12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart

by Anthology

  "Time for your snack. Would you like ice cream, an apple, or chips?" Mike hoped falling into the familiar repartee would be enough to get his son back on track.

  Quietly Brian continued to the kitchen, his gaze still cast downward.

  Before continuing with the cycle of asking three times, Mike leaned toward Liz and whispered, "Wait for me in the living room."

  Liz nodded and, passing behind him, made her way to the other room. Much to Mike's relief, the remainder of the snack-time routine fell into place. Once he'd placed the apple slices on the table, Brian seemed to have recovered from the small shift.

  Wiping his hands down the side of his slacks, Mike took a seat in the living room, drew in a fortifying breath, and hoped whatever Liz had to say wasn't going to turn their world upside down again. "What happened?"

  "There was a fight at school."

  "Fight?" Mike sprang to his feet. "Oh, my God."

  He turned to bolt back into the kitchen, not sure how he could have missed signs of a physical encounter, but Liz grabbed his wrist. "Not Brian."

  What did she mean? What was the point of disrupting everything to tell him someone else had a fight at school? "I don't understand."

  "It looks like your son has a new champion."

  Chapter 2

  The sky-blue halls of the Kona Middle School normally gave Annette a sense of calm, but this afternoon they did little to ease the anxiety building with every step. Just the other day she'd read an article on delayed delinquent behavior in young teens after the death of a parent. Was this about that?

  The short walk to the principal's office seemed interminable. The moment Annette turned the corner, her eyes fell on her son. Slumped in the last of a line of chairs along the office wall, Adam sat with his head tilted back, holding an ice pack to his face. The collar on his polo shirt hung awkwardly, and she could see dark smudges all over him from across the room. Not until she was directly in front of her son did she see the torn pants and the equally disheveled boy on the other side of him. "What happened?"

  "It was his fault." Adam pointed a thumb at the other kid.

  "Was not," an angry voice mumbled through a split lip.

  As much as she hated to admit relief, Annette was fairly confident the dark smudges on her son's shirt could be attributed to the other kid's bloody lip. "I didn't ask whose fault it was. What happened?"

  "Oh, good, you're here." Harriett came out from behind the front counter. "The principal is in his office. Do you want to take a minute for Adam to change his clothes?"

  Annette had brought a shirt and pants, as requested, but she much preferred finding out what had happened than she was concerned about Adam's appearance. "No, let's face the music."

  Harriett stepped to one side and waved Annette and Adam across the bullpen of office desks to the closed door of childhood dread. "Go right in. He's expecting you."

  Annette rapped lightly on the door and then turned the knob.

  "Come in." Ted Sparks was a jovial man with an easygoing grin. But not today. "Please take a seat."

  Nerves still on edge, Annette eased into one of the chairs in front of the massive oak desk. Adam slumped into the seat beside her.

  "We don't tolerate fighting." Fingers steepled in front of him, the principal shifted his gaze from Adam to her. "Normally turning to fisticuffs is an automatic suspension."

  "Normally?" she asked cautiously.

  "First offense is up to the principal's discretion." The man eyed Adam. "Do you have something to say in your defense?"

  "No, sir."

  "I see here"—the principal held up a single piece of paper—"that you're not in any classes with Eddie."

  Eddie. Annette quickly ran through overheard conversations but didn't recognize the name.

  "No, sir."

  The stern-looking man glanced at Annette over the sheet of paper in his hand before turning back to Adam. "Does this have anything to do with Brian Becker?"

  Adam's eyes widened just long enough for both Annette and the principal to realize he'd hit the nail on the head. But who was Brian Becker?

  Adam straightened in his seat. "Brian wasn't part of the fight."

  "I see." The usually cordial twinkle in Principal Ted's eyes gleamed once again, as he leaned back in his chair. "I think we can let this go with a warning. And perhaps an essay on problem resolution without the use of violence."

  Adam's mouth drew into a thin line, but he nodded anyhow. "Thank you, sir."

