That. You. Dan.” I motion my hands between her and the door. “Whatever that was.”
“It was nothing. There’s no me and Dan.”
“Does he deliver here often?”
She bites her lip before looking away. “I’m not answering that. Now, are you going to tell me more about Matthew or are we going to get this food into the fridges until we figure out how to sort them out?”
“Since you’re not going to tell me, I guess we’re going to sort out these turkeys.”
“I’ll go get the dolly in the back.”
Sally disappears, likely to avoid any more questions from me, which I have plenty of. But I also know what it’s like not wanting to answer any.
Thinking of my reason for avoiding questions, I pull out my phone.
Did you have anything to do with this?
Matthew
Do with what?
You know.
No, I really don’t know.
*Gif of Jeff Goldblum trying to grasp a thought.*
Don’t try to distract me by using a gif. We just got a delivery here with everything we need to bless the twenty families I thought were going to have to go without.
That’s great. I’m glad that you will be able to give them what you need.
Matthew!
Avery!
I mean it, did you do this?
I’ll see you tonight.
Please answer me. I want to make sure that I thank the right person.
A customer just came in. Can’t talk. Being on my phone while in the store looks bad. Or so my mom says…
Matthew! Don’t leave me hanging!
*gif of toddler kicking and crying in the leaves*