Chapter 9 Dane

Chapter 9

Dane

I’ve never truly believed hell exists, but I’m reconsidering tonight.

Because I think I’m there.

My phone is exploding with texts from my family and some local friends. It’s eighty-nine degrees, and I’m in an ugly Christmas sweater. Half the town is staring at me.

At us.

At Amanda and me in the middle of Reindeer Square for the annual Tinsel holiday photo shoot.

It’s not her family or my family.

Not only them.

It’s the whole town.

We’re gathered around the gazebo that has Santa and four of his reindeer on top. The townsfolk are all dressed up in some variety of reindeer antlers and jingle bells and ugly sweaters, and the town hired a drone operator to get the best shots. Shop owners use the photo in annual mailings and on their websites, and every year, Tinsel outdoes itself.

My sweater smells like cedar and mothballs courtesy of the fact that it’s lived in a cedar chest for the past fifteen years. Amanda’s mom’s cedar chest, to be precise.

She saved it since Amanda’s dad passed away.

I’m wearing my dead fake father-in-law-to-be’s ugliest Christmas sweater.

Correction: I’m sweating through his sweater.

And everyone wants to see Amanda’s ring.

And talk about how I saved Christmas at the Gingerbread House.

One, Christmas is still four months away. I didn’t save Christmas . I fixed their industrial mixer. And two—

Getting Amanda a ring was the worst thing I could’ve done.

“There’s the man of the hour,” my old English teacher says. Mr. Briggs claps me on the shoulder. He’s in an ugly Hanukkah sweater and shorts. “Never thought I’d live to see the day that a Silver would save the Andersons. And marrying one too. Don’t end this in tragedy. That’s an order.”

“No tragedies here.”

“Good. Amanda’s performance in Taming of the Shrew will always be my favorite, but that doesn’t mean I need you two going real-life Shakespeare in this town.”

“No real-life Shakespeare.”

“I mean it.”

“Mr. Briggs, my fiancé has already assured you there will be no tragedies happening here.” Amanda slips to my side and squeezes my left hand, leaving her free to lift the engagement ring for the teacher’s inspection.

It’s all anyone wants to see.

We knew it would be when we decided that we had to come to the photo shoot.

That we had to be out in public, letting our families see the town’s excitement over our impending wedding as one more solid example of why they need to pull their heads out of their asses and let this stupid feud go.

“How did you two meet? I haven’t heard the whole story,” a woman dressed like a Christmas tree says.

“Dane was on a trip to New York for work, and I was walking dogs past his hotel when he was waiting on a ride, and one of my dogs humped his leg,” Amanda says.

I slide her a look. This is a new version. Or at least new details of the version we’ve agreed on and told other people.

She throws her hands in the air. “I’m tired of not telling the truth about what Mr. Fluffles did to you that day.”

Mr. Fluffles humped my leg.

I file that one away for the questions Lorelei will have when that reaches her in approximately forty-two seconds.

“Anyway, after I got Mr. Fluffles off of Dane’s leg, I asked if I could buy him coffee to apologize. And then I realized who he was, and I couldn’t take it back without being rude, and honestly, I’ve always adored Lorelei, and she always spoke so highly of Dane that it wasn’t truly hard to want to have coffee with someone from back home. One thing led to another, and here we are.”

Amanda smiles.

Her ugly Christmas sweater is one of the gingerbread scenes from the movie Shrek .

She has an entire series of them stored at her mom’s house. It’s unexpectedly charming that she can tell a whole story with her Christmas sweaters.

Also, I was incredibly glad that her mother wasn’t home when we were going through the Christmas sweaters.

But now—“Amanda!” Kimberly calls. She’s in a blow-up gingerbread costume. “Grandma and I are over here, and they’re about to start.”

“Dane,” my dad calls at the same time from the other side of the gazebo. Like the rest of my family, he’s wearing the fruitcake version of a Green Bay Packers cheese hat. “Over here. With us. We have an extra hat for you.”

Amanda looks up at me, and she doesn’t have to say a word. The question is obvious. We’re in this together, so whose family do we both stand by?

Something shifted the minute I slipped it on her finger at Raoul’s shop.

I don’t believe in soulmates. I think love is hard work and some people are better at it than others. I think you have to be good at communicating and forgiveness if you’re going to make it work. I think we all change over time, and you can never know what life will throw at you.

But when I took Amanda’s hand and slid that ring onto her finger, it was like something off-kilter in my life fixed itself.

It makes zero sense. There’s no logic to it.

This isn’t real.

She wants to be my friend. Nothing more. And I’ll never tell her how much of a crush I had on her in high school.

Not if I want to maintain any of my dignity.

But without any discussion, we link hands again, then both turn to our respective families.

“Dane and I are staying in the middle,” she calls to her mom as I report to my dad, “We’re good here, thanks.”

Silence settles over the square.

Some people look at Amanda and me. Some subtly shift farther from us. Some angle closer. Some look at our families.

Even the fake snowmen seem to be gaping at us, waiting for whatever will come next.

“Whoopsies,” Amanda says. “We forgot to ask how much popcorn we’d need for this. Can we get this picture show on the road? My makeup is melting off, and I have a hot date tonight.”

The tension breaks as other families—not our own—crowd around us and echo the calls for the photographer to get started.

It’s hot. It’s sticky. My hand is sweating, but Amanda doesn’t let go.

If anything, she holds on tighter.

We’re both taking a massive risk of being disowned, and I don’t think I realized the full implications until just now.

There’s a rustling in the crowd around us, and it takes me a minute to realize why.

Lorelei and Esme are pushing through.

“We’re with you,” Lorelei says as they reach us.

Amanda sucks in a loud breath, then launches herself at my sister and hugs her tight.

Esme punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Doing Santa’s work here. I’m proud of you.”

“Squish in closer,” the photographer says over his megaphone. “Quit changing spots, but squish closer.”

Esme hands me a fruitcake hat.

Amanda lunges for it and puts it on her own head before I can take it, and then she smiles at me. “I love fruitcake.”

“You can keep it.”

She links her hand in mine once more and squeezes.

It’s hot. It’s humid. There are too many bodies crowded around. I want to go take another dip in the lake.

We don’t have a solution to her Gingerbread House problem yet.

And I might be on a path to tearing my family apart.

But so long as Amanda’s gripping my hand, I can survive this.

So long as she’s gripping my hand, I think I can survive anything.

And that’s exactly the kind of thinking I need to not believe in.

Now, or ever.