Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
MATTHEW
“Did you ever think you’d be run out of Gingerbread Grove by an angry mob?” Avery asks, resting the straw from her fountain pop on her lip.
“Nope, can’t say I have.” I take a bite of a fry, looking out the front windshield of Avery’s car.
After being swarmed with angry townspeople after finding out that we weren’t entirely truthful, I grabbed Avery’s hand and made a dash for her car.
She’d thrown me the keys as she jumped into the passenger’s seat, trusting me to guide us out of town before we could get stopped by a human barricade demanding answers.
This isn’t how I pictured having Christmas Eve dinner, in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant just outside of town, but here we are.
“Good thing they didn’t have pitchforks.”
“Is there a Christmas equivalent? If there was, I bet they’d have it.” I pick at another fry from the cardboard container.
“If they really wanted, they could wrap them in red and white duct tape.”
“Too close to a candy cane. They’d never go for it.”
“Green and red then.” She takes a sip of her pop before placing it in the cup holder and turning in the passenger seat to face me. “We need to find out who InsiderCookie57 is. Is there any way you can use your computer superpowers for this?”
“Superpowers?” I scoff.
“Yeah, you know,” she moves her fingers in a typing motion. “Get on the ol’ internets and do some sleuthing behind the scenes. I can do front end social media stuff, but I don’t know anything about how to do it back there.”
“Not without breaking laws, no. I don’t think that this is serious enough to risk me going to jail, do you?” I shoot her a glance from the corner of my eye. When she doesn’t answer right away, I turn to her. “Avery, you can’t really be contemplating this.”
“What? No…I mean, no. Of course not.”
I breathe a little sigh of relief, but I know that her answer is not entirely true.
“Wait! What about Trevor? Do you think he would help? I mean, if you think you can trust him. Do we know who we can trust in Gingerbread Grove?”
“Avery,” I sigh, putting my empty fry container back in the paper bag.
“I mean, we don’t know who InsiderCookie57 is. It could be anyone. And to think that everyone had been so nice. Well, mostly everyone.”
“Avery,” I say a little louder.
“We know it’s not your parents. My top runners are still McKenzie and Cal, but they wouldn’t be doing it so openly. Not with him being the mayor…”
“Avery!”
She stops mid-thought and looks at me, eyes wide and mouth slack in surprise. “Yes?”
“Say we find out who InsiderCookie57 is; what then? Technically, everything they posted is true, except for McKenzie and Cal being the top couple or whatever. But we were fake dating. That is how we met. Technically, they didn’t post anything that wasn’t true about us.”
“Well, no… But what about all the sabotage? The location devices? The crushing of the gingerbread store?”
“All unfortunate, but in the end, so what? We don’t live or work in Gingerbread Grove. I’ve managed to avoid the people, and the town, for almost ten years. I can do it again.”
Avery sinks into her seat.
“It’s Christmas Eve, Avery. Do you really want to spend it worrying about someone that has nothing better to do than run us out of a town we don’t belong to?”
Thinking I don’t belong and saying it out loud are two very different things. I haven’t felt like I belonged to Gingerbread Grove since high school, and usually I’m okay with it. But saying it out loud and admitting it to Avery, that causes a pang in my heart I wasn’t prepared for.
“No, I can’t say I thought I’d be spending my Christmas Eve in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. But at least I’m with you.”
She gives me a shy smile that takes away a little of the sting from my admission.
“That’s all that matters to me, too. What do you say about going back to Kamloops for tonight? I’m sure I can find a last minute hotel room.”
“What about your mom? You promised you would spend Christmas with her.”
“I’ll go back and see her tomorrow. I’m not ready to face that interrogation tonight. I’m sure she’s already losing her Christmas-cool over whatever gossip the town is spreading.”
“That’s true.” She straightens suddenly, nearly knocking over the bag of food beside her on the arm rest. “That means we can watch Miracle on 34th Street?” she asks hopefully.
“We can watch Miracle on 34th Street,” I repeat, unable to look away from the hopeful joy in her eyes.
I want to be embarrassed that I told her that, and she remembers, but I don’t have it in me to be. Even after everything that’s happened, the only thing I want to do is watch a Christmas movie with the woman next to me.
Finding a hotel in Kamloops on Christmas Eve is harder than I thought.
It didn’t help that we didn’t get into town until late at night.
So instead of booking a motel that looked like it was out of a horror movie, I agree to stay on Avery’s couch.
Which ends up being a blessing, because now she’s curled up beside me, covered in a throw blanket, surrounded by gas station snacks while the end credits for the movie flash in their black and white screens.
I’ve got my arm around her and she’s asleep on my chest, and I think this is the most at peace I’ve ever felt.
The movie ends and it moves onto another one.
It’s a feel-good romance movie that always plays this time of year.
Usually, I would change the channel before the title can be played, but the remote is next to my foot on the coffee table and there’s no way I’m risking waking Avery.
Even if it means I have to sit through a city guy and a small town girl falling in love over silly holiday traditions.
How fitting.
Shifting slightly, I pull my phone out of my jeans pocket, sighing at the screen full of messages I’ve been avoiding all night.
Mom
You were fake dating Avery this whole time? Why?
You brought her around to meet me. I thought I was finally getting to see you settle down!
How could you do this to me?
Answer me!
Dad
Answer your mother, please. She’s pacing the room like a lost reindeer.
Clicking off that family group chat, I pull up one from Mitch.
Mitch
I thought you were going to finish the proposal for the new client today.
Don’t worry, I finished it, but you could have at least told me you weren’t going to be able to do it.
And now you’re MIA?
I drop my head, letting it sit on the back of the couch. With everything that happened today with the deliveries and the drama in town, I completely forgot that I said I would finish that by the time we closed the office for the holidays.
Mitch
Why am I getting texts about you being chased out of Gingerbread Grove? Something about a Gingersnap? I guess I’ll let it slide about the proposal since it sounds like you had a lot on your hands today.
Can you please answer me and let me know they didn’t feed you to the Cookie Monster or some equally weird Christmas version?
Chuckling, I type out a response.
Sorry about the proposal. It has been a long, and very odd, day.
No monsters. Just someone hiding behind an app that has it in for us for some reason.
Want me to look into it?
No, there’s no point. I’ll be back in Vancouver soon.
I place my phone screen down on the arm rest beside me and close my eyes.
I try to focus on Avery wrapped up next to me, the sounds of the dialogue between the couple on the TV filling the silence.
They’re arguing over some bakery that’s up for sale in the small town.
He wants to buy it to turn it into a big chain, she wants to keep it ‘true to its roots.’
I scoff. Like a conversation like this would ever happen in real life.
If only our problems were as easily fixed as those on the screen right now. If things just magically worked out, and we didn’t need to worry about family, Christmas-crazed towns, or anonymous social media posters.
The snow outside the window starts to pick up, as does the wind.
There is only a sheet of white visible on the other side of the glass, but everything in here is the picture-perfect of calm.
Avery’s tree stands in the corner with its white lights and strategically placed ornaments with wrapped presents around the base.
Garland and twinkling lights sit on the mantle above the electric fireplace, giving the living room a warm and cozy feel.
Just another thing that represents our life right now. Crazy and wild on the outside but in here, where it’s just us, this is where the peace is.
I’m quickly beginning to understand that Avery is my peace. That with her, I’m finding how to find my calm and shut out the craziness of the world.
Holding her closer to me, I know that this is all I need.