Chapter Seven

Bo

I was right. This gingerbread latte was way too sweet and I immediately regretted ordering the thing. I was in line for a coffee, though, and saw every patron leaving with one, so I gave in and figured I’d give it a try. What a mistake.

Just like I thought, I mused, as I swallowed another gulp and held the cup out to eye it—I needed to make a dentist appointment as soon as possible. Maybe even a doctor’s appointment so they could take my blood to test my levels. You know, the cholesterol in that thing alone could give me a heart attack.

I sat at the desk in my room and put the drink down. I didn’t even finish a quarter of it and already my stomach was sick. See, that was what happened when I listened to these people and their ramblings about how black coffee was too bitter. Well, one person in particular. . . Izzy.

I raked a hand through my hair and touched the small tree Holly left with me. It did look rather festive with the snow it was sitting on. No, no, no.

What was I thinking?

Fake snow.

Fake tree.

Fake holiday bologna.

Shaking my head, I went to check my email when there was a knock on the door. I really hoped it wasn’t Holly trying to convince me to go caroling with the rest of them tonight. She brought it up a few times already and my answer was a hard no. Nothing changed since then. Well, except that I bought a gingerbread latte, but other than that, nothing was different.

It was nearly instinct to close the door as soon as I saw who was on the other side. “Izzy.” My eyes scanned her brown hair that was free-flowing in loose waves over her shoulders, her lips that looked perfectly pink. . . okay, officially backing it up now and focusing on anything besides her lips. Oh, look, she was wearing white fuzzy boots. But noticing those only made me realize how great her legs looked, and before I knew it I was taking in her red dress, too, and how it hugged her curves. Geez, what was I doing?

“Before you go freaking out, let me explain.” Izzy’s voice interrupted my thoughts and had my eyes immediately darting back to hers.

I swallowed hard and pulled at the back of my neck. “What are you talking about? Why would I freak out?”

That was when she raised her arms up and I noticed the bags she was carrying in her hands. “The bags,” she said, tilting her head and quirking a brow. “These are what had your eyes getting all wide, right?”

Hmm, sure, let’s go with that. Because the truth had me coming off as a creeper. Worse, an ogling creeper. I lightly laughed. “You caught me. Those bags have me quaking over here.” Then I cleared my throat. “So what’s in them?”

Clearly ignoring my question, she decided to ask her own, “May I come in?” She peered behind me into the room now. “I hope you don’t mind, by the way, but Holly told me where I could find you. In all our talk the other day about the Scrooge room, you never did tell me which one you got.”

I opened the door more and stepped to the side. “No problem.”

I watched as she looked around the room, her head angling. “This room is beautiful, isn’t it? There’s just something about snow globes that are so—” she paused, clearly searching for the right word.

I tried helping, offering up, “Magical.”

Obviously surprised by my opinion that they were magical, she turned and studied me. “Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking.”

I shrugged. “They’re pretty. I used to like shaking them when I was a kid, watching the snow fall. It made me feel like there was a sliver of joy to be found in a somewhat dim world.”

She frowned and I shook my head, trying to avoid the awkward apology that my upbringing wasn’t all sugar cones and candy canes. “Anyway, what are you here for again?”

Shutting the door, I walked up beside her and watched as she placed the bags on the chair at the desk and sighed, turning around. “I came bearing gifts.”

“Better watch out,” I warned, “you might make Santa angry for stealing his job. Doesn’t he deliver the presents?”

“Cute,” she said and for the first time I heard something she said drip with sarcasm. “Call it what you will. Christmas coming early, whatever, but these are for you.”

“It’s nice you went shopping for me, but you didn’t have to.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, Bo, if ever there was a shopping emergency, this was it.”

Okay, now I was slightly scared. What was in those bags? Before I could get a word in or consider all the possibilities, she whipped out something from one of the bags.

“Ta-da!” she exclaimed, holding up a sweater of some sort against her body. “What do you think?”

I cocked a brow. “Looks a little big for you.”

“It’s not for me, silly. This is for you,” she said, shoving it at me.