  On the way outside, Annette noticed the other boy, Eddie, had company. A big guy in jeans, a sweat-soaked work shirt, and what looked to be steel-tipped shoes sat scowling beside the kid. She had to wonder who would dole out the harsher punishment, the good-natured principal or the father who looked to be royally ticked off at missing work. She almost felt sorry for the kid.

  Seat belt snapped, turning out of the parking lot, Annette uttered the first words spoken since leaving the principal's office. "Why did you give Eddie a split lip?"

  Adam's mouth curled in a triumphant smile. "I did, didn't I?"

  Men. "Answer the question."

  Adam shifted in his seat, ran his hand along his jaw, and looked to the roof of the car as though expecting the answer to appear etched on the ceiling.

  "Does it hurt?" She would put more ice on his chin once they got home.

  "Nah." He dropped his hand to his side. "Eddie hits like a girl."

  A startled chuckle erupted, and Annette didn't even try to hold it back. For a second she thought she could hear her husband laughing beside her. "Spill. What happened?"

  "We've got a new kid in school."

  She nodded, waiting for more.

  "His name is Brian. He's smart in a weird sort of way."

  "Weird?"

  "Yeah. He remembers everything. I mean everything. In history class the teacher read a passage from one of the pages, then asked a question. Before anyone could raise their hand, Brian answered."

  "Just called out the answer?"

  Adam shook his head. "Mom, he recited back the entire page. It's almost scary. I don't have math with him, but I heard, when the class has to do calculations, he does them in his head. Fast. Really fast."

  A myriad of possibilities played in her thoughts. The old cliché, a fine line between genius and insanity. Though her maternal gut told her this was more complicated than a weird smart kid. "So why did you have a fight with this Eddie character?"

  "He's an obnoxious ass—"

  "Adam."

  "Well, he is. He thinks his shit doesn't stink."

  The desire to get to the bottom of the situation won out over the urge to reprove her son's colorful vocabulary. She bit her tongue and waited.

  "Him and all his friends are always picking on kids. They rule the lunchroom. The minute one of the volunteers isn't looking, Eddie's knocking over someone's tray or tripping a kid walking by."

  "Picks on those he's intimidated by."

  "No." Adam shook his head vehemently. "He picks mostly on the geeks."

  "The smart geeks. I'm guessing he's not the best student."

  Adam shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. But he and his friends keep taunting this kid."

  "How?"

  "Stupid stuff. Someone said the other day how Eddie told Brian to go kiss the elevator. And he did. And that he seemed happy, like he thought it would make him Eddie's friend."

  "You didn't see this?"

  Brian shook his head. "And yesterday it was cleaning spit, but today I was in the hall, when I heard Eddie and his friends tell Brian to kiss Katie Russo."

  Uh-oh. "Did he?"

  Adam nodded. "They told him that she really liked him. Wanted to be his girlfriend. She was nearby, and Eddie called her over. Everyone was hurrying to get to class before the bell rang, and I couldn't get across the hall fast enough to stop him."

  The way her son glanced up at her, anger slipping behind raw pain, it took all her restraint not to pull him into a hug and tell him … what? Tr
y not to let the assholes of the world get to you.

  "Brian kissed her. Hard. Almost knocked her into the locker. She smacked him across the face and stormed off. The guys just stood there laughing. By the time I got close, Brian had his hands on his ears and was staring at his shoes." He turned fully to face his mother. "I couldn't believe they'd do that to someone who obviously couldn't defend himself, so I told Eddie to keep his stupid jokes to himself."

  Annette could see the entire scene drawing out now. The same ageless scenario happened in schools everywhere since the dawn of time. "Who's going to make him?"

  Adam nodded. "I got in his face and said I would."

  "And he what? Shoved you? Hit you?"

  "Something like that." Adam leaned back in his seat, facing forward. "I had to do it, Mom. I had to."

