Almost Christmas

by Brooke St. James

  "Oh, some family, yes. I have family down there." I felt terrible about lying—uncomfortable with it. But what else was I supposed to do? The truth to that question stayed locked in my mouth no matter how hard I tried to let it out.

  We talked about celebrating Christmas in a warm climate like Florida and other surface level things such as that before arriving at the mall. I waited for the others to get out of the van, and put a folded blanket on the seat for Jack before I climbed out.

  Jesse was standing near the side door, and he held out a hand to help me climb down. I took his hand, but I was mad at him for offering it, because touching him stirred up all sorts of feelings. I experienced a crippling wave tingly anticipation at the simplest of contacts. It didn't help that Jesse had kissed me earlier, and I couldn’t stop remembering it.

  I looked at him with a smile as I let go of his hand. "Thanks," I said with a sigh. I dusted off my lap and adjusted my backpack before we all headed into the mall.

  Chapter 12

  By the time I spent a few hours with Jesse and his family at the mall, I decided I had landed myself in some alternate reality and would surely wake up any second. Lou and CeCe were both sweet, down-to-earth ladies, and Drew and June couldn’t be cuter. There was a line to see Santa, so Jesse and I walked around the mall while they waited.

  It was easy to get lost in the romance of it all. There was Christmas music playing and beautiful decorations everywhere. We even stopped at a Starbucks kiosk to get hot chocolate. It was Jesse's idea and not mine, and of course, he made me let him pay even though I protested.

  We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant, and then CeCe had a few last minute gifts to purchase, so she and Lou took the kids to take care of that. Jesse asked if I'd go with him to a sporting goods store, and I easily agreed since I didn't have shopping to do and felt most comfortable hanging out with him.

  He went into the store, walking with purpose, and I watched as he picked out a pocketknife and a club-like device that I could imagine the police using. It was when he found the third item, a bottle of mace, that I realized the combination of products were clearly for me.

  "What's all this?" I said after he grabbed the mace. "I assume those are for me."

  He glanced at me and smiled as we walked. "Yes, they are for you."

  "I'll get them," I said.

  He didn't say anything, but just shook his head. We stood at the register while the person in front of us finished their purchase. "Your car will be ready by the time we get back," he said.

  My heart sank.

  I looked at him, and his mouth turned upward in a smile, but it was tinged with seriousness. "Chance texted me while we were eating lunch. It was what he thought it was—the head gasket. Not a big deal. They had the parts they needed."

  "Oh, that's awesome," I said, trying to sound like I meant it even though I did not. This trip to the mall and getting to know his family had done nothing but make me wish Chance would accidently not be able to fix my car before the end of the day.

  It was better this way, though.

  The longer I stayed, the less I felt like leaving.

  "How much was it?" I asked as we walked out of the sporting goods store and back into the mall to meet the others.

  "Nothing," he said. "I told you I wanted to take care of it."

  "I know you did, and I said I'd let you, but I'd like to know how much it was—just for my own records."

  He shot me an amused grin. "Normally about eight, but he's gonna do it for six. He's a good friend. He'll make sure it's running good for you." He glanced at me, and when I stayed silent, he said, "It's really not a big deal. I thought it'd be a lot more, actually."

  "It's a big deal to me," I said.

  "I know it is," he said. "And that makes it even more fun for me."

  I didn't know what to say to that. I felt speechless. We were approaching his mom and sister, so I just sort of mumbled, "You're amazing," as we met the others.

  "What'd you have to get?" CeCe asked, pointing at Jesse's bag. It was obvious by the way she asked it that she thought he'd been Christmas shopping.

  "It's Mae's," he said. "I'm just holding it for her." He handed me the bag before taking the van keys from his sister.

  June slept on the way home, but Drew stayed awake. He was super excited about seeing Santa, and he talked my ear off the whole time.

  "Bap and Popie have ten sheep in the manger at Christmas," Drew said. "You need to come with us and bring Jack so he can meet the other animals."

