14. Olivia

14

OLIVIA

“And now, we eat the rice porridge!”

Lars Anderssen claps his gargantuan hands together, icy blue eyes glinting with conspiratorial excitement.

We’ve just finished dinner and are about to partake in what Lars says is a peak Scandinavian Christmas tradition.

And while I’m excited to try Swedish rice porridge, I wish the moment wasn’t being overshadowed by the news I just received.

I scowl down at my phone again, but I have no new notifications.

Lars’s wife Lena—who I’ve had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with this evening—smiles cheerily as she produces a literal cauldron from beneath the table. She holds it up for the room to see. “There is a single almond hidden in here. Whoever is lucky enough to find the almond in their bowl is the winner!”

Guess I won’t be eating that .

I’ll probably stick to the pie I brought. At least I can be sure of its ingredients. Dessert was really the only meal I was concerned about tonight. Although, given Jimmy’s apparent penchant for putting literally anything and everything into his potatoes, I did have to double check his “recipes” with him.

And yes, I’m aware that I’ve just stuffed myself silly on turkey and all the fixings, but I’m a girl who always has room for dessert.

“Ooh, is it timed?” Colton asks, looking genuinely invested. They all do, actually.

These hockey players are a competitive bunch. At the word “winner,” they donned their game faces—Jake’s eyes are narrowed, Dallas is wielding his spoon, and across from me, Aaron is rolling up his shirt sleeves.

Which is ridiculous. And even more distracting to my already distracted mind, because now, those thick, muscular forearms are on display, veins slicing up his olive skin. A black leather rope bracelet is wrapped around his left wrist. I’ve noticed it a few times lately, but I haven’t thought much of it until now—for a guy who clearly considered his outfit this evening, the bracelet doesn’t exactly match his white-shirt-and-extremely-well-fitting-khakis aesthetic.

Must be yet another superstitious hockey thing.

“Nope.” Lars shakes his head, then glances around mischievously, looking not unlike a hulking blond leprechaun. “But you’re on the right track. It’s a game of who can eat the porridge and find the almond the fastest.”

“I’ve always been the fastest at shotgunning beers,” Colton boasts proudly, until he scrutinizes the cauldron and its goopy contents. “Though this might be a different beast.”

“What do we win?” Aaron pipes up.

“Ah, yes, the best part.” Lars’s eyes widen with excitement. “The winner receives the marzipan pig!”

Of course they do.

It’s so totally random that I love it, but it’s also another reason I unfortunately can’t take part in this seemingly delightful Norse tradition.

“A marzipan pig ?” For once, even Jimmy looks thrown off.

“Ya.” Lena nods solemnly. “It is very good luck to win.”

While the guys initially seemed a tad thrown-off at the mention of the marzipan winnings, the words “good luck” act as some sort of trigger. The competition turns even fiercer, the fantastically bizarre prize clearly no deterrent.

I glance at my phone again—still nothing—and look up to find Aaron watching me. “This is no time to be checking your phone, Lil Griz. This is game-face time!”

I roll my eyes. “You really wanna win a marzipan piggie that badly, Marino?”

He looks at me like I’m a total imbecile. “It’s not about what you win, it’s about being a winner.”

“Duh,” Jake adds, drawing out the word like he’s a sorority girl. Which gives me final confirmation that he has, indeed, had at least dos too many Dos Equis.

Lena begins dishing out portions of the dessert and the Cyclones players all lean forward, eagerly awaiting a bowlful. Meanwhile, I sit back in my chair, moving out of the way of the testosterone-fueled competitiveness.

And that’s when my phone buzzes on my lap.

It’s my supervisor. Finally .

When I got the email about twenty minutes ago from AmeriJet HR, I didn’t think much of it at first. Until I actually opened the email, scanned next month’s schedule and…

How, oh how, am I off for Christmas?!

It still doesn’t seem possible. I was so sure that by Christmas Eve I’d be en route to Bangkok or Bora Bora—or Timbuktu, for all I cared—that it took me a few moments to notice the little block of green on the grid, stretching from December 23rd to the 27th.

No matter how many times I refreshed and reopened the email, the block of green remained the same, glaring up at me tauntingly.

I told myself not to panic, not to stress over something I could fix. With my phone propped on my thighs under the table so as to not look completely and utterly rude to the rest of the dinner guests, I’ve since posted a trade request on our company’s internal website, and texted my supervisor and every other colleague I can think of. I’ve tried to make my messages short and sweet and not nearly as panic-stricken as I’m currently feeling.

