by Mariano, Sam
From the sidewalk, we can see the winter wonderland set up in the town square. Carolers are singing, there’s an ice skating rink in the center with a big Christmas tree behind it—likely inspired by Rockefeller Center, judging by the looks of it.
There are vendors set up, food trucks and concession stands, booths with carnival games, and Christmas lights twinkling all over the place. Noelle has a hard time tearing her gaze away, but I open the door for her and a bell jingles overhead, nabbing her attention.
“Oh, thank you,” she says absently before making her way inside.
The shop is quaint, a mix of new and used books in separate sections. Noelle stops to inspect the small tabletop tree decorated with miniature book cover ornaments.
Glancing at me over her shoulder, she says, “You need one of these.”
I shake my head. “I don’t do Christmas trees.”
“Scrooge. You have the perfect open space for one in the far corner of your living room, you should put one up there. Even if it’s just a small tabletop one like this. You could set presents around the table instead of under the tree.”
“I’m not getting any, remember?”
“You don’t deserve any, that’s for sure,” she mutters, moving past the Christmas tree and looking around for the lady she spoke to on the phone.
I wander around and look at books while Noelle handles the business side of things. I figure she’ll come find me if she needs help, but I’m sure she can handle it herself.
As I’m perusing the rare and unique books section, I stumble upon a nice red leather-bound edition of A Christmas Carol with gilded pages. It’s signed by the illustrator and underpriced at only $50. They could’ve priced it at double or triple that, if they really wanted to.
Given Noelle’s propensity for calling me Scrooge, I pluck it off the shelf and flip through to check out the illustrations. It’s in like-new condition, probably a collector item no one ever even cracked the spine on.
While I’m checking out the book, I overhear Noelle across the small shop saying, “Oh, excuse me.”
I glance back to see what she’s doing and see her fumbling awkwardly with her cell phone, looking around—for me?—in the wrong direction, then darting down an aisle as if she needs privacy to take her call.
I frown, closing the book and putting it back on the shelf, then I drift nearer to the aisle Noelle is in.
“Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m sorry I missed your texts, I promise I wasn’t blowing you off. I had an afterschool thing and I wasn’t paying attention to my phone.”
That’s a lie. She was on her phone in the car when she looked up the address for this shop and got distracted by Snowfest or whatever the hell it’s called.
“Yeah, we’re still on for tonight. We already dropped off the toy drive stuff at the fire station, we just had to make another stop and we’re there right now, so I should be on my way home within the next half hour. Um…” She pauses. “I’ll probably need like twenty minutes to get ready, so… pick me up at six?”
Pick her up at six?
“Okay, sounds great,” she enthuses. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it, too. I’ve been wanting to see this movie and I just haven’t had time. Did you see his last one? No, not that one. Oh, you liked that one?” She sounds at once surprised and disappointed. “Yeah, that one wasn’t for me, but I’m excited to—”
I stop being subtle and make my way into the aisle, flicking a glance at Noelle before returning my gaze to the rows of books.
I just wanted to see how she looked when she realized I was within hearing distance, and sure enough, she looks like a deer caught in headlights, her green eyes wide and startled. She completely stopped talking mid-sentence, but now that I’m in the aisle with her, she doesn’t even attempt to finish.
Turning away from me, she lowers her voice. “I have to go. I’ll text you when I’m home.”
Flicking a glance at her, I note her heated cheeks and murmur casually, “Mom?”
“No,” she says awkwardly, but doesn’t elaborate.
Interesting. Does Noelle have a date? It certainly sounded date-like.
I shouldn’t care; I gave her the freedom to go out with someone else when she offered herself to me last night and I gave her little but lies and cruelty, I guess I’m just surprised. She’s clearly not doing it out of spite, because I can see from the guilty look on her face she hadn’t wanted me to overhear that conversation. That means she’s actually trying this out for real.
I’m torn between wanting to know who the little asshole is and not caring. It doesn’t matter who it is; I don’t want Noelle going anywhere with him.
I tell myself it’s none of my business and I have to let it go. Noelle is too embarrassed to speak to me, so she flees the aisle in the other direction and goes back to the counter to talk to the lady who runs the book shop.
After a few minutes, they stop talking and Noelle—too tempted by being in a bookstore to resist looking around—begins wandering through the aisles.
Literally all I can think about is the date she’s planning to go on after I take her home. Try as I might, I can’t think of one of the spoiled brats I teach every day putting his hands on her without a spike of possessive rage obliterating half of my common sense.
I don’t want her to go on a date with anyone else.
I’ve made my way through the store aimlessly, looking at rows of books but seeing none. I find myself back in the rare and interesting section, so I pick up the Dickens book again.
I decide to buy it for Noelle, since I can’t very well give her the presents I bought for her at Daring Dolls after last night.
I make my way to the cash register to pay for her gift, then I spot the stack of books Noelle must have set aside to buy for her wishlist shoppers.
Nodding at the books, I ask the shopkeeper to be sure, “Are those hers?”
Since she saw us come in together—and since we’re the only two customers in the store—she knows who I’m talking about and nods her head.