  I knew Drew referred to Lou as Bap, but I didn't understand much else of what he said.

  "That's tomorrow night," Lou said, turning from the seat in front of me so she could explain. "Christmas Eve. It's a live manger scene that one of the big churches in Roanoke puts on every year. It's really neat. They've been doing it for about ten years. They always use our sheep."

  "You can come see it if you want," Drew said. "They even have camels, and you can feed them."

  I smiled at him. "The bad thing is, my car might be ready before that," I said.

  "And you have to go back home when your car's ready?" he asked.

  I nodded. "But I'll definitely come if it doesn’t get fixed in time," I said.

  "Is our whole family going?" Drew asked the people in the front of the van.

  "You know Popie and I are going," Lou said from the seat in front of him. She whispered her answer as if encouraging him to be quiet for his sister's sake.

  "What about Uncle Jesse?" he asked, pointing into the front seat.

  "Probably not," Jesse said. He adjusted the rearview mirror where he could see me, and I glanced down even though I wanted to look at him. "But I might have to come if Mae's car doesn't get fixed in time," he added. "She'd probably need me to give her a ride there."

  Lou looked back at me and lifted her eyebrows in that sweet motherly way that said she thought me going to the manger scene was a great idea. I felt shy and embarrassed for having been caught acting like I didn't know if my car was fixed. I honestly thought Jesse wouldn't be able to hear me from the front.

  Jesse was standing next to the van when I climbed out of it at his house. He offered me his hand again, and I said, "I got it." I didn't want to be rude, but touching him was my kryptonite, and I needed to keep my wits about me. Plus, I was a little embarrassed that he heard me.

  It was three o'clock in the afternoon by the time we got back to Jesse's house. His family left right when we arrived. On her way to the car Lou reminded him she was cooking dinner that evening, and he agreed that he was planning on being there.

  Donna was overjoyed that we were finally back, and gave us no grief whatsoever about not getting to come. I loved on the dogs for a minute before Jesse put them outside.

  "We should probably go to Chance's to get your car," he said.

  I felt a wave of sadness wash over me at the fact that he was so anxious to get it. "Oh, yeah, sure. Definitely. Let me just grab my bags and use the restroom."

  As I turned to walk away, I started to wrap my brain around the fact that within minutes, I'd be leaving this place and be on the road indefinitely. I felt sick about it.

  "I thought you didn't know if your car was fixed or not," Jesse said at my back.

  My heart started racing. It felt as if I could barely breathe when I said, "I thought we had to go pick it up."

  "We do, but you can just park it in my driveway and call it broke as far as I'm concerned."

  I slowly turned to face him, feeling numb and stiff. Parking my car in his driveway and calling it broken was the exact thing I wanted to do; yet I knew I had to tell him I couldn't.

  "I can't," I said. "I shouldn't."

  "I think you can and you should, so who's to say who's right and who's wrong here?"

  "I am," I said, smiling, and leaning over to pet Jack, who was jumping up on my leg. "I'm right," I said. "I have to go. I have to stick to the plan."

  "Why can't the plan just wait till after Christma
s?" he asked.

  I breathed a laugh and stared at him, knowing I could never tell him that I couldn’t stay because with every second I was here, it was getting harder and harder to leave. The more I knew of Jesse Ward, the more I loved him, and love was not the thing I needed in my life right now.

  "I really should be going," I said regretfully. "You have no idea how much I appreciate everything you've done, but I should go ahead and get on the road."

  "Tonight?" he asked.

  My eyes shifted around. "I thought I'd just get on the road straight from your friend's place. I was just gonna grab my stuff."

  "Okay," he said, nodding in this resolved way that said he wasn't going to beg me to do something I didn't want to do.

  Dang it, dang it, dang it! I wanted him to beg me to stay. I wanted him to get on his knee and propose and tell me I never had to sleep in my car, and I was now at my new home. Welcome to your new life Mae Abbott.

