Page 3 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

“Great, great job out there. You boys were wonderful on the ice today. And I’m not just talking about my star son.” Mom shared a mischievous wink with the three hockey guys who she clearly adored. I gathered that these two, Sawyer and Wes, were the recurring characters in my brother’s various hockey stories. I knew he had three best friends on the team, and a nightmare I didn’t know to fear confirmed itself for me when my mom furrowed her brow and started craning her neck to look around the arena for someone else. The missing link—the third stooge.

“Where is Roman? I was hoping to get a hug from my little troublemaker, even if he doesn’t deserve it after his behavior on the ice.”

Sawyer snorted, and damn it, how could he be hot even while making a vaguely horse-like sound?

“You know how he is, Mama Henning. He’s either off having a celebratory drink with a whole harem of women, or he’s sulking.”

“Licking his wounds,” Wes agreed.

“He’s definitely way more of a baby than he pretends to be,” my brother piped up, a little scolding but not without some fondness.

Oh, shit. I did remember stories about these guys, then—I tried to tune out Michael’s various hockey tales as much as I could without actively being a garbage sister, but I definitely remembered recurring characters from most of his anecdotes, and that one of them was basically his frenemy. Michael would argue that that word wasn’t very manly, but I’d just shoot back that it was accurate, and anyway, he shared a womb with me, so he wasn’t above so-called “girly” slang.

“Well, next time you boys see Roman, tell him Mama Henning misses seeing his pretty face around.” She paused, a pensive look on her face. Then it lit up, shifting to a delighted excitement that told me she’d just had what she thought was a brilliant idea. “In the meantime, though, how would you boys like to come to dinner with the family? We’re welcoming Rachel back to town. Nothing fancy, of course—just going to Candy Cane Jane’s.”

Figures that this was the first I’d heard of my own welcome-back dinner plans. And that my mom would invite two hockey dudes to it without even consulting me. I grinned to hide the fact that I was grinding my teeth, nodding when Mom looked at me with an innocent expression that saidRight, Rachel? You’re not going to be rude and not invite them, are you?Painfully, I gave a jerky nod, and my fate was sealed.

As much as I’d dreaded returning to my small town, I loved my family enough that I’d looked forward to spending some quality time with them. But it looked like my first night back home wouldn’t go quite as I pictured—as always,hockeywas getting in the way.Already.

2

RACHEL

When Rhiannon and I reluctantly pulled up to the packed parking lot of Candy Cane Jane’s, a Mistletoe staple with a more tolerably cheesy take on the Christmas theme and some freaking killer french fries, I thought it was strange how busy the place was. I struggled to find a parking spot that was roomy enough for my car—no danger of any dickwads dinging her paint if they opened their own car doors a little too wide—because I struggled to find a vacant spot at all. Usually, Jane’s didn’t have such a lively crowd until hockey season was well underway, since it was the go-to place to watch televised away games in town. But when I trudged up to the front patio, scowling at the front porch’s iconic animatronic Santa who wore a goalie’s mask, I noticed the balloons. I could see through the fake snow-covered windows that the little diner was crammed full of people too.

Oh, good Christ. My mom had pulled the ultimatemy-mommove and turned my casual welcome-back dinner into a full-on surprise party. I spotted more balloons in a variety of colors in between all of the neighbors and friends who had come to celebrate my homecoming, and I had a feeling there would be acake somewhere in there too, which was reason enough to put on my big girl pants and go in. And okay, it was kind of cute. I couldn’t be totally cynical. Mistletonians weren’t born with cynical genes—I’d just grown into the habit in my years away at college.

Well, it was now or never. I stepped through the threshold and immediately was greeted with a cacophony of “Surprise!” and “Welcome home!”—and a couple of confused, already-drunk shouts of “Happy birthday!”

I’d never seen anything so endearing and so cringe-worthy at the same time. It was a quintessential Mistletoe moment.

“Oh my God,” I let out, trying my damndest to sound happy. I smiled with some effort, but it got easier as I took in the humor of the scene. “Wow, you guys. This—this is really, uh, great. You all really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“Sure we did, silly,” Bria chimed in. “It’s not every day you come back home.”

