Chapter 13
13
L ow
“I shouldn’t have to do this, you know,” I say with an admitted whine. “It’s humiliating and undignified. I might not ever forgive you for making me wear this costume.”
“Oh, you think because you’re a fancy podcaster with a fancy new book deal, you shouldn’t have to do it?” Nick says around a glued-on mustache that’s leaning a bit to the left. “Whatever. You look really good, though. In case you were wondering.”
I wasn’t, but I’ll admit my insides just melted a bit. I work to play it cool. “No one said anything about my book deal except you. And I do look good. Hot, you might even say. And you know why? Because this costume is made of itchy polyester that barely moves when I do. I’m like that kid on A Christmas Story who can’t put his arms down, a funny scene until you’re the one living inside it. It’s twenty-seven degrees outside, and I’m sweating like a pig, though someone once told me that pigs don’t actually sweat. Is that true?” I shrug dramatically. “Who cares? For a girl who lives in Austin, Texas, the fact that I’m sweating at all shouldn’t even be a possibility.”
Nick has been giving me a look since three words into my tirade. “Are you done complaining? I seem to remember Mrs. Claus being much jollier than this.”
“Trust me; she’s only happy when her husband is flying around the world and leaving her home alone to sip her wine in private as any good wife would be in her position. And speaking of leaving,” I add in a tone I hope sounds flippant. “When are we?”
Nick rolls his eyes. Considering I can barely see them through a round pair of Coke-bottle glasses perched at the end of his nose, it’s an impressive move. “The event doesn’t start for another half hour. Where could we even go?”
“To my house, and if we leave now, I swear we’ll make out on the sofa.” It’s a bold offer, considering we’ve never even kissed, but I’ll do anything that isn’t this. And okay, I guess I’ll try to enjoy it.
He opens his mouth to respond, but my words have him doing a double take. He raises an eyebrow. “After this is over, I’ll take you up on that offer.”
“After this is over, the offer no longer stands.”
“It does if I have anything to say about it.”
“You don’t.” Considering a thrilling zing of betrayal electrifies my insides, he totally does. I’m mentally celebrating the idea that he wants me. Me. Even in this ridiculous costume. It’s like I’m at a Christmas carnival, and the prizes are hot men. Specifically, a good-looking version of Saint Nick himself, made even funnier by the Santa getup he’s currently wearing. He’s the only prize I want. The thought bulldozes all other rational thoughts that might have made their way forward, leaving me with this solitary, stupid one.
It hardly matters that deep down, I want to be with Nick. He belongs to someone else and quite possibly always will. Sometimes, loyalty to a memory is the strongest loyalty of all.
“You sure about that?” Nick says, as surprised as I am by my quick if unbelievable, claim.
“I’m eighty-seven percent sure.” That was intended to sound confident. Upon further reflection, an eighty-seven percent certainty leaves a comfortable thirteen percent chance of wiggle room. Flip those numbers, and you’d be one hundred percent right. Making out with Nick is all sorts of appealing—before, after, or even during this event. It would be even better if we could just get these darn kids to skip Christmas and not come at all today…
“I can live with those odds,” Nick says with a suggestive wink. And let me tell you, a suggestive Santa is one part weirdly hot and two parts mildly disturbing.
“Don’t rub it in or I might change my mind.”
He moves a bowl of candy canes closer to his Santa throne for easier access as the kids walk away. “There will be no more rubbing of anything.” I hear the double meaning, and my face burns fiery red. Convenient timing, seeing as Mrs. Claus is known for her rosy cheeks. “Unless you want me to…” Nick mutters.
A mortified laugh bubbles out of me, one I can’t help. “We should probably refrain from talking about making out in front of the kids,” I mumble.
“Yes, you should,” Susan says, appearing out of nowhere and eyeing me with obvious displeasure. Hey, I’m not the one who started the verbal foreplay. Or maybe I did? My scrambled brain is having trouble recalling. “If you want to play Mr. and Mrs. Claus in a more personal way tonight,” Susan continues, “that’s your prerogative. But here at the library, let’s keep it rated G, please.”
Nick glares at his sister. “I’m insulted you would think otherwise.”
“And I’m insulted you gave Low the wrong costume,” she says, eyeing me up and down. “Did you bring the one I left on your doorstep yesterday?” She touches the sleeve of my shirt and yanks her hand back like it bit her. “This one is really old, and it itches. I had to wear it a few years ago, and by the end of the day, I had a full-body rash.”
“A full body what ?” I gape at Nick and Susan for making me do this. Guilt by association makes her an accomplice. “Where’s the other one, then? I don’t want a rash .” Suddenly, I’m itching everywhere, not to mention that the amount of static emitting off my head from this old felt bonnet could power a small home. I can feel welts rising on my skin as I stand here. “Did you bring the one on your porch?” I say, a full-fledged panic beginning to set in.
“There wasn’t one on my porch,” he insists.
Susan sighs. “It was in a red box, and I propped it against your front door on my way to buy groceries. There’s no way you could miss it. I ordered it off Amazon, so it would be here in plenty of time to get it to Low.”
“Then why didn’t you bring it here?” he asks his sister.
“Because I figured she would want to try it on ahead of time?” She says this like Nick could not be dumber. I’m beginning to wonder that myself.
“I never saw a red box,” he says at the same time I realize my mistake. “You sure you dropped it off at the right house?”
“Of course, I’m sure.”
