“I want to,” Elda said. “You’re so great to help me with Danny and the gingerbread contest. Give me a chance to do the same for you. Grandma would’ve wanted us both to be happy.”
Dinesh wasn’t going to make Holly happy. “I’m honestly fine.” A wave of sadness hit her, which was nothing new. All her emotions were so near the surface here in North Pole, especially since they were staying in Grandma’s house and going through Grandma’s things. And every day, the house got a little emptier, a little less Grandma-like. She would’ve wanted both girls to be happy, but that didn’t seem possible, given the current situation.
The side door of the garage opened, and in came Danny, the very reason for Holly’s emotional confusion.
Carrying a Christmas gift bag over his shoulder, he maneuvered his crutches past their gingerbread paraphernalia on the floor and took a seat in an empty lawn chair. Elda jumped up and got him another chair for his leg.
“Thanks.” He grinned at her as he hoisted his leg up. “What are you up to?”
“Practicing.” Elda stood next to Holly at the table and grabbed a bowl of icing. “Now put that wall here, Holly.” She took Holly’s hand and moved it exactly where she wanted it to go. “I’m teaching Holly how to make a gingerbread house.”
“I was just the water girl back when we used to enter the competition with our grandma,” Holly said, shifting her hands slightly to make sure the walls were at a perfect ninety-degree angle. “I used to be the gopher. I didn’t do any of the gingerbread work.”
Danny’s eyes met Holly’s, but she pulled hers away fast. If she allowed herself to linger on him for any meaningful length of time, he’d see right through her.
“You two are never going to catch me in the second round,” he said.
Holly was trying so hard to keep her cool, to show him that she’d barely noticed his existence, but he looked so cute sitting on that chair, and he kept smiling at her like she was a real person or something. Maybe he was just trying to throw them off their game by being so charming. He had to know he was a beautiful human specimen who made otherwise smart and clearheaded girls lose their cool. That couldn’t be a mystery to him.
Holly doubled down on her glare, just to throw him off the scent.
“Where’s your showstopper?” he asked.
“Like we’d keep it out here for you to spy on.” Holly fought hard against a smile and lost.
Danny beamed at her like her smile was the one gift on his Christmas list this year. God, this guy was good at making a person feel like the only girl in the room. “Good point.”
Elda nodded toward Danny’s chair. “I’m working on some sketches now. My book’s right under you.”
“Elda,” Holly warned.
“Holly, it’s fine. Danny already knows what he’s doing for his showstopper.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I do.”
Holly was usually very shy about showing her work to people, especially in rough draft form. Whenever their school had an art show, Holly’d make sure to grab an inconspicuous spot in a dark corner near the fire extinguisher. But showing her work to Danny was different. She wanted him to see it. He’d understand what she was going for. He’d be impressed. She needed him to see it.
“Okay, fine. Whatever.” She shrugged, hands still on the gingerbread walls.
Danny reached under the chair and picked the sketch pad up. “You sure this is okay?” he asked, slowly opening the front cover.
“Totally fine,” Elda said. “We trust you.”
Holly’s heart sped up as he opened the cover. She couldn’t look. This was a huge mistake. He was going to think she was a fraud, a no-talent poseur.
“These are good. Really good.”
Holly peeked over at him. He was still flipping through the book. When he finished, he looked up, eyes squarely on Elda. “I’m super impressed. And these are totally you. I mean, I see your eye for detail and the love for your grandma, the way you’ve stayed so faithful to the details on her actual house.”
Tears stung Holly’s eyes. She’d been so worried about him thinking she sucked, that she’d completely forgotten that he was going to think those drawings were Elda’s, not hers. To Danny, Elda was the talented one. Holly jumped up from her seat and held up her hands, shielding her face. “Be right back,” she said. “Need to wash these.”
She ran into the kitchen, where her parents and aunts and uncles were sitting at the table with their real estate agent, talking about selling the house.
“Hey, honey.” Her dad motioned her over, but Holly stayed where she was, right near the door, still shielding her eyes. “There are a few interested buyers. We should be able to unload this place in no time.”
“Great.” Holly waved and ran to the bathroom on the second floor.
Danny and Elda were doing great. Grandma’s house was about to be sold. It was too much. Holly would never be able to keep smiling for the next week and a half, not with her dad talking about passing off his childhood home to some strangers like it was an old sweater he no longer had use for, and not with having to watch Elda and Danny being all cute together, bonding over Holly’s words, memories, and sketches.
She did this to herself, really. She knew that. Lots of people faced rejection, got up, and tried again. Holly was the one who’d decided to avoid hurt and embarrassment at all costs. It had kept her mostly happy. It meant no sweeping romantic love, sure, but it also meant no heartbreak. That wasn’t nothing.
Holly had to endure this for another ten days. She’d be fine. She’d be great.
But when she went back to the garage, Holly found Elda kneeling next to Danny’s chair, gazing into his eyes. “So, I got tickets for Tuesday afternoon,” he was saying.
“Tickets?” Holly choked out. She had to make her presence known. She was not going to be a spectator for Elda and Danny’s first kiss.
Danny craned his neck to see Holly at the door. His cheeks were flushed.