Because so far no one I’ve contacted is willing to swap shifts with me. You’d think someone would jump at the opportunity to have the holidays off work, but so far, I’m seeing excuse after excuse. Apparently, AmeriJet pays extra for Christmas shifts, and my colleagues are eager for the dough.

As I open the text from my supervisor, my heart sinks all the more.

There’s nothing he can do.

Fricking Christmas, I tell you. I’m legitimately starting to think that Christmas magic is real, but it’s black magic that’s out to get me.

Pressure builds in my temples. On top of my general need to escape for the holidays, I obviously cannot be anywhere near my apartment during the seasonal sacrilege that is my roommates’ three-day Christmas rave.

I’m so preoccupied, chewing on my lip and texting Jing to see if she knows anyone else who might like to have Christmas off, that I barely register the bowl placed in front of me.

“Thanks,” I say with a distracted smile.

My attention still firmly focused on the three little dots where Jing is typing, I dig into my bowl.

The spoon is halfway to my lips, my eyes locked on a text notification from a colleague saying that they need the Christmas hours to pay off the “massive inflatable Santa” they’re buying this year, when Aaron suddenly stands up, leans across the table, and whacks my spoon right out of my hand.

The cutlery goes flying, hitting the gorgeous, light accent wall with a loud clank and splashing a spray of sticky beige gloop all over the place.

I blink in shock.

“The wallpaper!” I cry, dismayed mostly for the decor and not the sudden loss of my spoon.

“What the hell, man?” Jake jumps up and lurches towards Aaron, like he’s going to do… something. Goodness knows what, but something. I doubt he knows himself, because he looks confused as can be.

Aaron doesn’t spare my brother a glance. He simply sticks out a big hand, effectively holding Jake at arm’s length as he pins me with his gaze.

“You almost kill yourself right here at the table and you’re worried about my damn wallpaper?” he demands. His face is like thunder, and I notice he’s pale beneath his golden complexion.

The room has gone totally silent, all eyes turned towards us.

My eye twitches. “I… What?”

Aaron opens his mouth, looking exasperated, but before he can say anything, Jimmy pipes up. “Oh, would you look at that. Olivia won!”

I look down at my bowl, which is full of the goopy substance that I now realize is rice porridge.

And there it is, clearly exposed by my spoonful: the almond.

The almond I’d totally forgotten about.

The almond I’m totally allergic to.

Jake’s face turns ashen and he swears under his breath. His body language changes as he puts a grateful hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Woah. Thanks, man. Good catch.” He turns to address the table. “She’s allergic.”

My face grows hot.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” I say, feeling like a goldfish in a bowl, only stupider.

“Oh my gosh, Olivia, I didn’t know! I’m so sorry!” Lena wrings her hands, looking distraught.

“No. It was my own fault,” I tell her with a shake of my head. My cheeks are on fire from the near miss and also from the embarrassment of causing such a commotion. “I have an EpiPen in my bag, anyway, so nothing terrible would have happened…”

It would have just been really awkward. Even more awkward than this.

Aaron’s still looking at me, those green eyes studying my face intently.

I want to thank him. Right after the floor swallows me up. Or I run away. Anything to stop everyone else staring at me.

When Aaron speaks, I expect him to say something snarky, or admonish me for being so idiotic. Both would be entirely deserved.

Instead, he asks, “Are you okay, Olivia?”

His tone catches me off guard. It’s soft, low, almost achy in its quality. A world away from his usual faux-charm-inflected dickery. He sounds genuinely concerned for me.

I swallow, nod. “Fine. Fine. Uh, sorry for the ruckus, everyone.”

A look of relief flits over Aaron’s handsome features, and he grins.

“She was just trying to get me to perform CPR on her,” Aaron quips, and his words have the magic effect of breaking the somber tension in the room.

“I’d rather the anaphylaxis,” I retort.

Everyone laughs, and my heart calms a little more as I shoot Aaron a grateful smile.

He holds my eyes captive for another moment before he lifts his chin, then sits back down.

As conversations start back up around the table and the marzipan pig prize is presented to Jake on my behalf, the festive atmosphere quickly returns. I put my phone away once and for all, deciding that my work schedule is not worth almost taking myself out.

Lena comes over to chat with me, apologizing again needlessly until I redirect our conversation to something else. And that’s when I notice that Aaron—who’s chatting with Stefani and Randy Allen, the team’s backup goalie—keeps shooting me surreptitious glances. Like he’s keeping tabs on me, checking in to see if I’m okay.

A sudden, rather sobering thought occurs to me: Aaron Marino came to my rescue tonight like a knight in freaking shining armor.

Which means I owe him one. Big time.

But even more sobering than that… How on earth did he remember my allergy?