I backed up, though, my hands in the air, not wanting to touch it. I shook my head. “Uh, uh, no way.” I imagined my eyes were practically bugging out of my head at this point. “You said this was a shopping emergency, but I don’t remember asking for this, this. . . thing. It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” It was green with garland and silver and gold bells hanging off of it. Are you getting the picture? Ugly was the only way to describe it. In fact, remember the reindeer one Holly wore where it was practically coming out of the sweater? This one might’ve been worse. No, scratch that, it was one-hundred percent worse.

She shook her head and tried to pawn it off on me again. “It being ugly is sort of the whole point.”

“The point in what?” Scaring young children?

“So glad you asked.”

That made one of us. “Actually, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. It’s a nice gesture, but no thank you.”

She tossed it on the bed and came closer. “Every year, Jesse—” Then she paused. “You remember Jesse, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, every year he and his wife Nancy host an ugly Christmas sweater party. It’s the most hopping party of the year and most everyone in town attends.”

Under my breath, l mumbled, “Why am I not surprised?”

She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “There’s a contest and whoever wears the ugliest sweater wins. It’s actually quite fun and there’s ga—”

I held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there. Based on the fact that you bought me a sweater and are telling me all of this, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you think I’m attending.”

She nodded and tapped her nose. “Bingo! I happen to know you’re going because you’re coming with me.”

Two words: no way. I shook my head so she’d get the picture. “I don’t think so.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you really want to go back and forth on this all day long? Or do you want to see what’s in the bags?” She reached over the chair and started pulling more stuff out.

I scratched my chin and looked over her shoulder as she pulled out packages. Laying them on the table, I took in each one.

Garland.

Lights that didn’t light, so they were fake?

Ornaments.

And more ornaments.

“Is this for my tree?”

She nodded. “Bingo again! You’re good at this,” she patronized me and rolled her eyes. It was the first bit of sass I saw from her and I had to say, I didn’t hate it. Maybe I was rubbing off on her. I shook away the thought as she continued, “Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s the tree’s destiny, remember?”

I backed up, trying to get away from all the Christmas she was tossing out on what was formerly serving as my desk. This felt like the ultimate violation of my space, but would Izzy understand that? I thought not. “Fine, I have a feeling I don’t get a say in this, so let’s decorate.” Then she’d leave and I could get on with my life, I thought to myself.

“That’s the spirit,” Izzy said, completely missing my tone and the underlying sentiment.

I reached for the tree and decided we could do this on the table, but she stopped me. “No. Leave it where you want it, so we don’t have to move it. It seems like where it is sitting on the snow is perfect.” She walked over and patted the snow around it and smiled. “Yeah, let’s do it here.”

“Whatever you say.” I walked back to the table and examined all the stuff she collected for the world’s smallest tree. “Will all this stuff fit on it? It seems like a lot.”

“Have you never decorated a tree before?” she asked, her eyebrows in the air as she waited for me to answer.

I shrugged. “I’m sure when I was little. We did a lot of stuff like this until my grandmother died.”

“How old were you?”

“Six. Maybe seven, I think.”

She whistled as she walked over and started sorting through the things, opening packages as she went. “That was a long time ago. Well, that’s okay, I’m here now and I can walk you through it. First, the lights go up.”

“They’re fake.” I couldn’t help myself, I had to say it as I tapped the plastic, painted bulbs.

She laughed. “It’s the suggestion of lights. Here, I’ll show you.” She walked to the tree and started at the top, draping the strand all around it in a circular motion until she reached the bottom. “We want them to sit on the branches, not necessarily get buried and not sit on the edge, either. Now we will layer the garland in the same way, but with garland, you want it to sit on the edges a bit more, don’t shove it in. It’s about a gentle touch.” Seemingly satisfied with the lesson she gave me, she passed me the garland.

I looked down at it and wondered if I’d get it right. No time like the present to try, and the sooner I played along, the sooner I could have my room back to myself. I walked over to the tree and mimicked her motions from before. “Like this?”

She approached and nodded. “Exactly.”

