Page 37 of Stay this Christmas
“You good with a ride here?” I asked. She nodded. “Good. I’ll see you on Monday.”
I dragged myself away from her, weaving my way through the other bar patrons to the door. Before I stepped out into the night, I looked back at Harper.
She watched me from her seat at the bar, that look of surprise still dancing across her face.
That tiny spark of hope inside me blazed bright.
THIRTEEN
sam
I couldn’t escapethe Christmas-themed hellscapes.
They’d given Fiesta Village the holiday treatment the weekend after Thanksgiving, with two huge trees covered in fake snow, and fake presents and tinsel strands scattered throughout the lobby. Tinsel, incidentally, is fake ice. Everything in the place was shiny and fake.
But this? This was something new.
The PT and exercise room had been strung with lights, garlands, and oversized ornaments. Propped in the space between the two room doors stood a four-foot-tall plastic Santa, its bold red and white colors looking as though a jittery child had painted it.
In the far corner of the PT room, Harper leaned up on tip-toes to secure the last section of garland, her height at beautiful advantage as she stretched out. In keeping with her holiday spirit, she wore dark blue scrubs printed with white snowflakes. Not ashamed to say I committed the view to memory. Popping her heels back down, she surveyed her work, an adorable smile on her face.
Adorable but devious. I hadn’t seen this side of her in way too long.
“Did you do all this?” I asked.
She startled as she spun, one hand raised to her heart. “Geez, warn a person.”
“I could say the same to you. What’s with this abomination?” I pointed at the plastic Santa whose wide eyes and open grin could have featured in creepy campfire stories.
“That’s just Saint Nick.”
“More like Saint Nightmare.”
She walked over, that smile back on her face, the one she used to wear when she was about to beat me after slogging through hours playing Risk. The one that said she knew she had the upper hand.
“Don’t you like him? I think he’s cute.”
“You think this is cute? I’m pretty sure he’s plotting where to hide my body.”
She looked at him fondly and patted the thing on the head. It rang with a dull, hollow sound which really didn’t help his image. Less silver bells, more death knell.
“Just part of the magic of Christmas.”
“I won’t sleep for a week.”
“Okay, if you really don’t like him, I’ll keep him with me.”
She picked up the plastic horror show and set it fully inside the PT room. He looked like he was ready to make her next patient run on the treadmill until they had a heart attack. Even if I hadn’t had an aversion to Christmas already, that Santa would have made me check under my bed at night.
Tearing my eyes away from the cursed thing, I focused on Harper. “When do we start working on your list?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“I’ve got a yoga class at three, but after that, I’m open. What’s first?”
“A kickboxing class at the MMA gym on Center.” She fiddled with the ID badge clipped to the hem of her scrubs shirt. “I’ve wanted to go since they opened and I never have. So that’s what I’m doing.”
A slow smile worked over my face.Learn to kick some butt.