  How could she tell her son that violence wasn't the answer when everything in her wanted to drive to this Eddie's house and knock some sense into his parents for raising a bully? "Your principal is right. Violence is never an answer." But neither was sitting back and doing nothing.

  * * *

  Right now Annette would give anything for the days when all it took to make her kids stop hurting was to kiss the boo-boo. Unsure of where to start, she picked up the phone and called the one person most likely to have the answers.

  A teacher at the local high school, Emily was another member of the Everrett clan. People Annette had come to count on since moving to Kona. "Hello?"

  "Hey, Em. It's Annette Deluca."

  "Gee, this is a nice surprise. What's up?"

  "Honestly I'm looking for some answers."

  "If I've got 'em, I'm willing to share."

  Annette could hear Emily's smile through the phone. "Adam ran into a little trouble at school today."

  "What kind of trouble?" A sharp edge instantly replaced her earlier easy tone.

  "He got into a fight with a school bully."

  "There is a lot of enlightenment on school bullying. I can recommend several sites for you to go to, if Adam is a target. They're—"

  "No. He's not the target."

  Emily didn't respond.

  "He was defending another kid."

  "Okay. That's a new excuse for fighting."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "I don't mean to make it sound like there are never any children who stand up for the bullied. I just don't hear about it very often."

  "Probably like the news. We hardly ever hear about the good deeds, but we hear all about the bad ones."

  "I suppose. What do you need from me?"

  "I want to help, but I don't know how. Adam says the boy is 'weird smart.'" Annette ran through the list of traits Adam had given her.

  "I'm not an expert on this, but my first thought is the kid's on the autism spectrum. Most likely high functioning or he wouldn't be mainstreamed. And obviously very smart academically, but I'm guessing he doesn't really know what to do with that page of information he recited."

  "I don't know."

  "Any chance you can talk to the parents? Find out more about what's going on?"

  "I thought about that, but I wanted to get some firsthand info."

  "All I know is structure is crucial for these kids. They are each so different. It's not a disease, like diabetes, with a list of specific symptoms. There are red flags, but nothing is set in stone. If you've met one autistic child, you've met one autistic child. Think of it as meeting a five-foot-tall brown-haired boy with brown eyes and an IQ of 160. Nothing else about him will be the same as the next five-foot-tall brown-haired boy with brown eyes and a 160 IQ. Nor the next. That's part of what makes this such a challenging disorder. There are no rules. No standards. No two children will ever be exactly alike. It's a spectrum. A scale. The variations are limitless."

  "What is the school doing for these kids?"

  "Again, every child is different. Some more sensitive than others. Literally. Depending on the situation a teacher or fellow student can be assigned to shadow the child. Follow them from a distance, make sure he doesn't get himself into difficulties he's incapable of escaping."

  "Like a bully."

  "Like a bully. Though you may want to thank your lucky stars if this boy is not on social media. Nowadays that's the larger threat. The name-calling and singling out of children in school carries over into social media at home. The victim has no escape. No safe haven. Parents don't often realize what is going on. Everyone grew up with expressions like 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.' But they do. And it's become even more vicious in recent years."

  "So what do I do?"

  "First you need to let the school know exactly what's been going on. Teachers can't help if they don't see the poor behavior and if the kids don't tell them. Then you should probably talk to the young boy's family. Find out if he is, indeed, autistic or if there's some other issue involved. After that, enlightening the parents of the bully would be a good idea. Sometimes these kids take after their parents. They're bullied or insecure at home. I hate to keep spitting clichés at you, but children learn what they see. On the other hand, I've known some of the nicest parents who did everything right and were completely aghast at what their son or daughter did to other children at school. Talking to the bullied boy's parents is the best way to move forward. At least then Adam and the school will know what they're up against." Emily paused. "And, off the record, Adam did good. I'm proud of him for standing up for what's right."

  "I am too." Annette wished Tom could be here to see his son, already behaving like a man. After a few polite words about the weather and the upcoming winter break and its holiday dinners at Emily's mom's, Annette hung up with a new mission. Find and speak to Brian's parents.