  A hopeless smile absentmindedly played on my face.

  "So that's that?" he asked, taking my distraction for nonchalance.

  I stepped forward, and leveled him with a sincere stare. "Today," I said. "When we were walking from the car to the mall, I was looking at your eyes. They're blue, and I always noticed that, but when we were standing there, I clearly saw this gold ring on the inside, like your eyes were glowing at me or something. I told myself I was seeing things, but then I saw it again on the way out of the mall and just now." I stared at him. "I figured out that it happens when there's bright light and your pupils get small. The gold's always there, but usually, you pupil's covering it."

  He stood there, trying to make sense of why I was telling that story. The bad thing was, I had painted myself into a corner. I wasn't going to say the real ending of that story, which was that I honestly wanted every day to be cloudy when he wasn't with me so that I was the only one who got to see the gold in his eyes. It was an odd thing for me to think, but it was even odder that I had started to tell him about it and obviously wasn't going to finish.

  "I'm just saying," I said. "It's cool that you have those gold things around there."

  "I've had a couple people tell me that," he said.

  His expression was neutral, and I wondered who the other people were. I was instantly convinced they were other girls who also wanted to be the only ones to ever get to see it.

  "I don't know why you can't stay through Christmas," he said.

  "You really have done more than you should have already," I said, in spite of how badly I wanted to stay. I told him I'd just be a minute grabbing my things, and we could go pick up my car.

  Jack and Donna both came with us to Chance's. It felt like utter torture leaving that place and knowing I wasn't coming back. I knew it was best that I leave now because if I stayed through Christmas my heartache would be unbearable.

  Jesse handed me an envelope with cash just before we made it to the mechanic's. Apparently, he thought it was better if Chance didn't know he was paying for my car. He probably thought I wanted it that way.

  Chance was a cool guy. He looked like something straight out of the seventies. He wasn't much older than Jesse, but he definitely had that retro vibe going with long hair parted down the middle and a sweatband around his forehead. I don't know what I expected when I met Chance the mechanic, but it was not that. He was a character if I had ever seen one.

  We talked to him for several minutes about Christmas and the fact that I was headed to Florida. Jesse and I were about to say goodbye to him when he asked us if we were going to the nativity scene later that evening.

  "Cause my little James is playing baby Jesus this year."

  "Is he really?" Jesse asked, seeming impressed.

  Chance nodded. "Alicia's got a friend who goes to that church. She asked if we'd want James to do it. He's not the only one. They have about five of 'em. They have them working shifts, and they switch the babies out depending on what mood they're in. I think they like 'em sleepin'. Alicia has to be there from six to seven tonight, so if you go during that time, you might see James out there."

  "That's cool," Jesse said. "That's a nice little debut role."

  Chance smiled proudly and winked at Jesse, and we thanked him and said goodbye before crossing the parking lot to stand next to my car. Jack and Donna stood there with us.

  "That's too bad you won't get to see little James play Jesus," Jesse said.

  I felt a crushing sensation in my chest, knowing that he was, yet again, giving me a way to stay. It was getting harder and harder to refuse him. It was almost impossible now. Fact, it was impossible. The next thing I knew, I was thinking about giving in.

  "I didn't know Chance's little boy was gonna be in a play," I said, shrugging like I hated to miss it.

  Jesse pulled back to look at me. "It'd really be a shame for you to spend Christmas on the road," he said.

  Chapter 13

  Chance drove away. There were two other guys still closing up the garage, and Jesse and I stood in the parking lot with the dogs. By the time we started talking about Chance's baby starring in the nativity play, the desire to stay was almost unbearable. I wanted to remain there so badly that I felt like my body might just involuntarily melt into the pavement.

  I could barely look at Jesse's face without remembering earlier that morning when he kissed me.

  "Just through Christmas," he said, flipping his keys into his hand.

  "Isn't it sort of weird," I said.

  He looked at me with a genuinely perplexed expression that made me smile.

