Page 16 of Santa Loves Curvy Girls

“One large hot chocolate and one apple cinnamon bagel. Got it.” He looked at Santa.

“Uh, same.”

A minute later, we sat in the booth at the corner with our drinks and toasted bagels slathered in cream cheese.

Santa had his back to the window like he didn’t want to get distracted by all the people gawking as they walked by—although he kind of stood out anyway.

Meanwhile, I tried not to let my nerves get the best of me. I had no idea how I’d ended up becoming friends with Santa Claus.

Much less how I’d ended up with a huge crush on him.

Trying to push that aside, I took a sip of my hot chocolate. “So…” I started, unsure of what I should ask or not.

“So…” he replied, probably wondering the same thing.

“What topics should I avoid?” I tried.

He shrugged. “My name, I guess.” He pondered for a second. “And anything that would give away who I am.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” I retorted.

He smiled. “Try being in my shoes.”

“What is it like being in those shoes?” I asked, slowly stirring the dissolving marshmallows around my drink.

He stared down at his hot chocolate for a second. “Pretty good, actually,” he replied. “It’s nice not being… who I usually am.”

I took another sip. “Really?”

“I guess people are used to seeing me a certain way, and sometimes, it just feels like a mismatch with who I want to be, you know?”

I nodded again. “That makes sense. High school isn’t always easy.” Although, if he was as good looking as I suspected, he was probably one of the popular kids.

“Yea—” he began. “I mean, I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked. That had to be a safe question.

“Blue,” he answered. “Typical, huh?”

“Kind of,” I said, clearly not getting a clue about who he was.

“What about you?” he asked. He took a bite of his bagel.

“Lilac,” I replied. My room was lilac, and I always gravitated toward the color for phone cases and notebooks and the like.

Silence fell between us while I tried to come up with a question to narrow down who he was without being too obvious. “So, what do you like to do for fun? Do you play sports or anything?” I asked.

He thought about it for a second. “I do things for fun,” he said finally.

That made me think he definitely did extracurriculars at school. And with his build, I bet he had to be some sort of jock. A wrestler maybe?

We had a relatively small school, but still plenty of jocks. Most of whom pretended I didn’t exist, especially around school dance times and Valentine’s Day. But I tried not to think about that or let my doubts get in my way. Santa was being so nice I didn’t want my insecurities to ruin anything.

After that, we ended up talking more about our past and future than the present. Much safer topics of conversation.

“Best Christmas present you ever got?” I asked.

He paused, clearly thinking about it. “Probably… the beach vacation we went on last year. It was only a few days, but I’d never been to the beach. If I ever moved anywhere else, that’s where I would go.”

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