Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota) Page 2

  Elda leaned against the counter in a way that Holly assumed was supposed to be casual. “So, North Pole, am I right?” She said it like a bad actress in a bad movie trying to read her lines, moving her body deliberately, as if she’d forgotten how to control the muscles in her arms and face.

  Danny didn’t watch her display, which was probably a lucky thing for Elda. He seemed too busy focusing on his task at hand—navigating the tiny space behind the espresso machine while on crutches. “North Pole,” he said in agreement.

  To which Elda replied, “North. Pole.”

  This was perhaps the most pathetic mating ritual Holly had ever witnessed. Every cell inside her body groaned in second-hand embarrassment for her cousin. Maybe Holly didn’t have the physique of a model, but at least she knew how to talk to a guy and not give off the impression that she was an alien trying its darnedest to impersonate human interactions.

  Danny glanced up at Elda with a faint smile. Holly couldn’t tell if he was patronizing her or if he was truly interested in seeing this banal conversation through to its conclusion.

  Elda batted her eyelashes. Ah, she was bringing out the big guns, going in for the kill. Holly started picturing herself as a bridesmaid at their wedding. She’d survive it. She’d give a lovely toast, relaying Danny and Elda’s meet-cute to a few hundred guests. But then Elda said, “I found a really mangled dead squirrel in the street outside.”

  Danny, no doubt alarmed by Elda’s unorthodox idea of foreplay, dropped one of his crutches.

  Holly, without even thinking, dashed behind the counter and rescued the crutch from the floor.

  “I have a girlfriend.” Danny looked right at Holly, as if enlisting her help, like he was expecting her to break the news gently to her roadkill-obsessed cousin. “I really do. I have a girlfriend.”

  “Okay.” Whatever, Danny, we got it. You’re not single. “Here.” Holly handed him his crutch.

  “Thanks.” Danny’s eyes softened. He was staring right at Holly, and now her insides were melting for a whole new reason. His eyes were a striking blue, but it was more than that. She could sense Original Danny behind those eyes. His brilliant brain hid behind those eyes, analyzing the situation, working through this cousin-related foolishness. “I like your glasses,” he said finally.

  Holly opened her mouth to introduce herself, to tell him she knew him back when, but she held back. She’d been thinking about Danny forever—she’d googled him, for goodness’ sake—but he didn’t remember her. He hadn’t been waiting around, pining over her for years. He had a girlfriend. He really had a girlfriend. Holly handed him the crutch and retreated to her rightful place on the other side of the counter.

  When he finished their order, the girls grabbed their drinks and left the shop. Elda smacked herself on the forehead after the door to Santabucks had shut behind them. “Gah, he’s so cute! Maybe I should’ve gotten his name instead of talking about squirrel carcasses.”

  “Danny,” Holly blurted, her eyes down on her beverage.

  “Danny? How do you know that?”

  Holly clamped her mouth shut for a moment. She’d tipped her hand. “Um…Elda, that was Danny Garland, the dorky kid from the gingerbread competition.” She made sure to emphasize the word “dorky.”

  “That was Danny?” Elda spun around and stared at the door to Santabucks.

  “That was Danny.”

  “Well, he got cute.”

  “Nah,” Holly said. “I didn’t notice.” She’d never admit to her cousin the eight-year torch she’d carried for Danny Garland, beautiful human and king of the gingerbread contest. She’d never tell anyone that, because it was sad and moot. She’d imagined a connection eight years ago. Holly had been living that lie for too long.

  “Well, I did notice,” Elda said, “and I made a complete fool of myself. As I do.”

  Holly dropped a few coins into the bucket next to an elf collecting donations for the local food pantry. “You were fine.” Ah, the lies we tell our loved ones.

  “I was a complete goober, like always,” Elda said. “And you were cool as a cucumber.”

  Holly glanced up at her cousin, who was blowing across the lid of her beverage, making a low whistling sound. “Hey, Elda.”

  Elda stopped blowing on her drink and looked up.

  Holly wiped her cheek. “You’ve got something on your face there.”

