Page 9 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
Bear?Was Quiet Guygay? Sometimes, stereotypes ran true.
“Panda bear,” Quiet Guy explained. “I’d live on bamboo if my bear had its way, but wood has too many splinters for my taste. We’ve compromised on dairy and eggs.”
That absurd statement was met with murmurs of amusement and understanding.
No one questioned it at all, only moved directly into praising and enjoying the food.
The meal was merry, and Haisley wondered if it was loud enough to cover up the sound of running a bath. She decided not to risk it, and ate a very bland, boring meal of yogurt and most of a dry granola bar, reading another chapter of her book in her bathroom because that was the only place that the murmur of conversation wasn’t overly distracting.
9
TRISTAN
After dinner, Tristan helped Chef, Breck, and Darla clean the dining room and kitchen, lingering to wipe down all the cabinet handles as the rest gathered in the great room. Was he expected to hang out with everyone as they settled in to chat and play games? When he came out of the kitchen at last, unable to find anything else to do, Graham, Chef, Breck, Bastian, and Saina were playing Texas Holdem around a round table.
“Join us?” Breck offered. He was wearing a terrible Christmas sweater with blinking lights.
Tristan demurred. It would be a tight fit around the table and there wasn’t a handy chair to fit in.
Tristan wasn’t any good at bluffing, either. “Thanks, anyway,” he said. There was one free seat on the couch in front of the fire, and Tristan took it, because he thought it would look rude to ignore everyone and go back to his room. That put him next to Wrench, who always looked like he was ready to give a guy cement shoes and send him off a bridge. There were tattoos and scars visible where his shirt sleeves were slightly pushed up.
His mate, Lydia, seemed determined to draw him into the conversation. “Where are you from, Tristan? Didn’t I hear that you hadn’t seen a white Christmas before?”
“Florida,” Tristan said briefly. “Jacksonville. We’ve had snow before, but it wasn’t even enough to cover the ground. Nothing like this. I don’t think it counted.”
“No one here needs to worry about missing one this year,” Alice said, gesturing with her cider at the window. It was dark outside of the window so that mostly Tristan saw reflections of the room, but every so often, there was a soft swirl of snowflakes catching the light beyond the glass.
“We might not be able to get back into town to go shopping like we’d hoped,” Magnolia observed. “I’m glad I packed gifts for everyone just in case.”
Wait a minute…“Gifts!?” No one had mentioned gifts to Tristan, though he realized now that he definitely should have asked, rather than assuming.
There was an awkward silence and Lydia kindly said, “Oh, gifts aren’t what the season is about, of course.”
“But they’re such fun!” Gizelle said rapturously, completely oblivious to the tone of the room. “Little surprises in foil and frills. Tidbits of joy and memoria. One year, I gotkittens!” She pointed at Tristan. “Your gift will be the best.”
They had gifts forhim? Tristan felt like the ground had dropped out from beneath him. He had nothing, for anyone. Was there anything suitable in his sparse luggage? Maybe he could make something. He wasn’t a bad hand at carving little totems, but he was slow. There was no way he could maketwelveof them in the four days before Christmas. Could he? The pressure felt inescapable.
“What’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten?” Alice asked. “I remember when my Pa got me the fashion doll I’d wanted since I was six. I was twenty-two and long pastplaying with dolls when I finally got it, but it meant the world that he remembered which one I wanted.”
“Kittens,” Gizelle said firmly. “Even though Scarlet wooed one of them away.”
“Breck got me a tire iron last Christmas,” Darla giggled. “It’s kind of an inside joke.”
“I like getting ornaments for Christmas, because I’ll see them again every year and remember who gave them to me,” Magnolia said thoughtfully.
“Whiskey’s always good,” Wrench said drolly. He quickly added, “But maybe not this year.”
“A thoughtful personal recipe,” Chef suggested. “Or a kitchen utensil.”
Tristan felt like they were throwing him a bone, and realized that they might be fishing in return. “Tools were always my favorite gifts. I like useful things. I’m not much of a collector, but you can’t have too many quality tools. 10 mm sockets are always disappearing. You can’t have too many of those.”
“I dated a raven shifter once,” Breck volunteered from the game table. “He was so easy to buy for. Anything shiny would do the job. Silver. Sequins. Crumpled up ball of aluminum foil. He would have loved your gold lame fighting ring outfit, Graham. And he would have looked great in it. Darla, my love, how do you feel about gold lame?”
“Itchy and gaudy,” Darla said easily.
Graham grunted.
“You’re right,” Breck said. “Darla looks better in nothing. Speaking of nothing…”
