Page 22 of Fa-La-La-La Faking It
“Deal. Just for tonight, though.” Maple winked. Her nose shone cherry red from the cold. “This isn’t over.”
Adaline took a deep inhale of frosty air. She knew it wasn’t over. Like it or not, she had to coexist with Jace for the rest of the holidays. Counting down the days was going to be like the world’s most awkward Advent calendar.
Christmas couldn’t come quickly enough.
This can’t go on until Christmas.
Jace did a walk-through of the entire lot at closing time, picking up any stray branches that littered the ground, which was rapidly being covered in a generous dusting of snow.
Snow in Texas! All night, the flurries swirling against the darkened sky had sent a buzz of electricity through the town square. People had come to opening night at the lot in droves, eager to make the most of the holiday weather. Snow was a rare and beautiful thing in the Hill Country. It was sticking to the ground for the moment but would likely melt within a day or two, and that made it all the more precious. With each frosty, pine-scented inhale, Jace remembered the winter he’d spent in Bluebonnet. The kids at school held their breaths every time the forecast dipped below freezing, praying for a snow day. They’d never gotten one that year, making tonight feel like the fulfillment of an old promise. An ending and new beginning, all wrapped up with a magical holiday bow.
But Jace’s spirits had been dashed every time he glanced Adaline’s way. She didn’t send him dirty looks or anything. Jace might’ve preferred it if she did. Instead, her expression had remained a mask of cool indifference. And that’s when she actually let herself make eye contact with him. For most of the night, she’d averted her gaze the moment his eyes met hers. The first two times, he’d chalked it up to coincidence. The third time it happened, he knew she was trying to avoid him. Aggressively so, by all appearances.
It was driving Jace crazy. He knew he should simply brush it off, but he couldn’t. Adaline was generous with her kindness. All night he’d watched her work the hot chocolate crowd with her dog, offering an easy smile as she told people about Comfort Paws and their mission of healing through unconditional love. Back at the senior center, she’d even launched a charm assault on Gus. Jace seemed to be the only person in town she had absolutely zero interest in befriending.
If she kept this up, he was going to lose his mind long before the cocoa stand closed on Christmas Eve. Adaline was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. If he didn’t know better, he might’ve thought he was emotionally invested in getting her to like him.
He wasn’t, obviously. He was simply trying to be a decent person. He’d made up for the mix-up with the town square reservation. He was working on getting Gus to be nice to her. Last night, for a minute there, it seemed as if she was coming around. Tonight, not so much.
Jace’s head told him to simply let it go. His feet, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get the message. When the last car pulled away from the Christmas tree lot with a six-foot Fraser fir strapped to its roof, Jace gently placed the fallen branches in a plastic tub in case he decided to try and propagate them. He and Adaline were the only people left in the square. Fuzzy was zonked out in his therapy dog vest beneath the gazebo, head resting on his furry little paws. Before Jace could stop himself, he stalked straight toward the gazebo, peeling off his work gloves along the way.
“Hey.” He climbed the three worn wooden steps.
Fuzzy cracked one eye open and promptly fell back asleep while Adaline crossed her arms, uncrossed them and promptly crossed them again. “Hey.”
“How did things go with the first night of the hot chocolate stand?”
“Great. I haven’t added everything up, but we were busy all evening.” She clamped the lock on the cashbox. “Thank you for this, Jace. This means a lot to Comfort Paws. I’m not sure I’ve told you yet, but I’m really grateful.”
“Grateful enough to tell me what I did?” he asked quietly.
Adaline’s lips parted, and for a second, he thought she was going to answer him, just like that. But then she blinked and her lovely face turned into a perfectly unreadable mask. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I think you do.” Jace dipped his chin to try and catch her gaze. When she finally looked him in the eyes again, the vulnerability shining in those blue-violet irises of hers made him want to wrap his arms around her and never let her go. He shoved his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from doing something utterly stupid. “Come on, Adaline. Just tell me.”
She huffed out a breath. “You seriously don’t remember fifth grade?”
“I remember I had a mad crush on you back then.” He tilted his head. “Like most fifth-grade boys, I was an idiot, but I kinda thought the feeling was mutual.”
Adaline nodded. “You’re right.”
“So you did have a crush on me.” He felt himself smile.
“I meant you were right when you said you were an idiot,” she said without an ounce of humor.
Jace’s jaw clenched. He didn’t like where this was going.
“We teased each other. That’s what kids that age do when they’re trying to make sense of feelings they’ve never had before.” A sinking feeling came over him. Hewaslike his Uncle Gus, wasn’t he? “Did I bully you?”
“No, nothing like that.” Adaline shook her head, and her eyelashes fluttered as she lifted her gaze to the sky. Jace had forgotten how bright the stars in Bluebonnet looked on a winter’s night—diamonds among the snow flurries. “We don’t have to do this, Jace. It was a million years ago.”
She was giving him an out, but he didn’t want it. He wanted to clear the air before his thoughts ran wild and he talked himself into thinking he’d been a mean, Jell-O-throwing jerk in elementary school.
“It doesn’t matter how long ago it was if it’s still upsetting you.”
“I heard your friends teasing you about liking me, okay? And instead of defending me, you said you were only being nice to me because you felt sorry for me because I still believed in Santa Claus. You thought I was weird and too much, just like everyone else did.” When her voice broke, something inside Jace broke too.
He remembered the conversation now. It had been at the school dance on his last night in Bluebonnet. His friends had teased him, and he’d said whatever he thought it might take for them to leave him alone. He hadn’t meant a word of it. All he’d wanted was to dance with Adaline before he had to tell her goodbye. He thought it was cute that she still believed in Santa. Even back then, he’d envied her innocence. Jace’s childhood innocence had come to an abrupt end the day his father had been diagnosed.