As I got to the bottom, she reached over and laid her hand on mine. “Like this when you come to the bottom,” she said as she guided my hand.

When we finished, she stepped back and looked at me. “Good job for a first timer.”

I nodded. “Now what?”

She walked back to the table and retrieved the ornaments.

“What about the star?” I’d seen it on the table. You couldn’t miss it really. It was the biggest, shiniest silver, glitter-covered thing in the mix.

“You could do it now or at the end. On a real tree I usually do it now to not drop the ornaments as I reach up there, but this guy’s so small, I think you can do it whenever you want.”

I reached for it. “I think I’d like to do it now.” I held it in my hands and studied it. This might have been the first time I really looked at a tree topper. It was nice.

I slipped it on and backed up. “It looks good.” I looked over at her and put my hands together. “What do you think?”

Her eyes met mine immediately and she grinned, her cheeks turning a soft blush. “I think,” she started in a voice lower than normal. Without looking back at the tree, still intent on my eyes, she said, “It looks beautiful.”

Clearing my throat, I clapped my hands together now to break the trance and whatever the heck was going on. “Great. Do you think the ornaments will clutter it?”

She shook her head. “No. It needs ornaments to finish the look. On my tree, I have lots of handmade ones from when I was younger. Even my father made a few, carving them out of wood. He was always inventing one thing or another when I was growing up, so working with his hands was so natural to him.”

As I listened to her talk about her father and her childhood, I felt something in my gut I wasn’t used to feeling. I didn’t know what it was. Sadness probably. Sadness for the fact that those were moments and memories I didn’t have. My parents were not the nurturing type, especially my father, who was all business, all the time.

Pulling me from my rogue thoughts, Izzy hung an ornament and stopped, asking me, “What’s the story behind the ring you wear?”

I looked down at the black band on my finger and cleared my throat. “What makes you think there’s a story?”

She angled her head. “It’s not a wedding ring and yet you always wear it. Just figured. Am I wrong?”

I touched it, spinning it around my finger before taking it off and studying the one thing I never took off. “It was my grandfather’s. When I was a boy, my grandmother gave it to me. She told me how she saved it for me. We shared the same name and it’s an initial ring, so,” I let my words trail off as I considered how much more I should say.

“His name was Bo?”

“Actually, it’s Beauregard,” I answered, then thought better of this conversation. “Geez, what’s with the third degree? Trying to collect information so you can sell it to some blog as soon as I’m out of here?” It wouldn’t have been the first time a woman betrayed me.

She frowned and lowered her voice, saying, “I wouldn’t do that.”

I watched her closely, my eyes searching hers. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I was definitely looking. Maybe for the truth. Maybe for the darkness, the bad. Everyone had some piece of that in them, didn’t they? My jaw ticked when I couldn’t find anything.

“May I say something?” Izzy asked suddenly.

“You might as well. It doesn’t seem like you resist speaking your mind often, do you?”

“Speak my mind, yes, but hurt someone, no. I’d never set out to hurt another person, even someone like you.”

My voice roared as I asked, “What does that mean?”

“I try, Bo. I really do. I like to think I’m a pleasant person, but around you, I have to work so much harder at it, trying harder to be happy just to overcompensate for your. . . your—”

“What?” I’d love to hear this.

“Bad moods! I don’t know how you can be so unpleasant all the time. It must be lonely being you, not trusting people, not knowing kindness. Frankly, I feel sorry for you,” she said and spun on her heel, almost like she was thinking about leaving.

Well, I wouldn’t stop her.

But then she turned to face me again and I could see how much this affected her, how hard she was trying. She looked almost sad. So I did the one thing I said I wouldn’t do—stop her. “Wait. Let’s try this again. After all, we have to finish decorating my tree, right?” I questioned, hoping that was enough to keep her here.

She nodded and walked closer to me again. “Izzy Rose Monroe,” she said simply, but then added, “that’s my name. Rose was my aunt’s name.”

“Izzy Rose Monroe,” I repeated. “I like that. Thank you for sharing that with me.”