  Chapter 3

  A multitude of physicians and therapists through the years had told Michael and Karen that Brian's screen time needed to be held to a minimum if they wanted to improve his socialization skills. At an early age Brian could spend hours happily on a computer tablet, playing word and counting games far above his age level. When neighborhood children were babbling and interacting, but Brian remained focused in his own world, Karen knew something wasn't right.

  Today, however, seemed to call for a bending of the rules and letting Brian indulge in soothing his mind with a favorite computer game. Deep down, Mike still hoped one day Brian would use that computerlike brain for something amazing, like finding a cure for cancer or world famine, but Mike would gladly settle for his son having a happy life. Mike’s glance shifted to the photograph on his desk. When Karen had succumbed to a burst aneurysm, he'd clung to the good memories and pushed one foot in front of the other, expecting someday he wouldn't miss her so damn much. "You always made it look so easy."

  The sound of his cell chiming in his pocket had him setting down the beloved photo of Karen and Brian, and answering, "Becker."

  "Hello, Mr. Becker. My name is Annette Deluca."

  The name didn't ring any bells. Was she the homeroom monitor? Or whatever they called the mom who organized all the parents nowadays. "Hello."

  "Am I catching you at a bad time?"

  His gaze shot past his office door to the living room, where Brian smiled over his iPad. Was there ever a good time? "This is fine. How may I help you?"

  "My son, Adam, got into a fight at school today."

  Mike's spine stiffened. If this woman thought calling to apologize for her child's cruel behavior ...

  "Normally I don't approve of violence as a response to a negative situation, but, as much as I think that other boy deserved a good throttle, I'd like to avoid putting our boys through this again."

  Our boys? Karen's voice echoed in the back of his mind. "Look at our boy, Mike. He's so smart."

  "I'm sorry." Mike shook his head in an effort to clear his mind. If this wasn't the bully's mother, then she must be … "What exactly are we talking about?"

  "Oh, excuse me. I thought you knew. My son, Adam, got in a fight with a bully at school
for telling your son to kiss a girl."

  Kiss a girl? His neighbor had only relayed what little information her daughter had shared with her after school. All he really knew was that Brian had been picked on again, and a boy from another class came to his defense. A girl would certainly be an easy button to push for Brian. Mike had so hoped mainstreaming here in Hawaii would be different. "I was planning to call the school about this first thing in the morning."

  "I know it's short notice, but, if you have a few minutes, perhaps we could meet somewhere and discuss what happened."

  "That won't really be necessary. I'm sure the school—"

  "Mr. Becker, I'll be honest. This is the first difficult situation involving Adam that I've had to face on my own, and I would prefer to be better informed, before I decide how to deal with my son."

  And how could he say no to a request like that? Hadn't he wished a hundred times in the last three years that he could have someone to talk to about Brian? "I can't leave Brian alone. Would you be willing to come to our home?"

  "Of course."

  For the next hour Mike did his best to finish up the work in front of him. Despite his mind's eagerness to veer off path and consider Annette Deluca, her son, and this new mess, the demands of Mike’s job didn't allow him that luxury. By the time the doorbell rang, he'd pretty much given up on making any progress on either front.

  Taking two seconds to glance into Brian's room and make sure he was settled in for the night, Mike proceeded to the front entryway and resisted the urge to straighten his collar.

  At the other side of the door stood a dark-haired petite woman with big round eyes and a nervous smile. "Michael?"

  "Yes." He stepped aside and extended a hand toward the living room. "Please come in."

  "Thank you."

  Mike did his best not to watch the shift of her hips. Why was he even looking? He had no interest in women. Not anymore.

  * * *

  Annette did her best not to fidget. There was no reason for her to be so nervous, but for some reason, her stomach was doing somersaults and back-springs. Michael Becker stood across from her by the armchair, and she wondered how long before his wife joined them.