So, This Is Christmas by Tracy Andreen

Author:Tracy Andreen [Andreen, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

DECEMBER 22

Arthur decided to take his aunt to the Gingerbread Café for breakfast next morning, a move I thought had as much to do with avoiding any possible interaction with Mrs. Buzzard post–pan fiasco as the “Christmas curiosity factor,” as he claimed in his text to me this morning.

Which, yeah. We were texting now.

Take that, Bronwyn.

I wanted to be excited about it—a cute boy texting me!—but the logical section of my brain shut that down tout de suite by pointing out that, duh, of course we’d be texting. We had to coordinate things, which required the ability to communicate, and texting was the most efficient form of communication, move on, nothing to see.

And it wasn’t as if there was an iota of flirting in our exchanges, either in word choice or subject or even emoji (though Arthur had yet to use emojis with me).

Nope. Just Arthur being Arthur and letting me know the 411 in the most basic fashion.

I suppose I should’ve been happy that he thought enough of the Gingerbread Café to show it to his aunt, that it somehow passed the undercurrent of the Perfect American Christmas test that pervaded everything about their holiday in my hometown.

But it would’ve been nice to see him. Especially after our brief foray into fake dating last night, which if this had been a rom-com we would have formalized with rules and taken to far greater lengths that included learning everything about the other person so we appeared genuine to the world at large and somehow wound up accidentally kissing because we wanted to prove to the disbelievers we were a real couple even though we weren’t, even though at least one of us (hi!) secretly wanted to be.

Alas, no.

The duration of our romance was as long as it took to walk back from the park to rejoin Dad and Grandma Jo and Aunt Esha on the parade front lines. Then we morphed back to being just Finley and Arthur. Schoolmates, like him and Bronwyn. And even that had an expiration date, though thus far I was the only one who knew that rather important factoid.

Well, and Ayisha. Kinda. Speaking of . . .

Val Limekiller was late. Again. However, this time I was happy about it because that meant Ayisha was staying later to cover Val’s morning shift and thus overlapping with mine, which also meant we could finally have that talk I wasn’t initially sure I wanted but now really, really did. I wasn’t sure how to get the ball rolling or where it might end. I thought maybe Ayisha would bring it up, but she didn’t.

Instead, she looked preoccupied all morning.

I spent most of the breakfast/brunch subtly attempting to get her attention as we served the guests, to no avail. There were three factors working against me.

One: Mr. and Mrs. Yablonski were not satisfied with their pre-ordered food substitutions and made a bit of a stink about it, which led me to . . .

Two: An interaction with a cranky (even by her standards) Mrs.

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