Christmas at the End of Main (A Nestled Hollow Romance Book 2)

by Meg Easton

  Ian thought for a moment, and then blurted out “Cloak and Dagger.” Then, just a beat later, said, “Duck and Cover. Oh wait, no. I’ve got it. Sneak Attack. Come on, honey, we have to name it Sneak Attack.”

  “I can understand the ‘sneak’ part, but the other part isn’t really an attack. It’s a challenge.”

  Ian spread his arms wide. “And what’s an attack if not a challenge.”

  Timini sighed, and Ian put his hands together in a pleading motion, which apparently worked on Timini, because she said, “Okay, this game is called Sneak Attack.”

  Shad reached out and gave Ian a fist bump.

  “You’ve each got three green cards. Write on the top of each ‘Attack.’ On these cards, write down a different challenge on each one. Something that one person could challenge any other person to do to see who wins. Like who can stand on one foot the longest, or who can make the other person crack a smile first. Something that will take about a minute or less to do. Everyone else decides who won the challenge and whoever does wins the card.”

  “Now on your two yellow cards,” Ian said, “write ‘Sneak’ at the top. Write down something that the person who gets that card will have to do without anyone else knowing that they’re working on fulfilling a Sneak card. Like a phrase they have to say, or an action they have to do. You don’t want to make it too easy, like scratching your nose or something, because it’s everyone else’s job to guess when they’re doing something that’s on their card. Because if you think you’ve caught someone else, you can yell,” he glanced at his wife, then smiled, “‘Sneak Attack!’ and you’ll win their card, but you can only call it if you weren’t the one who wrote it. Get away with it, and you win the card. The person with the most cards at the end wins.”

  Macie’s stomach was starting to feel queasy—probably from something she ate—but she willed herself to be okay, and started writing things on her card that she thought might be fun to do or funny to watch.

  After they’d all turned in their cards and they were shuffled, Timini handed a yellow card out to each of them, and then one by one, they drew a green card and challenged someone to whatever it said. She laughed as Ian and Matt attempted to balance a pencil on their fingertip the longest while trying to blow the other’s off, as Shad and Anna competed to see who could fake laugh the best, and as Julie and Timini attempted to whistle a note the longest. All while watching for opportunities to do what her yellow card said: “Tell your spouse/date ‘Baby, I’m never cold, because you warm my heart.’” She had been faking this relationship for more than a week now. She could fake this line no problem.

  Aaron drew a card and read it out loud. “See who can run barefoot in the snow the longest.”

  Everyone’s eyes darted to the patio doors and the snow that covered the backyard just beyond them, worried that Aaron might challenge them to do it.

  Aaron turned to Macie. “You wrote this one, didn’t you?”

  “Who, me?” Macie asked, trying to feign innocence.

  “You did this with your siblings when you were little, didn’t you?”

  Macie chuckled. “Yes, and then we’d run back inside and wrap our feet in towels. How did you know it was me?”

  “Because the only sane person who would do this is someone with enough siblings to talk her into it. So, Macie Zimmerman,” Aaron said, slapping the card on the table between them, “I challenge you to a race barefooted through the snow.”

  They both took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and then made their way onto the patio with everyone else. Aaron grabbed her hand, they grinned at each other, and then he said, “Ready, set, go!”

  Luckily it had snowed a bit just before they came, so there was a layer of soft powdery snow on top. Just under the top inch or so, though, the snow was a couple of days old, and with the sun shining on it during the day, it had made it icy and a little sharp. With each step, she landed on the soft cushion, and then broke through the crust from the layer just underneath, sinking into the snow up to mid-calf. Their feet pounded step after step, all the way to the end of the yard. And as they ran, she checked off her mental list, Will do crazy, spontaneous things with me.

  They turned and raced back, still holding hands and right before they reached the patio, Macie stopped in her tracks and dropped Aaron’s hand. He didn’t have time to react before his bare feet touched the snow-free patio. Apparently he had forgotten this wasn’t a race to the finish line—it was a challenge to see who could stay in the snow the longest. He remembered a moment too late, though, and hurried to step back into the snow.

  “You might be Poseidon in the water, bro, but you’re too late in the snow,” Matt said as he clapped him on the back. “She’s got you.”

  Poseidon in the water, huh? There was something he wasn’t telling her. She made a mental note to ask him about it the next chance she got.

  “I should’ve known better than to challenge the only experienced person here,” he said as he placed a kiss on her forehead.

  “You should’ve,” she echoed as a pain shot through her stomach. She tried her best not to wince—not in front of people she was trying to impress. She shivered as she sat down in the kitchen and reached for her towel that Dennis held out, but Aaron grabbed it first and wrapped it around her feet. “You look so cold,” he said.

  She couldn’t have planned the setup better. Two cards were going to be hers in a matter of moments. As she reached out and put her hand on his cheek, she said, “Baby, I’m never cold, because you warm my heart.”

  “Sneak Attack!” several people yelled at the same time.

  Macie looked up, bewildered. “How did you know?” At least Shad, Annah, and Ciara had all called her out on it. Maybe even more of them that she didn’t catch.