She shrugged casually as she started added more ornaments to the tree. “Felt only right since you shared. I like Beauregard, by the way, it’s a nice, strong name. It suits you.”

I nodded and kept adding the ornaments that had to be no bigger than an inch or two to the tree. It was really coming together. Who would’ve guessed how nice it was having a tree you decorated? “How many more should we add?” I asked, looking at the haul she got and examining the tree. There was barely any space left.

“Lots,” she said, laughter in her voice. “All of them. We want it to look full and festive. I even got miniature candy canes that we can hang off the branches sporadically. I know how much you love candy canes.” Izzy winked at me and I laughed, remembering the day I came back to town and we ran into to each other at the coffee shop.

“Funny.”

She walked back to her bags and started digging through them. “They’re here somewhere. I went shopping with my friend and we might have overdone it.”

“I’ll say. That’s a lot of bags.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t even the half of it. I left most of them in my car. Clothes, gifts, the works.”

“The banks must love you,” I said, imagining her credit card bills.

“If I overindulge once a year, I’m okay with that. I love giving gifts. There’s something about seeing the way a person’s face lights up when you show them you thought about them. It’s like magic.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t really know what she was talking about. Aside from Mirna, who I wrote a big, fat check for every year, I didn’t really give anyone gifts. There was no one in my life who I wanted to do that for, I guessed. Louie was my best friend, but he was a dude and we just didn’t swap gifts. Take trips to golf or take in a game every once in a while, sure, but exchange gifts? We never did it. Finally, I confessed. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Izzy’s eyes connected with mine and she smiled. It started out small, but then grew, touching her eyes. I only wished I knew what she was thinking, but I shook it off, decidedly seeing the good in her, in anyone, for the first time in a long time.

“Can I ask you something?” she ventured, seemingly hesitant, likely from my overreaction before, but I was really trying here, so I nodded. “Why do you hate Christmas?”

Not sure that was a road I wanted to go down, I stuck with the same story I gave her before. “I don’t hate Christmas.”

That was when she threw leftover garland at me. “You so do! Don’t deny it. It’s so obvious. What is it about the holiday?”

Playing with the garland I caught, I started wrapping it around my hand. “I don’t know. What is it about the holiday that has everyone acting so fake all the time? It just feels so forced.” I thought back to all the smiling faces I saw when I first entered town this time around. It was ludicrous.

Waving a candy cane in the air, she laughed. “Why do you assume it’s forced? Can’t people just be happy? The weather’s nice. Decorations are quite literally everywhere you turn. How can a person not be happy?”

Giving up, I tossed the garland back at her. “Not everyone sees the good in everything. If you break it down, it’s just another day.”

“Nah,” she said, wrapping the garland around her like a boa. “Anyway, it’s okay because we’re going to fix this.”

“What?” I lifted a few candy canes from the box and started hanging them off the garland on her, not even thinking about our conversation, just enjoying the moment.

“You hating Christmas,” she reminded me, her head at an angle as she studied me.

Oh, yeah, that. As much as I thought she wanted to, she just wasn’t getting it, that much was obvious. “No, really, it’s nothing that can be fixed. I just don’t like Christmas. It’s not a big deal. Plus, it seems like something I’d have to work out on my own.” Not that I would. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and backed up, bringing my attention back to the tree. The whole reason she was here in the first place.

“You don’t. I want to help turn this around for you. Let me help,” she insisted.

“Let’s just finish my tree.”

She waved me off. “Forget what I said about covering it, it looks great!”

Sighing, I suddenly wanted to get as far from my room and Izzy as possible. “Is there anything I can say that will have you changing your mind?”

“Nope.”

“Then it seems like I’m in for a real treat.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it and we’re starting with the ugly sweater party. You’re coming,” she insisted, picking the garland up again and dancing it in front of her, as if she could entice me with that thing.

But I also knew when to give in, so I did. “Fine. I’ll go to the party.”

“You’re not going to regret it,” she said and ran up to me, enveloping me in a hug, which by the way was something else I rarely engaged in. Hugs just weren’t my thing, so it felt only natural that I so desperately wanted to escape it.