Chapter Fifteen
LAYLA
The sales people love Rheta. She’s almost bought out the entire store of decorations and greenery. The total cost will be staggering, and I leave before her purchases are rung up. After receiving the call from Brock Pine Home about one of my credit cards being denied, I can’t handle how this family throws around money like it’s inconsequential.
The colorful glass balls hand blown by local artisans draw my eye, but with the smaller ones costing twenty dollars apiece, I don’t let myself linger for long.
I make my way toward the coffee counter before I remember that’s a bad idea. I don’t have money for coffee, and the smell tempts me to make a poor choice.
Owen comes up beside me. “Did you find some fun things to decorate the cabin?”
“Yes.”
I glance up into his brown cocoa eyes, and for one second, I wish things could be different. That invasive desire gets squashed immediately. Things aren’t different, and it’s a waste of energy imagining that they could be.
“I did a little research on this place before we came.” He looks around, giving me a break from his penetrating gaze. “They’ve had eight Christmas movies filmed here over the past five years.”
This is a nice, neutral conversation topic. “Wow, eight. Do they have a list on their website?” I pull out my phone, wondering if I’ve seen the other six. “Meg will be beyond jealous.”
“They actually have a tour around the property where they show the different filming locations. Do you want to go?” He points to a man near the entrance with a clipboard. The man glances at his wristwatch, then looks back at us. “If so, it starts now.”
A tour of filming sights? Meg would never forgive me if I turned down the opportunity. Except no one else has gathered. Will it just be me and Owen? Definitely not a good idea. We may be friends, but being alone with him will make it that much more difficult for my head to remember friendly boundaries.
“Let me ask Tori if she’s interested.”
Safety in numbers and all that.
“Actually—”
I don’t wait to hear how he’ll continue that sentence. I speed walk to Tori. She’s negotiating with Sadie over what ornaments to purchase for the tree going in their bedroom.
It’s strange how our conversation about fashion on the drive over smoothed out any issues she had with me when we first met. Fashion as art is one thing we can agree on. How much fashion should cost is not. She comes across as a rich snob on first acquaintance, but she’s actually quite fun to talk to.
“Tori, do you and Sadie want to go on a tour of the farm with me and Owen?”
She points to her boots. “Jimmy Choo.”
That’s all the answer I need. Everyone else in our group is otherwise occupied … except for Brady, who has found a quiet corner to read. I head over and stop in front of his chair.
“Brady, do you want to come on a tour of the farm with me and Owen?”
He shrugs. “Sure.” But after he stands, something over my shoulder catches his attention.
I follow his gaze to Owen. Owen quickly stuffs his hands in his coat pockets, turns his head away from us, and whistles.
“Actually,” Brady says. “I’m at an exciting part in my book. Sorry.” He sits down and goes back to reading.
I meet Owen in the middle of the barn. “What did you signal to Brady?”
“Nothing.” He looks too innocent for me to believe him. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want his brother to come with us. “Ready for the tour?”
I want to go. Owen keeps inviting me to fun activities, and I can’t ever say no. It’s a problem. One I’ll worry about later.
“Yes, I’m ready,” I say.
We meet the tour guide at the barn exit. As I feared, it’s just me and Owen.
“Hi,” our guide says to us. “Welcome to Trolley Farms! I’m Max, and I’ll be taking you around the farm today. I took some notes, but since you’re the first two who have ever asked for a tour, I’m going to wing it. Let me know how I do.”
I glance over at Owen. His cheeks have the lightest blush.
“You don’t do tours regularly?” I ask Max.
“No. We’ve honestly never thought of it until he,” Max points to Owen, “called and asked for one. If you enjoy it, maybe I’ll schedule a few for next year.”
Owen’s cheeks turn a brighter red.
I give him the side eye. “Interesting.”
I may appear annoyed, but in fact, I’m flattered that Owen asked for a tour for me. I can’t think of the last time any man has gone to this much trouble for a date. Er … since this isn’t a date and just two friends hanging out, I’ve never had a guy friend put in any effort. My chest grows warm at his thoughtfulness.
