Page 44 of Christmas Criminal

"Not even a little? Nothing you have to talk very calmly about?" I ask, and as we skirt around a group of kids creating a bottleneck in foot traffic, we turn toward each other to squeeze by. Our coats swish past each other, but I swear I can feel his heat through the fabric.

"I don't really have much family."

"Oh." I keep my hand on his elbow as the walkway opens up. Some part of me feels like I need to hold onto him, keep him close. "So there's not muchopportunityfor drama, huh?"

He shakes his head. "Nope. Pretty much zero possibility," he says.

He smiles when I glance up at him, and I can't help but overanalyze his words. Is he telling me he hasnofamily?

"What do you normally do for the holidays?"

He shrugs. "Depends on the year. Usually... this."

I raise my eyebrows. "This, as in wander the Christmas fair with your community service gremlin on your arm?"

A laugh bursts out of him, and he shakes his head. "For the record, when I call you my community service gremlin, know that it's entirely your fault."

My laugh sneaks out despite my best attempt to suppress it. "Okay, that's fair."

He sighs, turning his attention out to the crowd again. "I usually do community stuff around the holidays. Participate in the fair or help the school with the winter play or the winterconcert. I'm not picky," he says. He takes a long breath, and I stamp down every part of me that wants to start talking again because I canfeelhe's about to tell me something important. "My mom loved Christmas."

Loved.

I bite my tongue to stop the words from spilling out.

"And it makes me feel close to her, this time of the year, when I go out and do Christmas-y things around town. I technically have a dad somewhere, but he was never in my life, so it was always just me and my mom. When I was little, she would cart me around to any and all Christmas events she could find. She didn't always have the money to give us really big Christmases, but she always made sure we had some way to celebrate together. So now, this is how I celebrate with her."

A lump builds in my throat that I desperately try to swallow over. My lip trembles, and I bite it in an attempt to stop it.

Mymom loves Christmas.Mymom carted us around to all of the Christmas events.Mymom still takes it upon herself to wrap a multitude of fruits and household items for Christmas morning because it was me and Christina's favorite thing to just rip the damn wrapping paper on Christmas morning.

He glances down at me, his brow furrowed, and starts laughing. "Careful, Noelle. You know what happens when gremlins get wet."

A laugh tumbles out of me at the same time as one little tear leaks out. I wipe it away before he notices. "I'm sorry. That's a really beautiful sentiment and now I feel bad about making fun of you for liking Christmas."

He shrugs. "You can still make fun of me. I deal with high schoolers all day–believe me, there's nothing you can say to me that I haven't heard before. Or heard worse."

I nod. "Well, I'm not going to make fun of you for liking Christmas anymore. I'll stick to the nerdy math teacher jokes."

He grins. "Now what sort of sob story can I come up with to make you feel bad aboutthat?"

"Oh!" I knock into him lightly, and when he corrects course, he squeezes my hand in his elbow. As if to tell me he likes having it there.

And there go the butterflies, knocking around inside me again.

As we turn a corner to another long row of huts–several of which we set up–I spy someone I was really hoping I'd never have to see again.

I tense up, trying to turn and accidentally walking straight into Nick instead.

"You okay?" he asks, placing his hands on my shoulders.

"Louis Prince and Stacy Mann are apparently still together," I say under my breath, turning my head so they can't see me.

But then I hear his voice. "Noelle? Is that you?"

I press my eyes shut quickly, and when I open them, Nick is staring down at me, his eyes soft. He loops a bit of my hair around his thumb and lets it go as his fingers dig into my shoulders. "Test run, Noelle. Tell him how you feel," he says softly.

My words run on repeat in my head. All of the nights I've been up late, thinking about things Icouldhave said to Louis Prince. All of the ways I wanted to put him in his place.

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