by Aston, Jana
"Who's a jackal?" Noel questions. "Keller James?"
Now is probably not the time to bring it up but I've always liked his show Brunch, Biscuits & Tea. Also, we got to meet him during the taping of the first three episodes of The Great Gingerbread Bake-Off and he seemed like a nice guy.
"Yes. Him! Urgh!"
"Who says ‘jackal’ as a swear word?" Noel asks, as she takes her plate to the dishwasher before joining me at the kitchen table.
"It's a nicer way of saying ‘jackass,’" Ginger explains, but I think it's an unnecessary explanation because Noel rolls her eyes at me while muttering, "Go on with your bad self, G." Then Ginger turns her attention to me as she pulls out a chair and sits across from me. "What on earth are you doing?"
I've got an assortment of cardboard pieces, tape, glue, markers, pictures cut from magazines along with a pile of individually wrapped chocolates spread across the table. "Remaking my Advent calendar because Nick is stealing an entire week of Christmas from me."
"You get that Christmas is just the one day, right?" Noel asks.
"I'm gonna tell Mom you said that. Someone's getting coal in her stocking this year," I tease while tossing an empty candy wrapper at her head.
"Anyway," Noel says slowly, staring at my calendar as if I'm unhinged. "Are you coming down with the flu? Running a fever?" Noel is the oldest. She's not real impressed with baking or homemade craft projects.
"I wish, then I wouldn't have to go on this trip with Nick," I grumble as Noel continues to stare at the mess on the table while Ginger has a conversation with herself about the temperature of butter. "It's a custom Advent calendar," I explain. "For every day in December that I have to see Nick I get a treat."
"Uh-huh," Noel murmurs, her face unimpressed.
"As you can see"—I gesture toward my hodgepodge of a calendar—"doors nine through thirteen don't exist because I was supposed to have a glorious Nick-free week, but now that I'm stuck going to Germany with him I've got to add those dates back to the calendar." This Nick reward system is really nice. I'd consider expanding it to the rest of the year but I don't think eating a chocolate for every day he annoys me would be good for my waistline.
"I think you should just sleep with him and get it over with," Ginger announces from her place at the kitchen counter. I turn red and Noel smirks.
"You're my new favorite sister," Noel tells Ginger, grinning from ear to ear.
"Hey!" I hate it when they gang up on me, which they always do. I'm the middle sister, it comes with the territory.
"Let's fill doors nine through thirteen with condoms," Noel suggests.
"Yeah! Get a room with your hot boss already." Ginger giggles while attacking a slab of gingerbread with a rolling pin.
"It's not like that!" I protest. "It's strictly professional. I don't like him. He doesn't like me. There's no liking!"
"It's sooooo like that." This from Noel.
"Well, what about Ginger and Keller James? They need to get a room too. Everyone knows it."
"Hey! This isn't about me! We're making fun of you right now," Ginger says.
"I don't even know how the two of you made it through the first three gingerbread eliminations. You were both so busy eye-fucking each other I'm surprised either one of you managed to crack an egg into a bowl without missing."
"God, I can't wait to see how they edit that," Noel agrees.
"Oh, my word." Ginger drops the rolling pin, alarm covering her face along with a smudge of flour across the bridge of her nose. "Really?"
"Were you at the taping when they both reached for the same bottle of vanilla and he nearly kissed her?” Noel asks me, ignoring Ginger. "Hot." She waves a hand over her face in the universal cooldown gesture.
"That-t-t," Ginger stutters, "that never happened. He never almost kissed me."
"Says you," Noel and I reply in unison. Then we high-five each other in a childish display of sisterhood.
"I, um…" Ginger twists her hands in despair, her face flushed before she disappears into her bedroom.
"Bring me some condoms when you're done hiding," Noel calls out. "For Holly's Countdown-to-Dickmas Calendar."
"It's not…" I protest meekly. "I can't believe Santa brings you anything with that mouth.”