“If you’ll follow me,” Max says. “We’ll start at the spot where Christmas Seasonings filmed the scene where they went mushroom hunting. There aren’t real mushrooms, but I hid a fake one and whoever finds it wins any one ornament from our shop.”
A fake mushroom hunt! With a Christmas ornament as a prize. When I win, I will pick the largest glass ornament in their shop. I’ll knit a special cozy so it doesn’t break on the flight home.
We walk along a path toward a forest of pine trees.
“You better not let me win,” I tell Owen. “I want real competition.”
“I would never.”
I don’t believe him, and I glare to show him how much I mean what I said .
He holds up his hand in surrender. “Okay. Real competition.” He steps closer, narrows his eyes, and hardens his lips “There is no way you’re finding that mushroom. My eyesight is twenty-twenty with contacts. I am winning the prize, so don’t think I won’t.”
Owen talking smack is a beautiful thing. I giggle.
“Thank you.” I have to ask, “How did you know I like Christmas movies?”
“Something you said when we were getting fries last week about how you only watch Christmas movies with your roommates during the month of December. When I saw on their website how many movies they filmed here, I thought a tour would be fun.”
“So much fun.” I reach out and squeeze his upper arm. Mistake. There is some serious muscle in that biceps, even with his coat. My fingers linger longer than is appropriate before I drop my hand and hide it in my pocket. “I love this. Thank you.”
His blush deepens. It’s charming, just like him.
“You’re welcome.”
Our last stop on the tour is a dirt-packed clearing. The second I enter, I know where we are. “This is the party scene in Christmas Carol Hoedown.”
Max’s grin expands. He doesn’t seem to mind that I stole his line. I’ve been doing that a lot over the past hour, and each time he gets more enthusiastic.
“Right! I was a town member extra in that scene, so I learned the folk dance. I’m going to teach it to you now. ”
“No way! How fun.” I glance at Owen. “I can teach it to my roommates next time we have a movie night.”
“No way.” Owen’s response is much less enthusiastic. “I think I’ll sit this one out. I have two left feet.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “You must have a hard time finding shoes that fit.”
“Ha ha.”
I clasped my hands together under my chin. “Please dance with me?”
His expression turns serious. “For you, anything.”
My stomach flutters at the way he looks at me so earnestly. As if he would do anything I asked him to do.
He takes a step back and gets in what I can only assume is his dancing pose: legs apart with knees bent, his arms akimbo. “I’m warning you, this will not be a pretty sight.”
It’s already a little frightening, though definitely entertaining. The fluttering in my stomach settles as I laugh.
After watching our interlude, Max turns his back to us. “I’ll do it for you once, and then we’ll take it slow together a few steps at a time.”
From his phone Max starts the same song they had the band play in the movie. It’s one written specifically for the show and has a simple, catchy rhythm. The lyrics, however, could use some work.
Max calls out each step as he goes. “To the left, hop, step, close step to the left. Now to the right. Hop, step, close step. Take mincing steps in a circle. Step, hop, step hop, step, hop.”
It’s easy enough, and I join in after watching for a minute.
“Show off,” Owen mutters, but he’s smiling .
Max stops the music. “Then it repeats from there. Ready to begin?”
He is a very patient teacher, which comes in handy because Owen can’t dance. I wouldn’t say he has two left feet, more that he has no rhythm and no memory of what order the steps go in.
Instead of getting annoyed or embarrassed, Owen keeps trying. He laughs each time he goes in the wrong direction. He applauds when I get the steps in the correct order. I love how he can have fun at something he does terribly.
“Go right. Your other right, Owen,” Max says. “Owen, mincing steps means to step with your toes, not your heels. Toes. Do you know what your toes are? It’s a hop, not a jump.”
It’s hard for me to keep up with Max when I can’t breathe because I’m laughing so hard at my dance partner. My stomach aches.
Max studies Owen for a moment. “I think that’s the best we can hope for. Ready to add the music?”
“Absolutely!” Owen says with enthusiasm.
