by Meg Easton
The man who must be Frank laughed, holding up the arm in the sling, wiggling his fingers.
“Then you’ll grab a new slip of paper from the ornament, and head off to find the second gift. The first team with five presents returned and wrapped wins!”
Everyone cheered. Aaron just chuckled. This town sure knew how to turn the typical sub for Santa into an event. He didn’t pay attention to what kinds of city celebrations his own city did, and suddenly wondered if they were anything like this.
“Here’s the kicker, though. You can’t run to the next store. We’ve got these two flatbed trucks filled with hay bales here.” She motioned to one facing north on the road behind her and the other facing south on the road in front of her, and everyone turned to look. “You can only move from store to store on a hay ride, and May and George have been instructed that they can only move forward if everyone on board is singing a Christmas carol.
“Now I know what you’re thinking. What if I’m right there at Wishstones Department Store, and I need to go next door to Toys ‘n Trinkets. The buildings are practically touching! Can’t I just slip next door? No. You can’t go an inch past the edge of any store without being on a hay ride. So that means that yes, to go from Wishstones to Toys ‘n Trinkets, you’ll have to wait for the next hay ride to come along, sing carols while it goes down there to the end of Main, turns the corner, comes all the way along this side of Main, turns the corner again, and brings you back to almost where you started from. Sound like a blast? That’s because it is! Okay, send your representatives up to get your first slips of paper, and then start brainstorming. You’ll have about three minutes. When you hear the horn sound, the game is on!”
Macie waved Aaron up to the giant ornament, so he wove his way through the crowd and up to her.
“Well, hello, Dashing Man,” she said as he reached his hand inside the ornament and grabbed a square paper. “You’re looking mighty fine all bundled up.”
“So are you, Mysterious Goddess.”
She grinned at him, and then motioned to her sister and said, “You remember my sister, Joselyn, right?”
“Good to see you again,” he said as he reached out and shook her hand.
“Oh, and here’s Marcus,” she said.
He committed Marcus’s name to memory, and then shook his hand.
Marcus turned to Joselyn. “I checked with your parents, and Aria is doing great.” He clapped his hands together. “Alright team, are we ready to win?”
Macie and Joselyn finished getting papers to each team, then Macie handed the ornament to Cole—the man who stood at the other table, who was apparently going to be the scribe and present-wrapping official. Then the four of them huddled around the paper that Aaron held, and he read it out loud.
“So this child is a four-year-old boy, and we’re looking for a toy with a forty dollar budget. He likes dinosaurs and Legos and especially playing dinosaurs with Legos. His mom says he’s a creative and determined kid.”
“Toys ‘n Trinkets,” Macie, Joselyn, and Marcus all said at the same time.
“Toys ‘n Trinkets it is then.” The whistle blew, and Aaron pushed the paper into his pocket, slid his gloved hand into Macie’s, and they raced to get on the back of the nearest truck. Aaron sat on a bale of hay, leaving room for Macie to sit next to him. She did, and leaned her head against his shoulder, snuggling into him for warmth. It felt nice having her so close. So he put his arm around her shoulders and held her tight to him so they’d both stay warm.
The twenty or so of them who seemed to be getting on the truck got on, but it didn’t move. Macie seemed to be the first to realize why, and she jerked upright and sang, “Dashing through the snow...” and the truck started to creep forward.
She sang so wonderfully off key, it caught Aaron off guard. He wasn’t exactly ashamed of his own voice—he’d taken a year of choir back in high school to fulfill a music requirement and had learned a few things—but he wasn’t proud of his voice, either. He usually shied away from singing out of embarrassment, but off-key or not, Macie was belting it out with such unabashed gusto that he couldn’t help but want to join in. “In a one horse open sleigh...”
Before long, all twenty of them were belting out the carol, and it was clear that Macie wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sing on key. Aaron found himself smiling as he sang. Why should people feel like they couldn’t join in if they couldn’t sing well? The cacophony was actually kind of nice, and in a way that didn’t quite make sense, made him feel accepted.
As they neared Toys ‘n Trinkets, they all perched on the side of the flatbed truck, and the moment it crossed into that store’s territory, they leapt off and raced inside and to the Lego aisle.
Marcus grabbed a set of Lego Duplos. “How about these? They’ll fit in our budget.”
“I don’t know,” Macie said. “Those say they’re for ages one to five, so he might grow out of them soon. We don’t know how close to age five he is already. What about this kind? It says ages four to seven.”
“The kid probably has chunky little hands,” Marcus said, holding out his own chunky big hands as proof. “These will be easier for him to grab. Plus, if he wants to play Legos with dinosaurs, he probably wants to build something tall that a t-rex can come along and knock down. These kind are the best for knocking down.”
As the two of them debated the different sets, with Joselyn throwing in her opinion, Aaron picked up a set that was labeled for ages five through twelve. It said Island Paradise, and had blocks that made palm trees and little huts whose doors could open and close, making it perfect for the smaller dinosaurs to get inside. He would’ve loved that set when he was a little kid.