“Put those on the bill as well,” I tell her. “I’m going to take them to the car while she finishes shopping.”
“Any gift wrapping?” she inquires.
I glance at the one I bought for Noelle. I don’t have wrapping supplies at home, so I probably should. “That one.”
She nods and adds a charge to my bill, then reads me the total. I start to slide my card, then change my mind and pay with cash since it’s a small business.
I follow the woman toward the back of the store and watch her carefully wrap A Christmas Carol, casting paranoid glances over my shoulder for Noelle. She doesn’t show up, though, so I make it out to the car with the wrapped gift for her and the stack of books she was going to pay for with her elf money.
I put the books in the trunk and close it quickly, not wanting the steadily falling snow to damage the books in the shopping bag. I look back at the shop, not even wanting to go back in. I can’t get Noelle’s phone conversation out of my head, can’t stop thinking about her telling the prick on the other end to pick her up at six.
An underhanded idea pops into my head, illustrating exactly why I’m on Noelle’s naughty list.
She can’t go on the date if I don’t get her home in time.
Of course, she probably knows I overheard some part of her conversation since I made my presence known, so I can’t just all of a sudden drag my feet and come up with excuses to make her late. She’ll see right through me.
No, it needs to be taken out of my hands.
Committing to the idea as it occurs to me, I walk to the passenger side of my car and pop open the glove compartment. I keep a good quality pocket knife in there in case of emergencies.
I draw it out and glance at the back door of the store to make sure Noelle hasn’t noticed me missing and wandered out to find me. Seeing she hasn’t, I walk back to the rear of the car on her side and squat down. I open the knife, locking the blade so I don’t cut my damn
hand off, then I stab the tire.
Air begins hissing out of it immediately. I consider stabbing it a second time just to make sure it’s good and flat by the time we come back out, but on second thought, I recall Noelle telling me how hard it is to drag her out of a bookstore. I imagine we’ll be here a while, so it’ll be flat by the time we come back out.
I fold the knife up and store it back in the glove compartment, then, feeling much better about life, I head back inside the bookstore.
Chapter Twelve
Noelle
After touching every single spine in the store, I’m finally ready to leave with only three books clutched against my chest.
Cal has been a trouper. I’ve gone to bookstores with guys before and none have ever been as patient as he is. He picked out a book for himself and stopped shopping a while ago, but he proceeded to follow me around without complaint as I checked out every aisle.
When I told him I should take up Egyptology in the historical section, he nodded as if he approved of the idea. When I made it to the Tudor section and remembered I wanted to circle back to fiction and see if they had The Other Boleyn Girl, he dutifully followed.
As we finally walk toward the register, I tell Cal, “I’ve been wanting to read this for a while, but it’s one of those books I always forget to look for when I’m actually in the bookstore.”
The saleslady smiles as we approach. “Find some things to read?”
“Yes, lot of things, but we’re going to go with these for now,” I say, setting my books on the counter. “This is such a great shop, I’m definitely going to come back here.”
It’s then that I notice my previous pile of books has vanished. “Where are my books?” I ask the saleslady.
Cal puts his book down on the counter with mine, then draws out his wallet. “Already paid for and packed away in the car.”
I glance up at him. “You don’t have to buy my books.”
“I really don’t mind,” he assures me. “All for a good cause,” he adds.
Mr. Scrooge has surprised me. “Thanks,” I say with a warm smile.
While the saleslady rings up our purchases and Cal pays, I pull my phone out of my purse to check the time. Oh, wow, it’s already past five. We spent a little longer in the store than I intended.
Cal reaches across the counter and grabs our shopping bag, then I thank the woman one more time for her help and we make our way back to the car.
I’m running a little behind schedule now, so I start calculating in my head. The snow is still falling—hasn’t stopped—so the roads are all dusted, with more falling all the time. That might mean Cal will have to drive home a little slower. I should still have about 10 minutes from the time he drops me off until Percy is supposed to pick me up, but just in case he comes early, I might tell him I’m running late. The last thing I need is him showing up at my house while Cal is still there—for all of the reasons.
I get a whiff of Cal’s incredible scent as he approaches, though I’m not sure why he is. I take an uncertain step back and look up at him, but he’s only opening the back door to put our bag of books in the seat behind me.
I slide into the passenger seat just to get away from him and close the door. Cal walks around to the driver’s side and gets in. He starts the car and I brace myself for him to put his hand on the back of my seat to look back while he reverses again, but we don’t make it that far. He’s scowling at some message that’s popped up to alert him that there’s a problem.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Says I need to check the rear tire pressure. Hang tight, I’ll go check it out.”
I wait in the warm car while he goes to check the tire pressure. Rather than walk back around to the driver’s side once he’s finished, he stops outside my door. His mouth is set in a grim line, so I open it to see what he needs.
“I have a flat,” he announces.
“Oh, no! Do you have a spare in the trunk?”
“As luck would have it, no. I just put on winter tires and took the old spare out. Meant to buy a new one, but… well, that won’t help us now. I’m going to run back inside and see if the shopkeeper knows of any auto repair places nearby that might be able to help.”