Ginger returns, her face wiped clean of baking mishaps and her auburn ponytail tightened. Along with the name Ginger and the love of baking gingerbread, she was blessed with ginger-colored highlights woven through her dark hair. She slaps a condom on the kitchen table. "For Holly's calendar. Let's focus on that."
Noel grins and grabs a marker. Then she writes Dickmas on a cardboard door and shoves the condom behind it.
I sigh and pick up my scissors. That was supposed to be the door for December eleventh. Now I've got to find a space to add yet another door to my calendar… which is very much starting to look like a defective prototype.
"Yes, let's focus on Holly's calendar," Noel agrees. turning her attention back to me and my craft project. "Don't you think an Advent calendar for the countdown to banging your boss is kind of sacrilegious?"
Mom always told me being the middle sister was good for building my character. It was also good for developing a death glare. I level one on Noel now. She simply grins in response, not the least bothered by bothering me.
"It's not a countdown to banging," I explain. "It's a reward calendar. For doing my job well despite the hardship of dealing with Nick."
"I bet it's hard all right," Noel agrees drily. I give her another death glare.
"I saw how he looked at you when we bumped into him at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago," Ginger comments while moving yet another tray of cookies to a cooling rack. "I think the two of you would be cute together."
"Who, Nick?" I ask as if I've no memory of the event. Of course I remember. It was the final catalyst to the creation of the Countdown-to-Dickmas Calendar. I mean the reward calendar. "At me?"
"Yes, Nick. At you."
"You're referring to how he stopped us in the grocery store to ask me about the Friendly Llama campaign? On a Saturday? While I was wearing sweatpants and no makeup?" And flat-heeled boots. He towered over me when he strolled toward Ginger and I in the baking ingredient aisle. I was in the midst of adding two five-pound bags of sugar to Ginger's cart when I turned around, bags in hand, to see Nick. He'd clearly just come from the gym, a damp green t-shirt clinging to his chest beneath an open winter coat, his hair messy, exactly the way I'd imagined it might look if I ran my hands through it.
Which I'd only ever do if I was trying to drown him or shove his face into a cake, obviously. There’s no other reason for my hands to be in Nick's perfect head of hair.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm referring to. When he asked you how you were spending the weekend and you responded by saying something like, ‘Nice shirt. Very Grinchy.’"
"It was green! Like the Grinch!" I protest. Fine, maybe it wasn't my finest moment.
"He makes you nervous."
"No, he doesn't."
"Because you like him," Ginger continues as if my denial means nothing.
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. And I don't know why that scares you so much. He's not Billy. Nick is here to stay."
Billy's my ex. We met at Michigan State; after graduation he came back with me to Reindeer Falls. He made it a little over a year before he decided he wasn't Reindeer Falls material. Or Holly Winters material.
"It's beginning to look a lot like Dickmas," Noel sings under her breath, but at a volume I'm meant to hear.
"The two of you have no idea what you're talking about," I grumble as I attack the image of a Christmas wreath cut from a magazine with a glue stick. "No idea. There will be no Dickmas with Nick, I assure you."
"You should mass-produce these." This from Noel. "I bet there's a huge market for Countdown-to-Dickmas calendars."
"They'd make amazing presents for my friends!" Ginger agrees with more enthusiasm than is necessary. She's going to suppo
rt Noel in teasing me like it's her job as youngest sister.
"There's no countdown to Dickmas! That is not a thing. Nobody wants that to be a thing. And the last person in the world that would be a thing with is Nick Saint-Croix."
"Holly," Ginger chastises. "Where is your seasonal spirit? Is there no room at the Vagina Inn for Nick?"
"Oh, my God, you did not just say that." I shove chocolates behind the new doors and start to gather my things.
"I did!" Ginger laughs. "I'm pretty proud of myself too. That was a good one." She plops into a chair at the table, folding one leg up and resting her head on her knee while she watches me pack up.
"You're both the worst but I love you anyway. I've got to get home and pack. For my business trip," I add pointedly before either one of them can add a lewd comment about wrapping Nick's package or something equally ridiculous. "Try to behave yourselves while I'm gone."