“Tickets?” Holly said again.
“Um…” His eyes were back on Elda. “I just asked Elda to go with me on an architectural tour of North Pole.”
“He found this old book of Grandma’s.” Elda passed it to Holly but held on to the book for a second longer than she needed to, like she was trying to get Holly to look at her. Holly refused.
The cover of the book took Holly right back to when she was six and sitting in her grandma’s den. This was an old book of all the skyscrapers in the Midwest, up to, like, 1989. It had been one of Holly’s favorite books on Grandma’s shelves. All the dog-eared pages, those were Holly’s from when she was a kid. She’d wondered what had happened to it.
She looked up. “Wow.” It came out like a whisper.
Danny pointed toward the book. “Your grandma passed that on to me, since she knew I was interested in architecture. She’d said her granddaughter, the one who did the gingerbread contest every year, loved architecture, too. That’s why I gave it to Elda.”
Elda would not stop staring at Holly, so she finally gave in and looked at her cousin. Elda’s face was questioning, unsure. She wanted to make sure this was okay with Holly. Well, of course it was. Holly straightened her shoulders. “That’s awesome. You two will have a great time together.”
“Yeah?” Elda said.
Danny was wearing a nervous, excited smile, as if he’d won the lottery. Danny would ever look at Holly like that. Guys didn’t get nervous around Holly.
Danny liked Elda and Elda liked him. The two of them were nice and smart and beautiful. They deserved each other. They’d be great together. “I think that’s totally fantastic.”
The conversation lulled. Holly folded her arms and nodded toward the door. “So…”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny said, grabbing his crutches. “I’ll get going.”
“You don’t have to,” Elda said.
“Sure he does.” Holly went over to the candy table and surveyed what was left—Bottle Caps and Runts and orange slices and jelly b
eans. She listened as the sound of Danny’s crutches faded into the distance. Holly had a showstopper to build—for the win, for her grandmother, for herself and her pride. She was letting Elda have the guy, but she didn’t need to give her everything.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday, December 20
Danny took a few deep breaths as he organized the gingerbread house materials on the table in front of him. The second round of the competition was due to start at Mags’s Diner any minute. The place was currently closed for business, open only to those who wanted to watch people build gingerbread houses for one hundred and twenty minutes. Tables had been spread around the room with space for two teams at each one.
Holly was across from him, sharing his table. Just Holly. Elda hadn’t been able to make it. Her family needed her help with some plumbing emergency in her grandma’s house.
“Good luck today,” he said. Holly, too, surveyed the materials in front of her. Their task for the second round was to build a traditional, four-walled gingerbread house. It seemed simple, but sometimes the simplest things were the easiest to screw up, and Holly was no gingerbread expert. “If you need any help—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “I built, like, four of these in the garage last night.”
“Okay, but still. Those kits weren’t all that great—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, never even looking at him once.
Danny felt like he’d been slapped. He thought he’d made some headway with Holly the past few days. She’d started looking at him less like an annoying bug she wanted to kill and more like a helpful bug she’d let live in her garden. But now he was getting the murderous vibes again, which seemed to have resumed right after he’d asked Elda out. He hadn’t meant to cause any drama. Plus, he’d assumed Holly was okay with her cousin dating him. She’d put Elda’s number in his phone after all.
His upcoming date with Elda was giving him hives. He grabbed his pencil from behind his ear and scratched as deep into his cast as he could. They were so good together on the phone, but in person deafening silence took over. When Holly left the two of them alone in the garage yesterday, they literally sat in silence until Danny finally handed Elda the architecture book. And it wasn’t charged, sexual tension-filled silence. It was just silence.
“Shoot!” Danny nearly fell off his chair. His cast had just devoured another pencil tip. He probably had five of them in there now.
“You okay?” Holly’s glasses had slipped to the tip of her nose, and she glowered over them like a stern schoolteacher. The way her brow dipped down to a vee between her thick, perfectly arched eyebrows was a thing of beauty, which was a dumb thing for him to think, because this girl obviously thought he was annoying. Why couldn’t his brain transmit that information to the rest of his body?
“Fine.” He held up his pointless pencil. “Broke another one.”
Holly plucked a pen from her purse and handed it to him. “Merry Christmas.” The hint of a smile on her face faded almost immediately, but Danny had caught it.
Grinning, he looked at the pen she’d given him. It was from Purdue University. “Is this where you’re going—?”
He was cut off as the mayor tapped on his microphone to announce the start of the second round. After Mayor Sandoval finished his spiel, he pressed play on his favorite Christmas mix, which was just hour upon hour of Mannheim Steamroller working itself into a frenzy. As if Holly’s presence hadn’t caused Danny enough disturbance, the music put him on edge almost immediately. He glanced at Holly. She had pushed up the sleeves on her sweater and flipped her glasses on top of her head to appraise each piece of gingerbread, checking sizes and angles.
“Maybe you’re better at this than you let on,” Danny said. People always talked to their tablemates during this round of the competition. They had two hours. What were they going to do? Stand there listening to Mannheim Steamroller eviscerate “Carol of the Bells” for one hundred and twenty minutes?