Max starts the music from the beginning but doesn’t join in. Instead, he records us on his phone. Owen is all over the place with his moves, a few steps behind because he’s following me. Or at least trying to. Soon I’m off rhythm from laughing. When Max realizes we’re a lost cause, he stops recording and throws up his hands, but he’s smiling.
“That was dreadful,” Max tells us. “But entertaining to watch.”
“Will you send me that video?” I ask him.
“Please don’t sent that to her,” Owen says. “Could you delete it instead? ”
“Layla?”
I turn at the sound of my name.
Spencer stands ten feet away on the edge of the clearing. His long wool coat is open, showing his blue suit underneath. He wears his distinctive Berluti Oxford shoes. Everything about him looks out of place in the middle of a wooded area, but none more so than his expression: one of frustration mixed with anger.
The music stops behind me, and the only sound comes from the birds in the trees.
I wipe sweaty palms along the sides of my coat. “Spencer. You’re here.”
“What are you doing with Owen?”
Standing here like an idiot. I take a few steps and throw myself in his arms, mostly because that seems like what a girlfriend should do when her boyfriend shows up as a surprise and catches her having fun with another man.
I pull back and loop my arm through his. “We were learning a dance from a Christmas movie. This is Max.”
Max shoots Owen a look, then me a look, as if he assumed we were a couple. An honest mistake, but one Spencer picks up on. He stiffens beside me.
“Do you want to learn the Christmas Carol Hoedown hoedown?” Max asks him. “It’s easy unless your name starts with an O and ends with wen.” His whole body shakes with suppressed laughter. “Layla, however, is a natural.”
“No, thank you.” Spencer’s tone is dismissive and my chest burns with embarrassment. He speaks to only me as he continues. “I’m waiting for information to get sent from the Salt Lake office and thought I’d spend a few hours with my girlfriend . ”
If this clearing wasn’t saturated with awkwardness before, it is now. Worse than Spencer marking his “territory” is the way he’s treating Max.
“That’s so nice of you to come, Spencer.” He will not cow me and I take a steadying breath before I continue. “You’ll love it here. Max took me and Owen on a tour of the farm. He was telling us how every year the farm donates fifty trees to Sub For Santa. Isn’t that amazing? We can get involved next year by buying trees for them to donate. It sounds fun, don’t you agree? We should talk to Max about it before we leave today.”
Spencer looks from me, to Owen, to Max, then back at me. He studies my face, and I hope he catches that I’m irritated with his behavior.
He must, because he holds out his free hand to Max. “It’s nice to meet you, Max. We’ll be in contact next year to see if we can work something out.”
“That would be great,” Max responds with enthusiasm.
Spencer and I turn to head back to the barn. I stop and look over my shoulder.
“Thanks for the tour, Max,” I say. “If you do set tours up next year, I will write a stellar review. You’re an amazing guide.”
“Thanks, Layla.”
As we walk away, disappointment settles in my chest. I don’t want to leave Max and Owen behind. I’m a horrible girlfriend. I can be better, and I’ll start by asking Spencer about work.
“How is the trial prep going?”
He nods and a tentative smile breaks through his dark mood. “Gerald found a loophole in the investigation of our client. We’re back on top. We still have a lot of work to do, but I’m not so frantic.”
“I’m glad.” Not for his client because he probably did whatever he’s been accused of, but for Spencer because he works so hard to win.
Owen and Max’s footsteps sound behind us. To fill the silence, I tell Spencer about the different filming locations on our tour. Besides finding the mushroom, my favorite stop was for Stupid Cupid Christmas . Since there isn’t any snow, we “sled” down the hill on ice blocks. No matter how many times Owen and I raced, he always reached the bottom first. Even when I had a head start, his quarterback physique always passed me up.
I ramble on until we reconnect with the rest of our group in the lot of pre-cut trees. They’ve picked four, but still haven’t decided on the last two and Sadie’s small tree for her room. Sadie goes from tree to tree, trying to hug them all and getting a face full of pine needles for her troubles. It doesn’t stop her from loving every single one.
Celebrating Christmas with a child is a different experience than celebrating with only adults. Everything is magical to Sadie, as if she’s never encountered anything so wondrous. With this being only her fourth Christmas, maybe she hasn’t.
