Page 50 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

I cock my head, curious. “Like what?”

He heaves a gusty sigh, his gaze floating back to the credenza. “You wouldn’t care, man. Maybe she won’t either. But I don’t have anyone else.”

His words latch onto something inside of me. I understand what he’s feeling right now, and it’s terrible. It’s exactly the way I felt when I walked into this B&B less than a year ago. It makes me want to lend a helping hand. It doesn’t hurt that this guy’s apparently Anabelle’s friend, and helping him will be like helping her.

“Sit down.” I wave toward the couch. “I’m making you a drink.”

His gaze weighs whether I’m serious, and when he decides I am, he lowers onto the sofa—only to promptly withdraw a cloth handkerchief and clean up the whiskey on the floor.

A snort escapes me as I make my way to the credenza and pour him hot chocolate, adding some cinnamon whiskey. “You always cleaning up other people’s messes?”

“Yes,” he says sadly as he regards the soiled handkerchief and then neatly folds it and sets it on the table.

I add more whiskey to his drink, fill my cup, and join him back on the couch. Handing it to him, I say, “Seems like you could use this. I might not know much, but I know how to listen.”

He regards me doubtfully, so I shrug and tell him, “Last Christmas someone drew a dick on my face in permanent marker when I was passed-out drunk, and I didn’t know how to get it off. I came here for the holidays, and Anabelle’s grandmother had to wipe it off for me.”

He starts laughing, so I keep going. “One time I got pissed off at my brother, like I was seeing red, but I couldn’t bring myself to hit him. He’s my brother. My twin. So I punched a tree and nearly broke my hand. Got an infection from all of the splinters.”

He’s relaxing, his shoulders loosening, and he takes a sip of the hot chocolate. So I go for gold. “And another time, this woman broke up with me because—”I’m dumb, is what I was going to say, but I swallow the words. “Because she realized I didn’t know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’ I tell you what, buddy. I’ve never fucked that up again.”

He slides his glasses up the length of his nose. “You didn’t know the difference betweenyourandyou are?”

Of course he latched onto that one…

“What can I say? Everyone tells you it’s important to pay attention in school, and apparently they had a point. It was never any good for me, though. I couldn’t sit still, and half of what they said went right over my head.”

He settles back into the couch cushions. Something tells mehenever had trouble paying attention in school. There’s this air smart people have—an ownership of what they say and how they say it. Anabelle has it too. It’s one of the first things I noticed about her.

Now I seem to notice everything about her—the way her hair is ten times messier at the end of the day than the start of it, because the wind seems to like her as much as I do. The way she always taps her fingers against her thumb when she’s thinking. The curve her mouth makes when she wants to smile but isn’t sure she should. All the little pieces that add up to make her the person she is.

He narrows his eyes at me, and I sense the test before it comes. “You look like the kids who made my life miserable in school.”

“The only person whose life I made miserable in school was myself.”

He sighs and sets his drink down on the table, careful to use a coaster. Then he unzips the furry blue jacket, revealing a Christmas sweater that makes me smile—Santa riding on Rudolph.

“Nice sweater.”

He narrows his gaze, but I set my drink down and lift my hands up, palms out.

“Honest to God, I’m not making fun of you, my friend.” I motion to all of the Santa Clauses positioned around the room. “I was a foster kid, so Santa was never a big deal for me. But it’s cool that you and Anabelle are into it. My brother and I used to collect comic books and these pog things. Everybody should have a thing, you know?”

He takes another sip of his chocolate as if considering, then says, “I’m a reseller. Anabelle does some of that too, but she also makes her own stuff.”

“I know. I’ve seen the Franken-Santas.”

This seems to further relax him, and he lets out a long, slow sigh. “My boyfriend was cheating on me, and when I accused him of it and showed him evidence, he called me delusional andbroke up with me. He said he’s going to throw out all of my stock if it’s not cleaned out by next Wednesday.”

If I can do one thing, it’s haul boxes. I can do that like a champ. “Where from and where to?”

He messes with his glasses, not looking at me. “Charlottesville.”

A couple of hours away, but it’s not a big deal if we have a few days.

“And where to?”

He sighs and dives both hands into his hair. “I don’t know.”

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