  “Sweetie,” Ciara said. “Don’t ever become a used car salesman. You can’t pull off a fake to save your life.”

  She met Aaron’s eyes, and they shared a smile. There was something else in his smile, though, that she couldn’t quite interpret. She didn’t get a chance to figure it out before everyone was ushered back to the table.

  Timini passed everyone their second yellow card. Because Matt was in her field of vision, she saw that he read his card, his eyes flashed at Aaron, and then he looked at her, and then back down at his card. He laid it face down on the table and said, “We’ve got to go.”

  Ciara had been laughing at something Annah had said, and she turned to Matt and said, “We do?”

  Matt stood up, his chair legs scraping across the floor. “We do.” He answered Ciara, but kept his eyes on Aaron. Eyes that looked hurt and betrayed.

  Aaron reached out and grabbed the card that Matt had left behind. Macie barely needed to lean in to see what the card said— it was one of the ones that she had written. Say out loud “I lost my job today.” Macie’s hand flew to her mouth as she realized what must have happened. What were the chances of her writing down something that was supposed to be difficult to pull off without being called out, and have it actually be true for someone? And then to have that person be the one who drew the card?

  As Matt tucked in his chair and turned to leave, everyone at the table watching him in confusion, Aaron stood up, too, and slid the card into his pocket. He met Matt at the doorway to the entry, and the two had a whispered conversation, and at one point, Matt met Macie’s eyes, and then shook his head no to Aaron. Matt said something more to Aaron, and Aaron nodded his head several times, then clapped Matt on the shoulder before he and Ciara left.

  Great. The group of people that Aaron was most concerned about impressing were these people, and Macie had totally messed it up. She couldn’t tell how much of her sick feeling and the cold sweat breaking out on her forehead was coming from whatever she ate and how much was coming from how awful she felt about offending Aaron’s best friend. He was probably wishing he had never brought her. Maybe he’d even want to take her home right away, before she had a chance to inflict any more damage.

/>   “Okay,” Aaron said loudly as he came back to the table, taking in everyone’s confused faces. “Matt wanted me to apologize that he realized he and Ciara needed to leave so quickly, and wanted me to make sure that we finish this round!”

  The other three couples seemed to understand that they weren’t going to get any more information about what just happened, and apparently respected Matt’s wishes to act like nothing happened. Everyone else refocused on the game with renewed vigor, like they were trying to make up for what negative thing just happened, but Macie couldn’t. All she wanted to do was apologize profusely for what had happened. And then crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.

  As Aaron sat back down, he leaned in close and said, “I’m so sorry that happened. Are you okay?”

  He was apologizing to her? Based on her experience dating men who had a tight group of friends, that wasn’t what she was expecting at all. Even though she was now sure that the nausea that was creeping over her was very much sickness, she still smiled and felt the smile all the way to her core. “I am, thank you for asking.” And then she put a checkmark in her mental list next to Shows that he puts me before his friends.

  Maybe she had been wrong all along. Maybe her perfect man really was out there.

  Chapter Ten

  Aaron glanced up at the clock in his classroom to see how much time was left in class. He felt terrible that he hadn’t noticed how sick that Macie had been getting last night until she was so bad that he hadn’t thought she’d make it the whole way back home without him having to pull off the side of the road.

  Sure he’d been distracted by Matt thinking that he had betrayed a confidence and told Macie that he’d lost his job. Macie had seemed to understand exactly what had happened and her role in it. So whenever she looked like she wasn’t doing great, he thought it was because of that, and had just vowed to make the game more fun. All along, he should’ve been offering to take her home early instead.

  He figured she’d be sleeping in to recover, so he waited to text until his second period class was watching a short documentary fifteen minutes before class got over.

  How are you feeling? Don’t answer if I just woke you up.

  Ha! No, I’ve been up for hours, sadly. Got a shop to run, animals to feed...

  He sat up straighter.

  Please tell me you’re joking. You’re sick! You’ve got an employee—Emily, right? Can’t she take over?

  Not today. She can’t come until 1:00.

  What about family? Is there anyone who can help?

  He glanced up at the clock. 10:20 on a Thursday morning probably wasn’t the easiest time of day to rustle up help, but maybe there was someone free. He thought of how sick she had looked when he got her back to her house last night, and he couldn’t believe she was doing anything other than being in a soft bed under a mountain of blankets.

  Being the youngest in a big family means everyone thinking you need help and can’t do things on your own. I’ve been fighting that for so long, I think I forgot how to ask.

  Old habits die hard, I guess.

  Or I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid to ask, because they might start acting like I’m helpless again.

  And I clearly shouldn’t text when I’m so sick. It makes me philosophical and vulnerable.

  Pretend I didn’t send any of these.

  Really, I’m doing great. I can make it until Emily gets here just fine.

  Look! Puppies!

  She send a picture of three smaller dogs climbing on her as she sat next to one of her big dogs. Her face wasn’t in the picture, but the fact that she was sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall wasn’t a good sign.