Really, they didn’t have to do this. As I looked around at the huge crowd, I took notice of every face I knew—which was all of them. It seemed like the entire population of Mistletoe was crammed inside Candy Cane Jane’s, further scuffing up the heavily scuffed wood floor. There was our mailman, Rick, with his wife and three young sons; there was a girl I hadn’t seen since high school whose name I forgot though I did remember not being her biggest fan when we were classmates; the mayor of Mistletoe was even present, though I didn’t let that boost my sense of self-importance, since she was a known social butterfly and a member of my mom’s book club. Plus, of course, there were all of the hockey players. At least obnoxious Roman Jett seemed to have better things to do with his evening.

I was right about the cake. Michael laughed as he showed it to me, a heavily piped sheet cake with my high school senior picture airbrushed across its top. It was clearly my twin’sidea, and it did surprise me into a genuine laugh. There were drinks aplenty, and Jane herself, the sweet owner of this fine establishment, assured me I could have whatever I wanted, on the house. I was starving, so to me, that was the highlight of the whole ordeal.

As much as I appreciated my family, my town, and the kindness it took to pull this all off, I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. This whole thing seemed more like a party to show off Mom’s hosting skills than a celebration of me, since she knew this wasn’t really my scene, but she meant well. Even though she also knew I hated surprises. And my car was still packed up with all of my stuff.

It was kind of nice to see Mom in her element, flitting about the party like a cheerful fairy whose main power was to make other people feel special and welcome. I grinned and tried to bear all of the attention, the tiring pleasantries, and the blinding light of my extroverted family’s sparkling personalities as I made my way through the throngs to find my seat. My stomach growled at the prospect of having Jane’s famous pancake breakfast (served all day, thank you very much) for the first time in way too long.

It should have been easier to watch the fun and repeat the same answers that college was great and yes, it was so lovely to be back home when I was finally chowing down on a huge plate of breakfast food, but I kept noticing the overwhelming presence of my brother’s hockey bros. No matter which way I turned my head, I spotted a Santas’ jersey in my peripheral vision. It almost spoiled the pancakes for me.

Though other players had joined the party too, I kept noticing the ones Michael had introduced me to back at the ice center. Wes and Sawyer were constantly swarmed by adoring puck bunnies, but they mainly kept to their own squad, goofing off with Michael and making each other laugh. My brother wasa Henning through and through, the bona fide life of the party, and though his friends seemed more on the introverted side like me, they were clearly popular and well-liked. I didn’t really get it. I’d never “gotten it”—the popularity of our dinky little minor-league hockey team—in all the years I’d lived in Mistletoe. I chewed my pancakes with more aggression than was necessary, mentally grumbling about how hockey had to crashmyparty.

My party that I…didn’t want in the first place.

“Grumpy, grumpy,” Bria’s voice broke me out of my (admittedly grumpy) inner monologue as she came to sit beside me. “I know you were never a big town event girl, but you look like someone pissed on your pancakes, hon. Is it so bad being back in town?”

I swallowed my bite, which tasted a bit like crow. “No, I guess not. I think I’m tired more than anything.”

“It was a long day,” Bria nodded understandingly. “When you’re less zonked out, I’m dying to hear all about how things have been going for you. Congrats again on your degree, by the way. I still feel awful that I couldn’t be at your graduation.”

“You were in Bora-Bora,” I pointed out, smiling. “I would have rather been there too. No biggie.”

I started to settle into the happy atmosphere as Bria and I chatted. She told me about her glamorous vacation—a perk of being what she called a “childless spinster,” but I thought of as being a bad bitch—and despite her insistence that I didn’t have to get into it yet, I regaled her with the details of my past few months. Finishing school and the summer internship I’d landed at a well-regarded PR firm in my college town, thinking through next steps as I looked for jobs in my preferred field, and finally accepting my fate to return back home for a while to save up for an eventual move to someplace with more job opportunities. It was the quintessential college grad story these days.

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