“He isn’t looking to knock down the blocks,” Aaron said, his eyes on the set. “His mom said he’s creative, so he wants to build a set the dinosaurs can interact with. And he’s determined, so he likely won’t be discouraged by smaller blocks.” He held the set out to the others. “If we get him these, he can add to the set and keep using them for as many years as he’d like.”
Macie beamed at him, and looped her arm into his. Marcus took the set from Aaron, and looked at the front and then the back before giving a strong nod. “I think you’re right. This is the one.”
Further down the aisle, they found a bunch of plastic dinosaurs that were inexpensive, so they grabbed a variety and raced up to the front. After getting their receipt and paper signed off, they hurried outside, but the truck had just passed their building. As they waited in the cold, rubbing their gloved hands together, Macie looked into the bag. “He’s going to love these.”
Aaron nodded. “This is a fun way to do it.”
Marcus stepped behind Joselyn and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on her temple. As the next truck made its way ever so slowly toward them, he wondered how many of the people were genuinely here for the kids, and how many were here for the free date.
Macie shivered and scooted closer to him. “There were a couple of Christmases when we were little where our parents didn’t have money for presents, but it was okay because we had each other, and that was what really mattered. But some of these kids don’t have much of a home life. Can you imagine how sad it would be for them if they also didn’t get any presents?”
When she said things like that, Aaron had a hard time picturing Macie as being anything other than genuine. Of course, before the very public shame of his parents’ divorce had hit him, he had always thought they were genuine. Back then, he’d mistakenly thought Sabrina was, too, so now he didn’t put much stock in his judgement. Aaron swallowed. “I can’t imagine. That’d be awful.” He squeezed Macie’s hand. “Whoever this four-year-old is, he’s going to love Christmas morning.”
The truck finally made it to them, and the four of them hopped on, found seats on the hay, and immediately joined in singing The Twelve Days of Christmas. They only had to stay on for a moment before they jumped back off in the middle of Main Street, to the present wrapping station.
“Need a box?” a man asked.
“Yes!” Macie said. “I was imagining trying to wrap all these little dinosaurs with the four of us one-handed, and thought that we’d made a terrible mistake. Eli, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Aaron.”
She had hesitated for a moment before saying the word “boyfriend,” and Aaron realized that it was the first time either of them had said it.
“Nice to meet you, Aaron,” the man said as he shook his hand. “Here’s your box and your wrapping paper and tape—each of you can choose which hand to put behind your back, but you can’t switch once you’ve decided.”
As it turned out, having four right-handed people all choosing their right hand made things more difficult than if they’d had a couple of less-skilled left hands in the mix. A woman with wavy auburn hair was taking pictures of their struggles.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Macie said when they were finished.
Aaron grabbed a bow with his right hand, and held it while Macie pulled the plastic off the sticky part with her right hand, and he stuck it on top. “I’m not sure ‘beautiful’ is the word I’d use—”
“But it’s done,” Marcus said, “and that’s what counts.” He handed the present to Cole, and Cole checked it off the list and put it in a giant bin.
Joselyn raced to the table with the ornament and pulled out their next paper—an eight-year-old girl who was in need of pajamas, jeans, and socks—and they jumped on the next hay ride.
By the time they’d started shopping for the fifth paper they’d pulled out of the big ornament, it was clear it was down to just them and one other team to take the win. Aaron was pretty sure there wasn’t an actual prize to be won, but both teams seemed very determined to win.
“I never would’ve guessed you were so competitive,” Aaron said.
Macie shrugged. “Every year, it’s my goal to win this. I’ve only succeeded once before, but I have a good feeling about tonight, especially with you as a teammate. You grew up swimming competitively, right?”
“I did.”
“Were you any good?”
Aaron tried to hide a smile. Normally, he didn’t like talking about that part of his life, but every once in a while when someone asked, the urge to tell them the truth about how good he was came on pretty strong. But the urge to know how someone felt about him when they didn’t know always won out.
He shrugged. “I guess that depends on who you compared me to.” That was not the answer he usually gave—that answer practically begged her to ask for details about who he’d be good compared to. And if he answered that, it might give her enough information to piece things together. So he shifted the focus ever so slightly. “And I love helping my team to win now. What do you say we win this?”
He could honestly say that he’d never shopped for all the ingredients for a Christmas dinner at a grocery store in two and a half minutes before, but they somehow pulled it off, got the receipt and had the cashier sign off their paper, then hauled all the groceries to the next hay ride. As they hurriedly started singing Deck the Halls, like they would get there more quickly if they did, Joselyn pointed out that the other team had just jumped on their hay ride on the other side of Main, and it looked like they might both reach the present wrapping station in the middle at the same time.
“This is going to be difficult to wrap,” Marcus said between fa la la’s. “We’ll have to be fast.”
Macie stood up and moved to the back of the flat bed, leaning out to look at something. Aaron got up and joined her.
She pointed back the way they’d just come. “There was a little kid in the alley between Best Dressed and the library. He was just crying. I think he’s lost.” She looked up and down the street, standing on her tiptoes to be able to see over the cab of the truck. “I don’t see any parents nearby. We have to help him.”
