Page 23 of Mistletoe Face Off

Time to face the music.

Holly levels me with her gaze. “You'reHarrison Clarke?”

“That's me,” I reply sheepishly. “But you can call me Harry.”

She throws her hands on her hips and glares at me some more. Despite the fact I’m 6’5” and could pick her off the ground with one hand, I could wither under that glare.

So, instead of using words as my reply, I pull the fake beard off and carefully remove the prosthetic nose before I take off my wig and run my hands through my hair.

Her gaze turns nuclear. “Why didn't you tell me? You had ample opportunity when I saw you at the Community Center last week. We even sat down and talked together, just you and me! You could easily have told me then.”

“I know, and I'm sorry about that.”

Holly glances at her daughter before leaning a little closer to me and hissing under her breath, “I opened up to you. I told you about my—” She clamps her mouth shut but I know exactly where she was going. She told me about how she’d had a crush on me back in high school, and I'm fairly certain that had she known it was me she was admitting that little fact to, she never would have mentioned a word of it. People don't usually go around telling you they had a crush on you over a decade ago.

But how do I tell her that I'm glad I know? That, at the time, way back when we were just kids, I felt it to, only the social divide between us seemed too great? That now that I see her again after all these years, I feel it again, only a grown up version of a crush. Attraction. A desire to know her better.

How do I tell her I enjoyed our time together that day at the Community Center, that despite my disguise, it felt real? That having the anonymity of being in costume meant I could share my genuine feelings, unblurred by the fact I'm in the NHL? She could see the real me, not the version I project to the world. Me, Harrison Clarke, the once hockey-mad teenager with big dreams.

“Holly, that was a long time ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.” I gesture at Macy, who’s watching us with big, bulging eyes.

“But-but you lied,” Holly states under her breath.

“You can't put that on me,” I try again, even though I know I did lie, but only by omission. “I was playing a part, that's all.”

“So was I at the time. Mrs. Claus, remember? But you didn't find me leading you down a path to admit things you didn't want to admit,” she replies, her hands still firmly attached to her hips. “I should have known. How many freakishly large, burly Santas are there out there?”

“Mommy? Why are you so angry with Harry?” Macy asks.

“Because he didn't tell us the truth,” she replies.

“I knew,” Macy says, and we both turn to look at her.

“You did?” I ask.

“Oh, yes. I knew Harry wasn't Santa the moment he started to figure skate. Santa can't figure skate. Everyone knows that, and if you didn't, you should have asked me. I would have told you.”

Can this kid get any cuter?

Holly offers Macy a weak smile. “You're so smart, honey. You're right, I should have asked you.” She lovingly places her hand against her daughter’s cheek.

The atmosphere seems to have shifted around us. Maybe Holly isn't quite as mad at me as she was?

She leads me out of earshot of her daughter and levels her gaze at me once more. “But instead I got tricked by the one man I was trying to get an interview from,” she fires.

So… still mad.

I much preferred it when she was being sweet to her daughter.

“You mean the one man you were trying to dig up some dirt on,” I reply, because that’s exactly what she was trying to do. She knows it. I know it.

See? Two can play this game.

She throws her hands out to her sides. “I'm just trying to do my job.”

“And I was just trying to do mine.”

“By dressing up as Santa? Weird, because I thought you were an NHL player. Or are you doing this Santa gig on the side to make some extra coin?”

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