Her dad handed her the trophy, and she hugged it tight to her chest for a moment. Not only was their dinner edible, but they had wonBest Dinner! Her curse was lifted. She passed the trophy to Connor so he could hold it, too.
He looked at the trophy, which had a wooden base with a slightly charred, very worn oven mitt, painted with gold spray-paint, and mounted on the base along with a very mismatched salt shaker and pepper shaker just in front of it. The front of the plaque read “Best Dinner.” “Thisis the trophy we were competing for?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. It has lots of history and stories and sentimental value.”
“Do you have a special place on the mantle all picked out for it?”
“You know it.”
As everyone was getting ready to leave and Connor was thanking her parents for inviting him, she noticed Becca’s two oldest kids, nine-year-old Erika and seven-year-old Sadie carrying between them the Glacier-themed Christmas tree.
Once Connor finished talking to her parents, the girls approached him, and Erika said, “Our mom said that your hotel room is probably sad because it doesn’t have any decorations, so we want you to take this Christmas tree with you so it’ll be happy.”
Connor immediately crouched down so that he’d be closer to the girls’ heights, told them how much he loved the tree, how touched he was that they would let him take it with him, how amazing it was going to make his hotel room look, and how honored he felt to be able to put the tree in his room.
Her nieces were absolutely beaming. When Katie glanced at her sister and brother-in-law, she saw that they were, too. She looked back in time to see Connor stand again, checking out the details of the tree, looking like he genuinely appreciated it.
Was she being swept off her feet? Seeing hearts? Maybe a little. He had been pretty fantastic today. But anything could be faked for a day. Her feet were going to stay firmly planted on the ground and the hearts brushed away from her vision because she was determined to keep that skepticism in place for a little while longer.
six
CONNOR
It snowed a bit.The big storm hadn’t come in yet— this was officially the “warm before the storm,” and left just enough snow on the roads to really slow down traffic and make the drive between the arena to Mountain Springs that would normally take forty minutes take Connor nearly twice that long.
His nerves were getting more and more frayed the longer past one o’clock— the time he was supposed to arrive at Mountain Springs Elementary— that the clock climbed. This was his first town activity, and he was going to be late. He hated being late. And beyond that, he had some unexplainable need to impress Katie, and being late wasn’t going to do it.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so inexplicable. At some point last night, he had to admit that he wasn’t just enjoying the competition— he was enjoying Katie. He was attracted to her and wanted to impress her. All while not wanting to get involved with her, of course, since he’d be gone by the end of the season.
Because he’d been traded to the Glaciers so late in the Christmas season, many of the activities they probably would’ve asked him to participate in if he’d been there all month werepast. He didn’t know much about today’s activity other than it was at the elementary school, which was fine. He liked kids.
He just wished he didn’t have to go there today. It was a home game day, so most of the team started off the day with a workout before their mandatory team meeting, followed by a morning skate. This morning was only his second time practicing with his new team, and tonight would be his first game with them. He’d usually try to get a workout in after the morning skate, but had to skip today.
When he got into his rental car to head to Mountain Springs, most of his teammates were heading home for a pre-game nap because that was what they did to play their best. Outreach stuff like this usually only happened on non-game days. Adding it in today was hard, but with the short timeline they had to work with, it had to happen.
Whenever he wasn’t focused on how slow traffic was moving, he was thinking about tonight’s match-up, and thinking about plays— the ones he used on his own team and the new ones that he would be using with the Glaciers. He had excited nerves before every game, but it was different this time. He didn’t have any past experience with being traded— he’d been with the Thunderstorm since he’d been drafted. It was strange to think that he’d be on the ice with a different team tonight. The Thunderstorm’s rival, no less. He needed to be getting his head in the game.
No, he needed to get his head on this town activity.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” said the anxious woman with brown hair cut into a bob and an ID badge on a lanyard that read Ms. Messina when he finally made it to the school’s front office. She didn’t even have him sign theVisitors Sign Hereclipboard on the counter— she just ushered him into the hall and said, “Let’s get you to the stage quickly.”
“Uh, the stage?”
“Oh, don’t worry— we aren’t having you perform or anything like that. That’s just where we’ve got your costume. And my, you’re a rather big guy. We didn’t know which player we were getting until yesterday so we had to guess on the size, and hopefully we guessed right.”
On the way down the hall, with her short heels clacking twice for every one step he took, she explained that the students had been collecting donations for a toy drive and that the older three grades were already in the gym, wrapping them. “You brought your jersey, right? Good, you can wear it while you’re with the older kids.”
For the younger kids, she informed him that he was going to be listening to their Christmas wishes. While dressed like Santa’s elf, so he could relay the information to Santa.
“Oh, and expect the kids to be a little… rowdier than normal today. It’s the end of the day on the last full day of school before Christmas break. You know how that gets.” No, no he didn’t. Not unless she counted the time when he was a third, fourth, or fifth grader himself. She led him to a storage closet on the stage where he could change out of his suit and into his jersey while she left to check on something with the younger grades.
Once he changed, he went down some stairs at the side of the stage, opened the door leading to the gym, and was immediately hit with a wall of noise and chaos. The stands at the game tonight weren’t likely to be this loud. Luckily, his eyes quickly fell on Katie, who already had her camera up, filming, and he smiled in relief. It was incredible how much of the stress from the day melted away simply by seeing her.
Then she put the camera down and came over to him. Her smile seemed a little hesitant, like it had been a huge problem that he wasn’t on time or because she was worried he wasn’t up to today’s task.
“It looks and sounds more chaotic than it is. That’s just the sound of so many kids talking at the same time in a room where every sound echoes. For the most part, they’re wrapping presents, like they should. They told me they want you to just grab a gift from one of those bins, find a spot at one of the tables, and wrap it while chatting with the kids around you. Then grab another present and find a spot at a different table. Easy enough?”
He nodded.