  “Shoot.” Elda spun around and peered into the window of the nearest storefront, the flower shop. Using the window as a mirror, she wiped away the smudge on her cheek. “God, I’m so awkward. Do you think Danny noticed?”

  “No way.” Holly linked arms with her cousin. “He was definitely looking at you, but I’m positive the chocolate on your cheek was the last thing on his mind.”

  Elda rested her head on Holly’s shoulder. “I wish I had half your chill around guys.”

  Chill was all Holly had. It was self-preservation. “And I’d love to be half as hot as you are.” Holly had always assumed girls like Elda had it so easy—that all they had to do was exist, and they’d get any guy they wanted. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Elda still had her insecurities. She didn’t care about sports or music or movies. She found beauty in the things other people found disgusting. She enjoyed exploring the guts of almost everything—animals, cars, houses. The grosser and more covered in hair and scum, the happier she was. But those weren’t easy topics to pursue in the early stages of a relationship.

  “Holly, you’re totally hot. Shut up. You’re a badass and an individual. Looks like mine can only get you so far. If we Frankenstein-ed your keen sense of what not to say with my hair and boobs, we’d be unstoppable,” Elda said. “The perfect woman.”

  They totally would be. A girl with Holly’s savvy and Elda’s body would be more powerful than Wonder Woman. “We’d rule the freaking world. A guy like Danny Garland wouldn’t know what hit him.”

  Chapter Two

  Friday, December 15

  Star was thirty minutes late.

  Danny checked his phone again. No texts from her or anyone. Yet another way Danny was failing with women today. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d blurted out “I have a girlfriend!” like a jerk when he thought that girl was flirting with him in Santabucks. Oh, and then he complimented the other girl’s glasses in a way that had her looking at him like he’d just told her he wanted to make a skin suit out of her. Danny’s game with the ladies was seriously lacking at the moment, not that it was ever something to write home about.

  He grabbed a fleece and went out onto the porch to wait for Star. He checked his phone again. They were going to miss their movie.

  A minivan rolled down the street and slowed to a stop in front of Danny’s house. As the passenger’s side window slowly descended, the face of the Reindeer’s center, Marcus Carter, came into view.

  “Hey, Cap,” Marcus yelled. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for Star,” Danny said. “Have you seen her?”

  “Sure. The poms were practicing the same time we were. We’re all meeting at the arcade. Girls, too.” Marcus nodded toward the empty passenger’s seat. “Come on.”

  “Star didn’t mention plans with me?” Danny said.

  “Nope.”

  Maybe Danny’d had the date wrong, or they’d gotten their signals crossed. He had been kind of off ever since his accident. Since school got out last week, he’d had no routine. He was definitely reading too much into Star not being here. It was a scheduling mishap, full stop. Danny was just feeling insecure after his very embarrassing encounter with two cute girls in the coffee shop today.

  “I’ll come, too. It’ll be fun.” Danny nestled his crutches under one arm, grabbed the railing, and hopped down the stairs on one leg. Marcus jumped out of the car right away and tried to help, but Danny had already reached the sidewalk.

  “You’ve mastered those crutches, Cap.” Marcus walked with Danny to the minivan and loaded his crutches into the back seat. “No surpri
se there.”

  As Marcus got behind the wheel, Danny bit back questions about the team, even though he was dying to know how practice had gone, if the Reindeer were ready for the first round of the winter break tournament in Countryside two days from now. Any answer would gut him. He couldn’t guess which would hurt more—to hear they were doing fine without him or that they were in dire straits because of his ill-advised dunk attempt.

  “You coming to the game Sunday?” Marcus turned onto Main Street. It was only about four blocks from Danny’s house to the arcade. The street lamps were on but were almost unnecessary with the powerful electric glow emanating from all the houses decked out for Christmas.

  “I don’t know.” Danny scratched an itch just under the edge of his cast, something he did about six hundred times a day lately. He walked around with a pen over his ear for just this purpose. Epic under-cast scratching had taken basketball’s place in his life.

  “You should come, Cap. You’re good luck. We need all the luck we can get.”

