Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Pierce

A fter we all finish dinner, and Nolan and Ryah are in their pajamas and ready for bed, the Russells start the competition.

“Everyone has a tree in their villa. And a box of craft supplies. You have a half hour to figure out what your plan is, and two hours to execute and decorate your trees. Themes are encouraged. At two hours, pictures will be taken and posted for people to vote.” Gwen is so hyped up, I’m surprised she doesn’t have a whistle and stopwatch.

“Who is voting?” I ask, and everyone laughs.

“Mom’s Facebook friends,” Tre says.

“Pretty much the whole town of Climax Cove,” Carter adds.

“And just so you know, they aren’t always kind.” Brynn laughs along with her brothers.

Their bond is tight, and I wonder what it’s like to grow up with siblings. I had friendships in boarding school, but to have someone you grew up in the same house with who shares your blood is different.

Andrew and I share a look. He has to admit this is unusual even for him, although he appears to be eating it up with a ladle.

“Go!” Gwen shouts, and Brynn pulls me by the sleeve of my sweater toward a corner.

My eyes follow everyone else, seeing each twosome find their own private space.

“Okay, let’s think of a theme. Holiday movies?” Brynn taps the pen to her lips, and I get distracted for a moment. “ The Grinch … Christmas Vacation … ugh… why am I drawing a blank?”

She’s got me on holiday movies. I haven’t seen any unless I was forced to.

“ Rudolph … Home Alone … White Christmas , but that would be boring. Any ideas, marketing man?”

“I haven’t seen a lot of Christmas movies.”

Her mouth opens, and she stares at me. “What do you watch in December?” There’s a look on her face as if she’s genuinely concerned for me.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “But we could do a Christmas-type theme instead of a movie.”

“Like…” She waves.

“I just want to put the disclaimer out there that it’s not fair that two marketing gurus are a team!” Carter shouts from somewhere behind me.

Brynn shakes her head and pays him no attention.

“We could do a song? ‘Jingle Bells’… or the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’… what about that bloody song, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’?”

She’s nodding, contemplating my ideas. “I love ‘Twelve Days of Christmas,’ but do we have time to make all the ornaments? And they’re intricate. Like, how are we going to cut out a bunch of lords a-leaping?”

“Or maids a-milking?”

She laughs, and I love that I spurred that out of her. “Okay, next idea.” She taps the pen on her lips again. “Oh! Have you ever seen the movie, Elf ?”

I shake my head, and she groans.

“Would you be okay if I took the lead?”

“Just direct me what to do. But can you explain the movie to me?”

She nods and scoots closer so our knees touch. “He’s a guy who believed he was an elf and lived in the North Pole. When he was a baby, he snuck into Santa’s sack…” She tells me the whole story, and when she’s midway through, it starts to sound familiar.

“Is this a Will Ferrell movie?”

She nods, smiling. “You’ve seen it?”

“Bits and pieces, but I know the green-and-yellow outfit.”

“Perfect.” She puts pen to paper. “So, we’ll make little elves, and maple syrup was really big in the movie, so we’ll cut some of those. Candy canes and snowballs too. Actually no…”

Watching her mind work and spin the ideas to fruition is something I could do all night. The way she taps her pen, scribbles, and scratches out things. She’s not shy about throwing any idea out there, and I fall for her a little more during this brainstorming session.

“Everyone ready?” Gwen calls.

That half hour went way too fast.

“Go to your villas, and in two hours, you have to be standing outside your villa door.”

“The rules are somewhat strict, aren’t they?” I say to Brynn as we rush to our villa.

“We take it seriously,” she says without a glance behind her.

I catch up, but she slips on a piece of ice and falls back. My arms stretch out to catch her, but my foot catches the same piece of ice, and we both go down. The only thing I can do is maneuver us off the cement and onto a pile of snow.

“Perfect! The power couple is down. Hurry, everyone!” Carter shouts, laughing maniacally as he and Faith enter the villa next to ours.

“You okay?” I ask, but she scurries to her feet.

“We’re on the clock!” Brynn recovers quickly while I’m lying on the ground, relishing that I had her in my arms again.

I get up and follow her inside.

She’s already going through the construction paper, pulling out all the green and yellow. “Do you think you can do the maple syrup bottles? I can do the Buddies.”

“Yeah.” I nod.

“Perfect.”

I’d hoped for the two of us to have time for some conversation while we’re alone, wanted to take the opportunity to win her over a little. But she’s way too distracted by the contest for me to make any headway. Maybe that’s by design.

An hour later, our floor and coffee table look like a nursery school room, but the tree is coming together. Brynn’s drawing faces on the Buddy characters, while I make the garland. We still have the candy canes and stacks of snowballs to complete.