"Have fun!"
"I won't."
Chapter 5
Nick picked me up so we could carpool to the airport. To be fair, it's a ninety-minute drive to Detroit Metro. To be unfair, it's another ninety minutes I have to spend with Nick.
And unlike my sisters, I'm not delusional enough to think we're carpooling because he secretly harbors a desire to spend time with me.
"Don't even think about missing the flight, Miss Winter," is how he wooed me into this carpool on his way out of the office on Friday. Then he stopped, four feet from my desk, and doubled back. "On second thought, I think it would be best we ride together. I'll pick you up on my way to the airport."
Then he grinned, told me to have a nice weekend and strolled out of the office before I could protest or ask if he had my address.
He picked me up ten minutes ago.
It’s already the longest ten minutes of my life. And we still have ninety long miles to go.
The conversation thus far has been lacking—as in Nick seems content to enjoy the deafening silence while I play out possible topics of conversation in my head.
Nick's posture is relaxed in the driver’s seat with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the armrest between us. Every so often he drums his fingers against the steering wheel or shifts his hand, totally at ease.
Meanwhile I've got the nervous energy of an elf who overindulged in candy canes.
More silence.
I'm starting to wonder if he even remembers I'm in the car.
"We could play some Christmas music," I finally suggest. Anything to break up the silence that is providing my brain with too much idle time. Too much idle time in the presence of Nick and my heart rate speeds up because I'm thinking about things I have no business thinking about. Things like what Nick would feel like in the Vagina Inn. "I've got a playlist on my phone."
Nick side-eyes me from the driver’s seat and I can see the hint of a smile on his face before he shakes his head with a low exhale of a laugh. "I'll pass."
Right. Of course not. I tap my fingers nervously against my thigh. Luckily I've prepared an entire list of business topics we can discuss this week. I'm reaching into the handbag at my feet when Nick speaks again.
"Just out of curiosity, how early in the year do you start listening to your Christmas playlist?" He takes his eyes off the interstate for a brief second, his eyes flashing with something that might be amusement as he glances in my direction. "Day after Thanksgiving? December first? July?"
"Ha ha." I leave the notebook in my bag, realizing the list I prepared isn't anywhere near long enough. I'll need to ration it.
"Are you up to speed on the agenda for the trip?"
"Of course." I reach again for my bag, already rattling off the schedule from memory but wanting the itinerary in front of me all the same. We're taking a late-afternoon flight from Detroit to Frankfurt with a crack-of-dawn connecting flight to Nuremberg. Along with the meetings scheduled at Bavarian Bear, there's a tour of a toy train factory the company has been talking about collaborating with and meetings with a few parts suppliers.
Nick doesn't interrupt while I rattle on about the schedule, but he doesn't appear to be paying all that much attention either. When I'm confident I've covered the week’s agenda I close my notebook and place it in my lap, fingering the edges of the cardboard cover with the pad of my thumb. Then I sigh, a tiny resigned huff similar to the sound my parents’ dog makes when I attach a Santa hat to her head.
"What'd you do this weekend?"
The question takes me by surprise, coming out of nowhere on the tail end of my recap of the agenda. He seems sincere, honestly curious. Maybe he's bored with the silence too and worried I'll suggest my Christmas playlist again?
"I spent some time with my sisters. Ginger wanted company while she tested yet another batch of gingerbread. Did laundry, packed for this trip. Wrapped a few Christmas presents. And of course I went to the candlelight crowning for this year’s Miss Candy Cane Princess at Heritage Park." The Candy Cane Princess is named early in December so she can complete her duties for the rest of the month. Which are mainly riding on a float in the annual Christmas parade and assisting the Main Street Santa with his line on Saturdays.
"Ah, the Candy Cane Princess crowning," Nick repeats back slowly. "Is attending part of your duties as a past Candy Cane Princess?"
He knows about that? I feel my face flood with heat, suddenly embarrassed or shy, I'm not sure which. He doesn't quite sound like he's making fun of me so I'm not sure what his angle is.