  Did he mean they needed luck because they sucked without him, or because luck was a good thing, generally? “I’ll think about it,” Danny said. “And I’m not ‘Cap’ anymore.” All the younger members of the team called him that. “Kevin is ‘Cap’ now.”

  “Once the captain, always the captain,” Marcus said. “Hoping I’ll be ‘Cap’ next year.”

  “I bet you will be.” Danny’d had that same anticipation during his junior year, and now he’d been relegated to the sidelines.

  Kevin Snow met them just inside the arcade, Santa’s Playhouse. “You made it. They’re already in the laser tag room.” He glanced at Danny’s leg and winced. “Sorry, Dan.”

  In his quest to find Star, Danny hadn’t even thought about what they might be doing at the arcade. Of course they were playing laser tag, something Danny couldn’t do. They couldn’t just be sitting at one of the tabletop Donkey Kong games eating pizza. “No worries,” Danny said. “We’ll meet up when you’re done.”

  “We’re only playing a round or two.” Marcus waved as he followed Kevin toward the laser tag room in the back of the arcade.

  Utterly alone and feeling conspicuous, Danny went to a kiosk and purchased a game card for himself. Then he dragged a stool over to the Pac-Man machine, sat down, and started the first level. He died on the second frame, after playing for less than five minutes. He’d never been a big video game guy because he’d been too busy playing sports to invest any time in them. And Danny generally didn’t bother doing things if he might fail.

  Familiar faces popped out at Danny amid the packs of tourists. Sam Anderson and his girlfriend, Tinka, were over by the Skee-Ball games. Elena Chestnut and Oliver Prince were eating cheeseless pizza while playing Q*bert. All couples. Danny had to find Star. He was missing an appendage right now.

  He grabbed his crutches and bee-lined it for the laser tag room. “I want in,” he told Dinesh, one of the twenty-something guys who’d stuck around in North Pole after high school. He was working tonight as the laser-tag gatekeeper.

  “You’re on crutches.” Dinesh folded his arms over his green, red, and white striped uniform. Everyone who worked at Santa’s Playhouse had to dress like an actual elf.

  A voice from behind Danny said, “You can’t go in there if you’re on crutches.”

  Danny’s head swung around. Dinesh’s best friend, Craig, sat alone at a table, eating pizza and drinking Mellow Yellow.

  “You don’t make the rules, Craig,” Danny said.

  “He doesn’t,” Dinesh agreed, “but he is correct. No crutches.” He pointed to the gold star on his uniform. “I’m shift manager.”

  “He takes his job very seriously,” Craig said.

  Danny dropped his crutches and hopped on his good foot over to the door. The calf muscle on his left leg was going to be double the size of his right by the time he finally got his cast off. “No crutches. Let me in.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dinesh said.

  “You’re a liability,” Craig added.

  “I’m not going to do anything. I’m not even gonna play. I’m just going to sit behind a barrier and watch. All my friends are in there. Please, Dinesh.” Pleading to Craig would’ve been in vain. “I’ll give you free coffee for a month.”

  Craig and Dinesh shared a look. Craig shook his head no, but Dinesh pulled open the door. “I’m putting my job on the line for you.”

  “I know,” Danny said. “And thank you.”

  “Stay on the floor,” Dinesh said. “You’re a spectator only.”

  Danny saluted him and hopped into a dark hallway as the door shut behind him. He pulled open the next door, and strobing neon lights assaulted him. He bounced in and grabbed the arm of the first person he saw—Marcus—both to get his attention and to hold himself up.

  “What are you doing here, Cap?” Marcus asked. “You’re gonna get hurt.”

  “I just want to hang out. Help me sit down somewhere, please.”

  He put his arm around Marcus’s shoulders, and the two of them made their way over to a little fort in the middle of the room. “Stay safe,” Marcus said, as he helped Danny sit on a foam bench in front of the main fortress, then hustled away in pursuit of their point guard.

  Hunting for Star, Danny glanced around. A trio of cheerleaders chased the point guard up a ramp. Kevin shot the school mascot right in the chest. But no Star. A sick feeling formed in his gut.