  "Your niece, Lily," I said. "Won't she be there?"

  "At the nativity thing?" he asked, shrugging. "I don't know."

  "I mean at Christmas. I thought you were mentioning for me to hang out through Christmas, and I was just thinking that your niece would probably be there."

  "What's that even mean? Do you feel like you have to give her a present or something?"

  I smiled. "No, why, do I?"

  He shook his head, still looking confused.

  "She works here," I whispered with wide eyes, pointing at Chance's place.

  "So?" he asked, still not getting it.

  "So, she knows my car's fixed. She knows there's no reason for me to stay."

  "So?" he asked as if that weren't a problem at all, which it clearly was.

  "Jesse, there's no sense in me staying," I said, since we both knew goodbye was coming regardless.

  He held his hands out and regarded me with a that's a shame expression. "I think there's tons of sense in it," he said. "There's definitely sense in it. You don't need to be on the road on Christmas—especially not knowing where you're going. It's not gonna hurt you to stay a couple of days."

  "Oh, but it will, don't you think? In the long run?"

  "No, I don't. Otherwise I wouldn't keep putting myself out there like this even though you keep shutting me down."

  "I'm not shutting you down," I said. I stood there for several seconds having an epic internal battle. The bottom line was that he was inviting me to stay, and I really wanted to take him up on it. "It's just that staying through Christmas is three more nights," I said.

  "Yeah."

  "That's a long time."

  "Not really. And it's better than your other option."

  "December twenty-sixth," I said. "First thing in the morning."

  Jesse got so excited that he smacked his hands together and let out a loud sound of approval as he pounced toward the dogs, causing them to get startled and run around excitedly.

  "I knew you were gonna stay," he said, standing right beside me. Too close. So close I could feel the masculinity radiating off of him.

  "What are we gonna tell your family?"

  "Why are you worried about that?"

  "Because they're gonna ask why I'm not back on the road."

  "How do you know what they're gonna ask?" he asked.

  "Because it's an obvious question."

  "So, we'll tell them the truth," he said. "That
you're staying through Christmas."

  We had slowly made our way to my car and we stopped once I was standing next to it. "So, are you following me back home?" he asked.

  I stared at him, wondering how in heaven's name I ended up in this dream world—in this dream situation, with Jesse Ward asking if I was following him home.

  "I guess I am," I said, shrugging.

  I opened my car door, and Jack jumped in, followed by Donna. Donna was big, and my car was so packed that she was stuck in the driver's seat, turning around with no room to sit down. Jesse whistled, and Donna jumped out just as quickly as she had jumped in.

  Jack and I followed Jesse back to his place. He told me when we got there that, if I wanted, we would eat dinner at his mom's house later that evening. I said that sounded fine to me, but then I excused myself to go to the bedroom, telling him I wanted to go read for a little while. Really, I just wanted to give him his space so he didn't regret asking me to stay for three more days. It worked out, though. I read a few chapters of the book I had started the day before, and had a few minutes to decompress and get a reign on my emotions.

  I reminded myself constantly that this situation with Jesse was temporary. It was so comfortable in that cozy little nest in the Virginia woods that I found it easy to trick myself into believing I could make it last—that I could be the one to change him. Just on the heels of a thought like that, I'd remind myself again that the situation was temporary.

  I repeated that cycle of thoughts pretty much the whole time I was in the bedroom (at least during the times when I wasn't reading). By the end of my ponderings, I figured I would just stop overthinking it and settle in, enjoying the next few days for what they were.

  Jesse was in the kitchen when Jack and I came out of the bedroom. He leaned casually against the counter, watching me approach with a satisfied grin.

  "What?" I asked.

  "You're wearing your hair down," he said.

  I smiled and self-consciously twisted the end of it around my finger as if getting ready to pull it up again. I let it fall over one of my shoulders, running a hand through it like the nervous mess I was when I was around him. I walked into the kitchen, stopping when I was a few feet in front of Jesse.