Connor grimaced. “Mostly. Trav and I also both played on the high school baseball team, so all those players joined in, too.”
Katie stopped at a stop sign, looked both ways, then said, “And none of them thought to ask what the fight was even about?”
He chuckled. “Listen, most high school boys who are dealing with some crap in their life need a reason to fight, but they don’t necessarily need to know the reason. I don’t know if I was glad for the support, or if I was just in my own troubled world so much that I didn’t even care what else was going on.
“But the worst part about it was that someone gave me a good hit to the gut, and it made me back into the refreshment table. I was so mad that I shoved off that table to go after the guy, completely toppling it over. I spun around just in time to see the punch bowl go flying and dowse some poor girl.”
Katie raised her hand. “Hi. That was me.”
His eyes went wide. “You’re joking.”
She shook her head as she turned onto her parents’ street. “I was soaked from the top of my head to the toes of my heels.”
Connor ran his hands over his face and then around again until his fingers were steepled at the top of his nose. No way that after ten years, chance brought him into the same car with the recipient of the punch bowl that his anger had sent flying, at Christmastime, even. To add to it, that person was going to soon be videoing him as a hockey player with his new team. Was this what being mortified felt like?
He removed his hands from his face as she pulled into the driveway. “I am so sorry.”
“Connor, it’s okay. It was a long time ago. Besides, it wasn’t even my dress that got ruined— I had borrowed it from my sister.”
“I think that makes it even worse. Okay, we are going to win this contest for you. Right now.”
Katie nodded once as she put the car into park. “I’m down for that.”
“What’s at stake?”
“Officially? A trophy that we get to keep for a year, along with bragging rights. Unofficially? A curse lifted and future smack talk about me drawing the ‘Dinner’ paper abated.”
He glanced over at Noelle and Jack, the couple who were competing against them, as they pulled into the driveway next to them. Then he turned back to Katie. “Okay, we’re doing this.”
five
KATIE
This was probablythe seventh time that Katie had done the Santa Hat activity with a date as her partner. But as they hurried to grab out the bags of groceries, laughing and bumping shoulders with Noelle and Jack as the four of them all tried to go through the door first, she realized it was the first time she was going into it with confidence that her teammate was as dedicated to winning as she was. Maybe they actually had a chance.
For a moment, she internally rolled her eyes at the thought. She’d chosen theDinnerpaper, after all. Maybe if they’d drawn anything else. She never would’ve guessed that Connor Greene, of all people, would make her feel like she had someone who was very solidly on her team.
They laid out the groceries they bought for Jack and Noelle to use on one end of the long table. It had all the leaves in it, ready to seat all twenty-two of them. Jack and Noelle set out all the food items they’d bought on the other end. Then they swapped sides to see what they had to work with.
Both she and Connor started moving items around on the table, pulling things together that seemed like they fit, and itdidn’t take long to see a theme. There was a turkey breast, a big can of pumpkin pie mix, heavy cream, cranberry sauce, and mini marshmallows, like the kind they always put on top of yams. Did Jack & Noelle think they could make a Thanksgiving dinner in— she looked at her watch— twenty-seven minutes? The turkey breast was thawed and boneless and the ovens were both pre-heated, but still, twenty-seven minutes wasn’t enough time.
Katie and Connor had chosen for Jack and Noelle a bunch of random ingredients that they didn’t think would go together. But Jack and Noelle seemed to be leading them along a theme that they couldn’t possibly pull off in the amount of time that they had.
She picked up a head of cauliflower and a bag of Lay’s potato chips and, loudly enough to be heard at the other end of the table, said, “Really? Are we supposed to mash potato chips into cauliflower to make it taste like mashed potatoes?”
Noelle patted her pregnant belly and said, “What can I say? The baby loved Thanksgiving and wants it again. But we’re not telling you what you have to make at all. Besides, can you really complain when you gave us…” she picked up two items, “Hot dogs and gummy worms?”
“Fair enough,” Katie said, and couldn’t help the smile on her face. She was pretty sure that she and Connor had bought some pretty difficult ingredients to use together.
Then, in a quieter voice meant only for Connor, she said, “Seriously, though, how are we supposed to make Thanksgiving dinner in such a short amount of time?” She pulled together the other ingredients that didn’t seem to fit the theme— red and green bell peppers, Reese’s Puffs cereal, flour tortillas, and a can of pineapple chunks. She couldn’t even imagine how to use them.
Connor just looked at the ingredients for a small moment, hands on his hips, a focused expression on his face. Then he said,“The theme is just to throw us off. To keep us from thinking of other things.”
Katie eyed her sister and her brother-in-law. “Clever.”
He started moving things around, putting them in different groups. “We have pineapple and peppers. Can we use any additional ingredients besides what’s here?”
Katie nodded. “Yes. Salt, pepper, seasonings, oils, and condiments. But we have to useallthe ingredients they bought for us.”