She moved to the edge of the truck, and Aaron grabbed the sleeve of her coat. “If we jump off, we’ll be disqualified.”
She met his eyes, hers pleading. “We have to. We’re here to help kids in need—what’s the point of it if we don’t help a kid in need?”
He searched her eyes, trying to tell if that was what she’d really wanted, as a tear welled up in her eye. She batted it away, like it was a traitor ratting her out, and looked back toward the alley before meeting his gaze again.
“Let’s go help him,” he said as he wrapped his hand in hers, and they jumped off the back of the truck.
For the first time in the last decade, he trusted his own judgement when he realized that Macie might just be the most genuine person he had ever met.
Chapter Nine
Aaron picked Macie up at her house, and together they made the drive to his friend’s house in Mountain Springs. She studied him as they drove, and she could tell that something was different. He was quieter, and his eyebrows came together in the middle.
“Do you not want to go to this?”
“What? No. I love game night. My friends are good people.”
Okay, not the answer she would’ve guessed, based on his face. She studied him some more. “Oh! You’re nervous!”
Aaron looked confused, and then chuckled softly. “I guess maybe I am.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Are you nervous to have me meet your family on Saturday?”
“Totally. I’m always nervous when dates meet my family. I worry that my family might not like them, and worried that they’ll scare him off.”
“My family imploded when I was nineteen, and we all pretty much scattered at that point. But even before then, we weren’t much of a family. We never willingly chose to hang out with each other. But these guys, they’re my family. Their opinion matters to me a lot.”
“And you’re worried they might not like me?”
He glanced over at her. “How could they not like you?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. I’m the youngest, so I’ve been told my whole life that I’m adorable.”
“They’re going to love you. But if anyone is a tough crowd to convince, it’s these guys.”
Macie tried hard to remember everyone’s names when Aaron introduced them, but she only managed to retain about half. After meeting everyone, though, the guys split off into the kitchen end of the open room, and the women gathered on the couches, and Macie was quick to pick up on and memorize their names. Ciara was the brunette who looked like a model, Timini was shorter, rounder, and constantly smiling, Annah was the quiet one who kept catching her off guard with her funny remarks, and Julie was the one who was seven and a half months pregnant who everyone was gathering around.
“So, other than the fact that I can’t seem to hold on to anything,” Julie said, “I think we’re all ready for this baby to come! Of course, if I can’t figure out the holding things part, I might need to hire a nanny just to keep me from dropping her.”
“Oh, that goes away right after giving birth,” Macie said. “Your joints have to loosen so your hips can adjust for birth, but it loosens all your joints, including the ones in your fingers. That’s also why your feet are probably not fitting into your normal size of shoe.”
It had seemed like a normal thing to say, but suddenly everyone was staring at her. “What?”
“How do you know that?” Timini asked in awe.
“I have six married siblings with kids. I became an aunt at fifteen. It kind of comes with the territory.”
“Will you move in with us?” Julie blurted out, and everyone laughed. “No, seriously. We’ve got an extra bedroom up there and I don’t have a clue in the world what I’m doing.”
Macie knew the woman was joking, but it still made her feel good. Accepted. She looked toward the men and met eyes with Aaron. He gave her a smile and a nod, like he was passing along his approval, too, and she smiled back.
“Wow, you two have fallen for each other hard, haven’t you?” Ciara said.
For the smallest moment, Macie almost protested. Just because he kept proving that he was perfect over and over again d
idn’t mean she was falling for him—she wasn’t! Luckily, she caught herself quickly and kept up the show. “He is pretty fantastic.”
Then it hit her—Ciara had said they had both fallen for each other. So they were already believing it; she and Aaron just needed to keep it up and his friends would be convinced.
Matt clapped his hands together. “Let’s get this show on the road, ladies! If I have to stand next to this food much longer, I can’t be held responsible for digging in early.”
“Ooo, I can’t wait to see what Aaron brought,” Timini said.
“Aaron?” Macie asked. She knew he brought in a covered glass baking pan, but she honestly hadn’t thought much about it.
“His food is divine!” Annah said. “I could hate you all and I’d still come just to eat Aaron’s food.”
So he could cook, too. Macie mentally checked off the Must know how to cook box on her Future Husband list. Then she chided herself for once again thinking of him that way. But how could she stop herself when he was standing there like that, holding his arm out to her with that brilliant smile and that I care about you face?
Instead of letting herself linger on the impossible, she focused her attention on the others. Like on the way that Ciara went up to Matt and they whispered something to each other, their noses touching, before she turned around and he wrapped his arms around her from behind and she snuggled into him.
Being here with all these happy couples was making her want, more than ever, what she didn’t have. It always felt like everyone else got their happy endings. Why couldn’t she?
Stop, she told herself. Your perfect guy isn’t even in your haystack, remember?
After the food was cleaned up, and they all still sat around the table, Timini passed 3x5 cards out to all of them and said, “I can’t wait to try this game out!”
Her husband rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“Ian and I came up with this game last night and it’s called...Oh my goodness, honey, we never came up with a name!”