"It's not a requirement, no," I finally manage to say. "Just something fun to do."
"Hmm," Nick murmurs. "Sounds like you could use a little more fun in your life, Holly."
Okay.
Did he just say that in a suggestive way or was it my imagination? His voice sounded like butterscotch caramel being stirred on a stovetop and kisses under the mistletoe. I'm suddenly warm all over and the Vagina Inn is flashing a neon vacancy sign while my overactive brain displays a montage of ways it could be filled. Could my sisters be right? Is it possible Nick has potential as something other than a miserly Scrooge? Maybe he's not horrible outside the office? Maybe—
Then he ruins it.
"I assume Santana was busy since you didn't mention him. Did he have a gig? Must be a busy time of year for a musician."
This jackal.
Ginger was right about one thing at least. Jackal is an oddly satisfying insult.
"Yes. Yes, he did have a gig." I lean forward to shove my notebook back into my bag then sit back in the passenger seat, arms crossed over my chest as I stare straight ahead, watching for the next road sign that will give me a clue about how much farther we are from the airport. "He's unbelievably busy but he took me out for breakfast," I find myself saying.
"This morning?"
"Yup." I pop the ‘p,’ satisfied to have the upper hand again. "At the Honey Jam Café." The Honey Jam Café has been a staple on Main Street since before I was born and their specialty is breakfast. They make waffles that will change your life. Delicately crisp on the outside but buttery and light just beneath that crisp surface. Perfection on a plate. You've never had a waffle unless you've had one from Honey Jam, trust me.
Also, I wish Santana actually existed because my stomach rumbles at the reminder that it hasn't had those waffles in too long. In truth, I had two hard-boiled eggs an hour before Nick picked me up.
"Weird. I was there too. Didn't see you."
"It was early. You were probably still sleeping." He probably sleeps in a cave he had dug out under his house. Caves are the preferred nests of Grinches everywhere.
"I was there early. My overnight guest was an unexpectedly early riser."
Eww.
I refrain from saying it out loud, but my pulse increases in agitation. I roll my neck and adjust my posture in the seat while taking a surreptitious glance at Nick. I bet his overnight guest was his friend Taryn. His naked friend Taryn.
"I thought allowing her to stay up late would guarantee I got to sleep in, but it doesn
't work that way."
Oh, my Santa Claus, please stop talking! Now my brain is filled with visions of Taryn waking him up for an early-morning naked tryst. She got to see Nick naked and she got the best waffles on earth. I'm back to disliking her, Christmas spirit and family candle company be damned.
"Now she'll be cranky this afternoon and that'll be my fault."
Okay, enough. Now he's describing her like she's some errant child? What a disgusting misogynistic jerk!
"Luckily we'll be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean by the time my sister calls to ream me out about messing up her schedule."
Wait. His sister? I rewind the conversation and remove my assumptions. "You had a sleepover with your niece?" My brain is trying its hardest to merge the idea of the Nick I know from work with the idea of him having a sleepover with his niece, Abby. I've met her a couple times. Last year at the company Christmas party and once over the summer when Sara brought her to the office. She's a spirited and messy little girl the way most toddlers are.
"You babysit?" I finally manage to sputter, turning in my seat to get a better look at him.
"For my niece, sure. Pays twenty bucks an hour, so why not," he adds with a shrug then laughs when he sees the look on my face. "I'm kidding. My sister and her husband went to a holiday party last night and their regular sitter canceled. They were going to be out late so I told them to just leave Abby with me overnight."
"Huh," I can't help myself from saying.
"My sister warned me that she wakes up at an unreasonable hour, but I didn't heed her warning. Like every jackass without kids of their own I thought I'd just put her to bed late and she'd sleep in the next morning." He shrugs and flashes me a grin that makes my heart nearly stop. "That little hustler stayed up through an entire viewing of Christmas Dogs and still woke up at a quarter to six."
Oh, sweet Lord. The visual of Abby in a set of footy pajamas cuddled up on the couch with Nick watching a Christmas movie just flashed through my mind and it's… strangely hot.