After Brady convinces her to choose a tree, Tori shows me the bag of ornaments Sadie picked. Twenty painted animal figurines carved from local wood.
“I tried to talk her into something sparkly, but she is one stubborn girl. If she didn’t resemble me, I would swear someone swapped her at birth.”
When the last tree is purchased, they’re all taken to a machine where each tree is shaken before being wrapped in plastic for easy transportation.
“What are you doing to my tree?” Sadie asks the man when the machine stops. Her hands are on her hips and her expression is fierce.
“I’m unhoming the spiders who took up residence,” the guy says.
Sadie scrunches up her face. “Huh?”
The employee smiles and bends down closer. “Sometimes when trees sit on our lot, spiders move in. Shaking the tree forces them to leave.”
She bursts into tears.
Tori gets down on her level, one knee on the dirt packed ground. She doesn’t seem to notice the dust accumulating on her Burberry jeans. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I want to take the spiders home with me!”
Tori picks up her daughter and lets her cry on her shoulder. She whispers to me, “She wants spiders as pets. Where did this child come from?”
Rheta schedules a delivery for the trees and greenery later that night, but has everything else packed onto two bench seats in the van, including Sadie’s mini tree, so she can decorate it when she gets home.
I go to climb in, but Spencer grabs my hand. “I thought you would drive back with me.”
He points to his rental car parked close by. I look back at the van and everyone laughing and talking as they get inside. I don’t want to give up the camaraderie I’ve felt today with the rest of his family, and it would probably do him good to socialize with them .
“It’s fun in the family van,” I say. “Come with me? We can get someone to come pick up your car later today.”
What’s the purpose of having so much money if we can’t be selfish once in a while?
He studies my hopeful face for only a few seconds before he nods. “Alright. Let’s ride in a van.”
It’s a tight squeeze on the back row with four of us, which means I snuggle close to Spencer. In order to make room for our shoulders, he lays his arm along the back of the seat. I catch Owen’s glance in the rearview mirror. His eyes look sad.
There’s a tug-a-war inside my heart. I don’t want Owen to see me snuggling with my boyfriend, and I don’t want my boyfriend to doubt my commitment to our secret engagement. This is a mess and one I’m not sure how to clean-up.
As we pull out of the parking lot, Sadie sings, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.”
It’s enough of a distraction for me to cast off the concerns I have about these two men. I’ve made my decision. Owen knows that I’m with Spencer. Owen is the one who asked if we could be friends. He’s the one who invites me to do friendly things with him. If he doesn’t like seeing me and Spencer together, then he can stop hanging out with me.
I lean into Spencer’s side and join Sadie in singing. Brady does as well. Tori rolls her eyes but smiles like she’s about to cry.
“It’s a van, not a bus,” Owen calls from the front. He’s so far away we can barely hear him .
“And its name is Tori, apparently,” Tori mutters under her breath. “It’s a little insulting.”
Then she, too, joins in to sing about windshield wipers swishing.
Spencer does not sing, but he laughs. He laughs so rarely; it feels like a gift. Driving home in the van together was the right decision.
Owen sprays the windows and the wipers swish against the windshield. Sadie cheers.
It’s shocking to realize this is turning out to be a fun Christmas full of new experiences. It was only days ago I felt melancholy about this year differing from past Christmases, but the differences have made this one so much more enjoyable.
I shouldn’t be having this much fun away from home. Nana is alone. She escaped for the second time yesterday and was only found because she shoplifted a bag of chocolate chips and a bottle of window cleaner.
I miss my roommates. I yearn to tell them all about the tour today, but I can’t reach out or they’ll insist on knowing everything. There will be no communication between us for the rest of the week, no matter how hard it is for me.
I’m embarrassed that one of my credit cards didn’t go through as part of the payment for January, and now I’m a delinquent because of one hundred thirty-three dollars.
But, I’m in beautiful Maine. I had a movie tour at a Christmas tree farm. I ran on a beach on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. I made friends with my soon-to-be in-laws. My secret fiancé made the effort to surprise me with his presence at a barn, and now he’s sitting next to me in a van .
Different is good.