  Nice use of animals. You totally got me with that distraction. Hang on, this video is almost over, and I’ll need to talk to my students before they leave.

  He discussed with his class some of the points the video made before the bell rang, and then excused them to go to their third period classes. As soon as the last kid was out the door, he picked up the classroom phone and dialed the front office.

  “Hi, Lisa, this is Aaron. I’ve got a prep period right now, and I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to run an errand and won’t be back until closer to the end of lunch.”

  She thanked him for letting her know, and then he grabbed his coat, his cell phone, and his keys, and headed out the door, locking his classroom behind him.

  An impressively short fifteen minutes later, he was at the doors of Paws and Relax with a grocery bag from Elsmore Market in one hand and the blanket he always kept in his trunk for emergencies in the other. He went inside and found Macie propped up in the corner where the big fish tank met the wall, a cat asleep on her lap, her black lab laying against one leg, a small dog in her arms, and another puppy pulling her sock off. Her face didn’t have any color, and she looked miserable.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Aaron!” She pulled the little puppy out of her hair and back into her arms. “What are you doing here?”

  He crouched down next to her and leaned over the dog to put his hand on her forehead. “I have officially ditched school, and I’m here until twelve-thirty to help out.”

  She looked around the room, as if she was sure she’d see someone there that she’d missed. Like she didn’t think he’d come if it weren’t a date that was meant to convince some group of people that they were dating. “Why?”

  He brushed the hair off her forehead. “Because even a fake boyfriend can be a good friend.” Did he really just willingly say something that would further entrench him in the friend zone when he very much hoped for more than that? He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her ever since the dance and he was starting to wonder if maybe, possibly, there could actually be something between them. Except every time he thought there might be, he remembered that she was just playing a part. Doing what she could to convince whoever they were around that they were dating.

  But just then she looked at him like she really wanted him to be something more, too.

  It was probably just the sickness talking. Besides, he never wanted to get married, and she did.

  “So do you think it was something you ate last night?”

  She shook her head. “I wondered at first, but no. This is definitely a bug. Hopefully only a twenty-four hour one.”

  “What do you need help with?”

  “I fed the dogs and cats already, but I haven’t managed to get to the fish, hamsters, and geckos. And I’ve got a toddler group coming at eleven and I’ve really got to get stuff taken care of by then.”

  She started to move like she was going to get up, but he put a hand on her arm and said, “Stop. That’s what I’m here for. Just tell me where everything is.”

  She hesitated and then nodded. “The fish food is in that door—they need two pinches. The hamsters’ is in that cupboard right by their cage. Just fill their bowl to the top. And the geckos’ food is next to the hamster food.”

  He stood up and raised the stuff in his arms. “Do you have an office or a back room where I can put this?”

  “Just down the hall.”

  The office was the first room he found, and he set the grocery bag on her desk. The room was decently sized, but didn’t have a cot hiding behind the door like he had hoped. It did have some empty floor space, though, and she did have a blanket draped over the back of her chair, so he folded the blanket he brought in half and laid it on the floor. A quick glance around and he didn’t see anything he could use as a pillow for her, so he took off his coat and folded it into a somewhat pillow shape, and put it on the blanket. Then he went back into the main room.

  “Let’s get you up,” he said as he moved the animals off her.

  “But my Parent, Preschooler, and a Puppy group will be here any minute.”

  He scooped her into his arms and stood up. “And those parents will really appreciate if you don’t pass this bug along to their toddlers. I’m going to run the group, and you’re goin
g to get rest.” He carried her into her office and lay her on the makeshift bed, adjusting the coat pillow. Then he grabbed the blanket off the back of her chair and spread it over her. Without the blanket hiding it, he noticed that her coat was on the arm of the chair, and spread that out on top of her, too, because she had a bit of a fever and figured she needed the warmth.

  She snuggled into the blankets, shivering at first, and then relaxing. He stood up and started pulling things out of the grocery sack. “I brought you tissues; I’ll put them right next to you here. And I got pain reliever/fever reducer. Do you want one now?” Macie shook her head no, so he put the bottle next to the tissues and set a water bottle next to it.

  “For when you’re feeling well enough to eat, I got you some chicken noodle soup from Elsmore’s deli. I’ll put it in your mini fridge. Do you need—” He had turned around to ask, but saw that she’d already fallen asleep. After adjusting the blanket to cover her shoulders more fully, he pressed his lips lightly to her temple and whispered, “Feel better,” then he snuck out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.

  Parents and their preschoolers started coming in the shop before he even finished feeding the animals. He didn’t have a clue as to how to run a Parent, Preschooler, and a Puppy event, but the parents gave him the gist of it, and were mostly able to point out where things like balls and other dog toys were.

  He made up games to play with the preschoolers and dogs as he went along, and hoped that the group had fun and didn’t feel cheated that Macie wasn’t there. By the time the hour was over, he was ready to collapse himself. The cats had mostly left the room after sniffing everyone out, which left him with four parents, five preschoolers, two big dogs, and three little dogs, and he decided that they were way more exhausting than even his third period Modern World History class. And that was saying something.