“All right. Do you want me to come?”
He shakes his head, assures me he has it under control, and heads back inside the bookstore.
While Cal does that, I check my phone for text messages. There’s one from my mom, wanting to know if I’ll have time to eat dinner at home before my date picks me up so she can tell Adeline.
It’s not a date, I want to write back, even though I guess it is. I have a lot of doubts about going out with Percy, but I’m trying to be open-minded. I don’t think he’s my type, but maybe I’m misjudging him and he’ll surprise me.
In any case, if Cal’s dating already, there’s no reason for me to sit at home by myself and pine over him. Maybe I’ll have fun with Percy and maybe I won’t, but I owe it to myself to give it a shot.
Cal comes back, but he’s talking on his cell phone. After he hangs up, he tells me a tow truck is on its way, but the shop is only open until seven and apparently they’re booked solid. They said they could squeeze him in at the end of the day for just a single tire change, but that definitely means we won’t be going home anytime soon.
Since I know he didn’t even want to come here with me to begin with, I expect him to look a little more annoyed, but he seems surprisingly upbeat. He looks adorable, too, standing there with snow falling on him, clinging to the coarse fabric covering his broad shoulders and catching in his thick, dark hair.
He always looks incredibly handsome, whether he’s brooding or in a rare good mood, but there’s an added something about him right now. Some sparkle of mischief in his eyes that makes me feel like he didn’t just take a sledgehammer to my heart yesterday—or if he did, it’s old news.
I know that’s not the case. Part of the reason he’s in a better mood today could even be because of his stupid date with Mystery Girl. I’ve been dying to ask about it, but I can’t. There’s no way I can possibly approach that without it being weird.
Pulling me from my thoughts, Cal looks around at the falling snow and says, “Since we’re stuck here anyway, we might as well walk across the street and check out that festival you were so excited about.”
So, after the tow truck comes and hauls his car to the auto shop, we do.
It’s nice, doing something Christmassy with Mr. Scrooge. He’s more like post-ghost Ebenezer than grouchy Scrooge today, and it’s a nice change of pace.
I’m more comfortable to be here with him out in the open, too, since we’re a couple towns from home. Plenty of people pass us as we make our way to Winterfest together, but they’re strangers so it doesn’t matter if we’re seen.
Cal is taller than I am with longer legs and a broader stride, so he gets ahead of me as I dawdle, looking around at all the holiday decorations. When he realizes it, he stops and waits for me to catch up. Then, almost without thought it seems, he reaches down and places a hand at the small of my back, bringing me with him as he begins to walk again.
“You want some hot chocolate?” he asks, since we’re approaching a pop-up coffee booth advertising the warm drink.
“Yes, please,” I say, reaching into the pocket of my coat and drawing out my cashmere gloves. I didn’t need them just to walk to and from the book shop, but if we’re going to walk around outside, I need to put them on.
Cal releases me and steps forward, ordering a coffee for himself and a hot chocolate for me.
Armed with our steaming hot drinks, wandering around the festival is more enjoyable. There are tables set up, a little Christmas marketplace. There are lots of different things—tables with crafts for sale, small toys, homemade bead jewelry. It’s mostly cheap stuff, but my eye catches on something glittery—Christmassy headbands.
My hair is down today, and every time a gust of wind hits, it blows in my face, so I could really u
se one. I pick out a red headband with glittery green holly leaves and grin at Cal as I put it on.
“How do I look?”
“Festive,” he says dryly, as he draws out his wallet again.
We make our way over to the lively ice rink to watch people skate. Despite the weather, a lot of people are out on the ice. A little boy calls out for his parents to watch how well he’s doing—right before falling on his little butt and skidding across the frosty surface. I laugh a little and my gaze shifts to a couple, holding hands as they wobble across the ice. Neither appears to be very good at it, but they’re both smiling, clearly having a great time.
“Do you know how to ice skate?” I ask, looking over at Cal.
He glances away from the ice to look at me and shakes his head. “I’ve never tried. I had a pair of roller blades when I was around 10, probably more or less the same.”
“I bet I’m better than you,” I say mischievously.
Cal cocks an eyebrow. “You think you are better than me? Have you ice skated before?”
“Nope. Betting on blind faith. Only one way to show me up,” I tease, cocking an eyebrow.
Cal rolls his eyes at my transparent attempt to goad him into ice skating with me, but he doesn’t tell me it’s a hard no, like I expect. “What size skates do you need?”
I have no idea, but I can’t believe he agreed, so I haul him over to the skate rental booth before he can change his mind.
There are a lot of people already in line, but it gives us a chance to finish our warm drinks before we have to put on skates.
Cal rents us each a pair and we put them on while a volunteer explains the basics. It’s little help when I take the first step onto the ice and wobble all over the place.
“Oh God, I’m gonna fall.”
I don’t, though. Call is right beside me, steady on his feet. When I flail, he grabs my arm to keep me stable. Not even bothering to hide his smugness as he drifts around to stand in front of me, he asks, “Now, what was that about you being better than me?”