  Danny should’ve stayed out in the arcade. Really, he should’ve stayed home. This was stupid. Star was probably parked in front of his house right now.

  From inside the fort behind him, Danny heard a crash followed by a giggle. He whirled around and caught sight of his girlfriend’s platinum blond braid glowing blue in the black light. She had her arms around someone else, and Danny’s stomach lurched when he realized who it was.

  “Phil?”

  The team’s student trainer, Phil Waterston, and Star pushed each other away at the same time.

  “Danny!” Star wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “What are you doing here?”

  Good thing Danny was sitting, because this had knocked his entire world off balance. He couldn’t decide whether to cry or punch the foam barrier in front of him. “I could ask you the same thing. We’re supposed to be on a date.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, I forgot.”

  “Apparently.” Danny tried to push himself up, but he found nothing nearby to grab for balance. His good leg shook from the shock. Star and Phil. Phil and Star. Phil Waterston, the guy who had sat by Danny’s side on the floor while they waited for an ambulance not even two weeks ago.

  Phil dashed out of the fort and grabbed Danny’s elbow before he could topple over, but Danny pushed him away while simultaneously grasping for the nearest cheerleader—a freshman. She helped him stand.

  “Danny, I’m sorry,” Phil said. “It just…happened.”

  It just…happened. It just…happened that his girlfriend—the person he’d been closest to for the past six years—was cheating on him. The cheerleader helped Danny over to a foam barrier, where he rested his hands to keep balance as the girl ran off to find her friends.

  “It just happened in the middle of a crowded room where all our friends were hanging out?” That was almost the worst part. They didn’t even have the decency to mess around in private. Anyone could’ve seen. They didn’t even care if Danny found out, or if they hurt him. “This wasn’t the first time, was it?”

  “Yes, it was,” Star said. She remained in the doorway of the fort. She hadn’t run over to help Danny or plead with him. She’d kept her distance and let Phil handle the fallout. This was the person Danny had chosen to be with for six years—someone who’d cheat on him without hesitation and then let her new guy act as cleanup crew.

  Phil glared at Star. “No, it wasn’t. But we only ever kissed, that’s it.”

  Danny’s brain stalled on the image of Star and Phil—Phil!—intertwined. He waved his arms
, but he almost toppled over. “I really don’t need the details. I…” He turned to Star as he clutched the barrier to stay upright. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you just break up with me?”

  She frowned and glanced at his leg. “Danny.”

  “Oh, good. You stayed with me out of pity. Super.” She didn’t care about him. Maybe she’d never cared about him. “Well, I guess this saves you from having to be the bad guy.” Danny glanced around, searching for Marcus or Kevin or anyone who might be able to help him to the door. Everyone stayed hidden, either as part of the game or to avoid blowback from the Danny/Star/Phil triangle. Danny hopped toward the exit. He had to do this on his own.

  “Seriously, Danny. Let me help you.” Phil reached for Danny’s arm.

  Danny yanked it away. “I’m fine, Phil.” He had to get out of here. His entire chest tightened, like it was about to burst into ugly, blubbering tears. He couldn’t cry in front of his entire team, and he definitely couldn’t break down in front of Star.

  Using columns of neon padding as his lifeline, Danny bounced on one leg across the floor and out the door.

  “Have fun?” asked Dinesh.

  “Best time ever.” Still wobbling on his shaky leg, Danny retrieved his crutches from Dinesh and scanned the floor. Sam and Oliver were still here, but they were with their girlfriends. Everyone was with their girlfriends, something Danny no longer had, which was a completely foreign concept to him. He could barely remember not having a girlfriend. He’d taken Star being his girlfriend for granted, like he’d taken having two unbroken legs for granted. Eyes stinging, he limped to the door and out onto Main Street, which, at least, was snow free. He felt like a spectacle, a sad, girlfriend-less sack with a broken leg.

  And, ha-ha, it wasn’t like getting a new girlfriend would be an easy task for him. He couldn’t even have a normal conversation with two strangers in a coffee shop. This was the first day of his new life as a loner.