“You’re a genius,” I say because I never would have come up with something like this. I would have researched before deciding what I was going to do.

“No.” She shakes her head, concentrating on adding the faces with her marker.

“You know that in class, I called on you a lot to hear your theories. They were never standard. You have a gift for brand marketing.” I tape the rings of paper garland together, which is hard to do with my large fingers. But Brynn said everyone else in her family would do rings of colored garland like they used to make in grade school and insisted I do it this way.

“I do enjoy it. Figuring out the audience, the way to bring awareness. And when it succeeds, it’s kind of a high to try to do it again, you know?” Her eyes rise to meet mine.

I shake my head. “I don’t. I’ve only really ever taught it.”

She doesn’t say anything at first, and I think maybe the conversation is going to end. “Why do you want to leave teaching?”

“I feel like a fraud.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted it to anyone. It’s been about two years since I wanted to see if all my knowledge would carry out into the real world.

“Fraud?”

Thankfully, she doesn’t look up at me. I don’t want to be so vulnerable in front of her, so it’s easier if we can pretend to be busy. I continue to cut the garland.

“It’s admirable, you know? The way you and other students go into the workforce and put the principles to work. I’m sure it twists and reforms how to go into the next project. I’m retelling other people’s hypotheses and successes and failures.”

She drops the marker and leans back against the couch. “I can see that, but you always had a different spin on the material when you taught our lessons.”

Our eyes meet, and for a moment, I’m scared of what she’s going to say. She picks up her marker and goes back to drawing the faces.

“I looked forward to your lectures. Just so you know.”

I bite down my smile. “Well, I am a good-looking guy.”

She looks up through her dark eyelashes at me, her hand still wrapped around her marker. “That wasn’t the only reason.” She smiles, and it pierces my heart like a dart hitting the bull’s-eye.

I’d do just about anything to be able to push all this construction paper away, lower her to the carpet, and kiss her until her lips are bruised.

She gets up off the floor and sets the little Buddies together in a pile. “We better get working before the time runs out.”

For the last hour, we only converse about the tasks we’re completing and the overall look of the tree. Working alongside her is oddly peaceful, and the mutual respect we seem to give each other when we have an idea is encouraging. She even used my idea to have the garland come down the tree from the top rather than wrapping it around.

At the two-hour mark, we step outside, along with everyone else. They decide to start on the other side of the villas, leaving ours for last.

Andrew and Kenzie did a Santa Claus theme, making the tree an actual Santa. I’m actually surprised Andrew pulled it off, and I assume Kenzie did the majority of it since party planning is her thing. They might be our biggest competition.

Tre and Tessa’s theme was white Christmas, which was beautiful with all the intricate snowflakes they made.

Abe and Gwen decorated theirs as a snowman with a giant top hat as a tree topper.

Carter and Faith’s looked like a bunch of children decorated it.

Brynn nudges my arm and nods toward the big rings of multicolored construction paper wrapped around Carter’s tree as a garland. It’s nice to have an inside joke with her, I can’t lie.

Gwen takes the pictures, then we all head back to the main house for some hot cocoa and a movie. It seems that everything is planned up to the minute, and I wonder if I’ll ever get any alone time with Brynn.

“Random selections were made before we came here so there are no fights.” Abe holds up a piece of paper and tapes it to the wall by the television.

“What’s that?” I ask Brynn, who, surprisingly, has sat next to me.

“It’s the Christmas movie list. Get ready because this week you’re getting your fix of holiday movies whether you want to or not.”

“Every year, a list is made, and we cross them off as we watch them,” Tre says, holding a sleeping Ryah to his chest.

Gwen sits in the chair next to me, sipping her cocoa. “When these three were young, they’d spend days in front of the television arguing about what Christmas movie to watch.”’

“And I always got outvoted.” Brynn glares at Carter. “How many times did I have to watch Bad Santa ?”

“Which was inappropriate.” Abe glares at his sons while everyone else laughs.

“Well, it’s not on this year’s list,” Gwen says.

Tre and Carter groan and share a look.

Brynn pulls a blanket from the back of the couch and lays it over her lap. “Press Play.”

Someone dims the lights, and the television glows in front of us.

When the opening scene comes on, everyone but me shouts, “ Christmas Vacation !”

Then they all point at one another and argue about who said it first.

When Andrew said they were competitive, I had no idea how much.

I’m starting to like it and them. Which is probably a good thing, because if I want to have a chance with Brynn, I need to want them to be part of our lives. They’re all clearly close to one another, and they mean a lot to her.

Family.

Still a concept I have a hard time comprehending.