But suddenly, I’m not. A red box. I groan, recalling that very box sitting on my kitchen table as we speak. “I grabbed it off his porch yesterday, thinking it was the new set of sheets I ordered my mom for Christmas. Figured that poor excuse for a mail delivery guy had screwed up again. It’s sitting on my grandmother’s kitchen table right now, doing me no good. Think I have time to run home and get it?”
A girl of about six years old chooses that exact moment to walk into the library with her mother, both dressed in full-body Christmas garb down to the girl’s red sparkly shoelaces and the mother’s light-up earrings. No two people have ever been more festive, including the current versions of Nick and me. This party is starting. I’m stuck wearing this costume until it’s over. I grab the basket of candy canes off the floor and practice my best jovial smile, certain I’ll need a bottle of Benadryl before the night is over.
“Can I have a candy cane?” the little girl asks.
“Sure,” I say with more enthusiasm than I feel. “First, tell Santa what you want for Christmas, and then I’ll give you one!”
She turns toward Nick as a spot under my arm starts to burn.
“How are you doing in there?” Nick calls from the other room.
I’m soaking in a bathtub of my grandmother’s Epsom salts like an eighty-year-old woman, and okay, technically, I don’t have either a rash or welts. But after you’ve been phantom itching for three hours straight, you’ve got to do something to make yourself feel proactive, and for me, this is it. I have scratch marks that need to be soothed right along with my pride.
If my listeners could see me now, yelling through a door at my male neighbor, very aware that he’s fully dressed and I’m fully…not. So much for boundaries.
“I’m fine,” I say. “But my eye still hurts from when that little boy punched me.”
“That little boy was Sam, and he didn’t so much punch you as you head-butted him when you tried to grab his cookie.”
“It was the last chocolate chip one, and I hate Oreos. He doesn’t hate Oreos; he told me so himself. That cookie was mine.”
“What kind of civilized person hates Oreos?”
“The kind of civilized person who steals cookies from kids and gives herself a black eye in the process.”
“It’s turning black?”
“No, but it feels like it should. Your nephew is hardheaded.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’m hardheaded, too.”
“I’m still waiting…”
“Shut up.” I pull myself out of the water and reach for a bathrobe, not the best way to make a good impression, but Nick has already seen me at my worst. And by worst, I don’t mean earlier today when a kid spilled lemonade on my leg, and I told her to “watch it.” I really do need to work on my people skills where children are involved. The day I met Nick’s niece, she thought I was a murderer. There is work to be done. The first step toward progress is admitting you have issues.
He’s seen me in pajamas at our last-minute sleepover, in flannel while on-air, and as a fidgety Mrs. Claus only this morning. The robe is decidedly a step up from that. At the very least it’s a lateral move.
I open the bathroom door to find Nick waiting for me, and my face goes warm at his unexpected closeness. Warmer still when he takes a step forward and reaches for me.
“Nice robe,” he says.
“It isn’t nineteen-sixties polyester, but it works.”
“Don’t knock sixties polyester until you try it.”
“I did try it, and I will burn it into a pile of ash and bad memories if it comes for me again. My Mrs. Claus days are officially retired.”
“There’s always next year,” he says, running a finger down my collar.
“There is most definitely not next year.” I look up at him. We’re close, closer than we’ve ever been before. My pulse pounds in my neck, a drumbeat of self-consciousness and nerves.
He frowns. “You wouldn’t come back and do it again if I asked?”
I shrug as if I didn’t spend all afternoon thinking about it. It’s hard to appear nonchalant when you are decidedly the opposite.
“Maybe. I’m actually thinking about staying a bit longer and spending a little more time with my grandmother. Might even buy myself a place around here. I’m in the early stages of considering it.”
His frown instantly morphs into an adorably surprised grin. He bites his lip to try to hide it. “Is that so?”
I give single nod. I don’t look away. “It might be so?”
“But just to be clear, the move would be strictly to spend more time with your grandmother. Just for clarity’s sake.”
I nod a little too pointedly. “Absolutely to spend more time with her. And also, maybe a few other people…”
“And those people would be…?”
“Not anyone you know. I’m not even sure I’ve met them yet.”
I see a spark in his eyes, but his mouth remains stoic. “But you’ll let me know when you meet them…”
“I will absolutely let you know.” This conversation is ridiculous.
A grin breaks free as his arms tighten around me. “That’s a relief. In the meantime…about that deal we made at the library. The party’s over now, and I’m free for the foreseeable future.”
“Yes, but you made me stay, so the deal’s off. Remember?” I move to walk away, but he pulls me back. I squeal, but it’s hardly a protest.
“What if I want the deal to be back on?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to convince me it’s worth it.”
He tilts his head like a man who enjoys a challenge. I mirror his movements like I enjoy one, too.
He kisses me then. Tentative at first, like he’s unsure, like he’s out of practice. More tentative still, like he’s heartbroken at breaking a lifelong vow, one he had every intention of keeping. Inside his mind, he undoubtedly did. He pauses for one thoughtful moment, then grows bold like he’s making a new one.
I follow him on the rollercoaster of emotions, going slow, putting on the brakes, and then full steam ahead, letting him take the lead. You can feel a lot in a kiss if you let yourself. The other person’s sadness and despair, permission and forgiveness, wonder and worship. All in the span of just a few breaths. I feel it in Nick. I feel it in me.
It’s okay to need another person, to admit it to yourself. To embrace it, hold onto it, and sink into the weight of your sudden new reality.
Needing someone doesn’t make you any less whole.
Turns out, when it’s the right person, it might even make you more so.