Page 40 of 12 Days of Mistletoe

I nod, swallow, and don’t look over at Elliot burning a hole in the side of my head. “P, mermaid.”

“Tail color?” a woman from one of the front tables asks.

“Sorry. That’s right, we have a couple mermaids. It’s gold. P, mermaid, gold tail.”

“Bonnie—” Elliot says again.

I clench my jaw and stare ahead.

But I don’t have to come up with anything to say. Doug does it for me. “PIRATE!” he yells just before adding an “Argh!” and a fist pump. “I knew that mermaid was lucky.”

“Nice one, Doug,” I say, breathing out a shaky laugh. Then, as if I haven’t been ignoring him for the last half an hour, I turn to Elliot. “Can you keep reading tiles?” I pass over my box of bingo cards, a letter and picture on each, as well as the corded microphone. “I need to…” I trail off, not finishing that sentence.

Elliot blinks, his lashes long and dark. “Sure,” he says, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes downcast. He stands at the head, looking out at my elderly friends. “Um, do we clear boards?” he asks into the mic.

“Already done, One-thirty,” Bill calls out. “Keep it moving.”

I step down from my spot at the front and walk a gift card for ten dollars over to Doug. Noel walks beside me and I ruffle the top of her head. “Here you are, sir. Ten whole dollars to Espresso Yourself.”

“Sweet. I’m taking Marion out later.”

I smile, my heart thumping at a semi-normal pace, although I can feel Elliot’s eyes on my back.

He calls out another card, doing as I asked. “Okay, it’s an R, and there’s a hook, like Captain Hook’s hook. You know, fromPeter Pan?

“We know what a hook is, sport,” Eugene says, and while his tone is kind, Doug scoffs beside me. Still, he scrapes the bingo from his board and sets a gold coin onto the hook right beneath his R.

“Just give us the letter and the picture,” Bill tells him, loud enough for Deb, who refuses to wear her hearing aids, to hear. “Come on, One-thirty, let’s go!”

“One-thirty?” Deb, sitting at the table behind Bill, asks.

I tune out as he yells to tell her all about Elliot’s atrocious Scrabble score. Walking around the room, I busy myself in a completely unneeded way. I breathe—in for five, out for seven—and Noel likes the little jaunt. Plus, it keeps me away from Elliot’s whispers. Though his eyes seem to follow me wherever I go.

“Okay, next up is I, with a bird. Like a colorful green and blue?—”

“It’s a parrot,” Doug says. “Who hired this guy?”

I smirk out a small laugh, then lean over Mable and Shirley’s table to snatch a coin from the bucket and unnecessarily hand one to each of the ladies.

By the time the game is over, I’m cool and sober. I’m notangry at Elliot, and my nerves over what others think of me are Jell-O.

It helps that Elliot is sweating over a game of pirate bingo.

Once we have two more winners and I’ve thanked everyone for coming, Elliot sets down the mic and trots over to May and Bill’s table.

May peers down at the bright green and white gift card in her hands.

“Nice job,” I tell her.

“Yeah, you’re lucky today, Gran.”

May waves a hand in the air. “Pish-posh. No such thing. I am blessed and I don’t need this gift card. You should take it,” she says to Elliot.

“No.” He shakes his head. “You use it.”

“You know very well I do not drink coffee.”

Elliot’s brows pinch together. “Yes, you do. One cup every morning.”

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