“Building gingerbread houses?” Holly ran a finger across the edges of one gingerbread rectangle. “Not really, no. Like I said, I practiced a bunch last night.”
Danny examined his own gingerbread. Usually focus wasn’t an issue for him, but today he struggled. He drew in a deep breath and counted to three, running through all the steps in his gingerbread house building plans—erect the walls, let them dry, pipe the windows and doors—
“And I…I’m a sculptor,” Holly said, after a moment.
Okay, so, maybe they weren’t going to sit here in silence for two hours. Danny didn’t know how to respond to this tiny fissure in her aloof facade. It was the first concrete bit of information she’d told him about herself. And it was impressive, the fact that she was a sculptor. It was something different, unique. “Are you going to study art in college?” He waved the Purdue pen at her.
She shook her head, glancing up. Since her glasses were out of the picture, Danny could see that her eyes were brown, like Elda’s, but with flecks of green and yellow that added depth. She’d painted her eyelids a bright orchid, which contrasted all the colors in her irises. “No,” she said. “I’m too practical for that. And I want to make money. Sorry. I know that’s not the sexy answer.” She grinned at him, for real, like she didn’t totally despise him.
“So what’s the practical thing you’re going to study?”
“Ar—” She clamped her mouth shut, and something resembling panic filled her eyes. But she recovered quickly, erasing all memory of that smile from her face. “Management,” she said.
Danny pointed to his own cheek. A spot of icing had landed right by Holly’s nose. She wiped at it but missed.
“May I?” Danny asked. The day the Page girls first came in to Santabucks, Elda’d had a spot of chocolate on her face, and it hadn’t occurred to him to tell her to wipe it off, let alone offer to remove it for her. But all he wanted right now was any flimsy excuse to touch Holly.
Her brow furrowed, she nodded. She leaned down, and he flicked away the icing. Her skin was soft and smooth, and his fingers were only about a centimeter from her lip. She was so close now, he could smell her. Holly. Warm sugar and vanilla. He wanted every room, every car, every piece of clothing in his life to smell like that.
Danny pulled his hand away and leaned back. She took the hint and stood, retreating to her station. Danny was probably just hard up, desperate for any physical contact now that he was single. He smiled, trying his best to act like her being so close to him had meant nothing. He ran his hands over a piece of gingerbread, trying to kill the sensations left behind by Holly’s skin, trying to smell anything other than the trail her scent had left behind. He put a gingerbread wall to his nose and inhaled. “I’m thinking about studying architecture,” he said. “Or engineering.”
She nodded, but her attention was back on her gingerbread house.
“It’s kind of a recent decision, actually. Ever since my leg thing, I’ve had to start figuring out what I really want to do with my life. This seems like a good pick. I mean, I used to think about engineering, when I was a kid. I loved to build stuff.” He swiped a glob of icing onto his cardboard like it was punctuation, like that was the end of their banter. She didn’t want to talk, and that was fine. He’d let her off the hook.
But after a moment, Holly asked, “You don’t build stuff anymore?”
He shook his head. “Not for a long time. Not since…” He trailed off. The truth was, he hadn’t done that stuff since he started focusing on basketball, since he got popular, since Star. Now he no longer had any of those things, really. Maybe he was still popular, but not in the same way. “Basketball took priority,” he said. “And my social life.”
She snickered. “Never a problem for me.” She focused hard as she steadied her third wall. “What was your plan, though? You were going to go to college and play basketball and then…”
Danny’s hands shook as he held his walls up. The icing wasn’t hardening fast enough for him.
“I hadn’t thought past college. I never had time to think. I only had time for basketball.” And hanging out. And Star.
Holly was doing the same thing he was, trying to physically hold together her house as it dried, but her hands looked a lot steadier than his did. She wasn’t off-balance around him, like he was around her.
“But, like, were you going to try to play professionally, or coach, or what?”
She was still watching him, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. It sounded so stupid when she said it out loud. He’d had no plans. He was going to play basketball for as long as he could, whatever that meant. He’d never in a million years suspected the end could come when he was only eighteen.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” Holly’s voice was soft. There was no hint of sarcasm, no question as to whether or not she meant what she was saying. “I’m honestly curious. My dad has always been big on the ‘back-up plan,’ and honestly I agree with him. Like, I can keep sculpting and whatnot on the side, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn something more practical. And after all of Elda’s stuff—” She clamped her mouth shut.
“What Elda stuff?”
Holly shook her head. “Nothing. Just, she got me thinking about the whole college thing and why am I going and what do I want from it. You know? I feel like we’re baby birds being pushed out of the nest, and I’m trying to figure out what to do when I hit the ground.” She stepped back to admire her work so far. It looked good. Very good. So good Danny needed to shut up and focus or he’d lose this round for sure.
Holly assessed the edges of her next wall. “Is it because of Elda you’re thinking about engineering again?”
Why’d she have to keep bringing up Elda? “Yeah,” he said.
A faint smile appeared on Holly’s lips. “You guys are perfect for each other.”
For some reason, his shoulders drooped like a leaky balloon. “We are,” he said. “Of course we are.”
Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota) Page 9
