“These better be the best darn cookies in the universe,” I grumbled. I pushed open my door.
“They will,” she assured me confidently, unbuckling her belt and jumping out of the car. “They’ll be the best, most magical cookies ever.” She grabbed my hand and towed me toward the door. “And all that magic is just sitting there waiting for us.”
Chapter Two
Gideon
Once upon a time,I’d announced over Thanksgiving dinner that I was taking a job heading up the fire department in tiny O’Leary, New York, and my entire family had stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“But it’ll be so quiet,” my sister had said, wrinkling her nose. “How will you stand it?”
“You’ll be all alone,” my mother had said worriedly, and my father had finished her thought, as usual, adding, “And in those small towns, you’re a pariah if they find out you’re gay.”
Little did they fucking know.
“Gideon! Hey, Gideon, wait!” Joe Cross jogged across the street and stepped in front of me as I walked down Weaver Street with my hands jammed in the pockets of my leather jacket. “Didn’t you hear me calling you, buddy? You must be half-asleep. Here, take a flyer!”
I stopped and glanced down at the stack of red and green papers he held, then back up at Joe. He was decked in head-to-toeSanta—which, considering the man’s white beard, pink cheeks, and beer gut was less like him wearing a costume and more like him becoming the most fully actualized version of himself—and he was smiling in a way that dared you not to smile back.
Challenge accepted.
I stared at him impassively and said, “No.”
“N-no?” He blinked. “But I didn’t ask you to do anything except take a—”
“Flyer,” I finished. “I know. Angela Ross already attempted to hand me one at the fire station. Con tried to give me one on the street corner. I’m fully expecting Micah to pop out of the fucking doorway of Blooms”—I nodded toward Micah’s flower shop—“and accost me again. I’m not biting. Count me out.”
“But…” Joe looked down at the flyers in confusion. “I ain’t inviting you to church for religious conversion night, Gideon. It’s only a Santa contest, man. Gonna be held before the Light Parade a week from Saturday, and participants get twenty percent off a Christmas tree at the Ross Landscaping tree lot over by the playground. We’ll even provide the costumes! It’s all in good fun.”
“Fun.” I pursed my lips like I was tasting the word. “Joe, do you know how I spent my evening?”
He licked his lips. “Uh. No?”
“Working a double shift, fighting fires. That’sfires, Joe. As in, the fuckingpluraloffire.”
“Oh.” His face cleared. “Man. You must be beat.”
“I am,” I agreed. “I’m very definitely beat. And this morning, I need coffee more than I need oxygen. Coffee that’sright there.” I clasped his shoulder with one hand, turned him, and held my other hand out towardFanaille,shining like a caffeine-and-sugar-laden beacon in the distance. “So close I can almost taste it.”
“Morning?Heh. S’more like afternoon, Gideon. It’s after two—” I squeezed Joe’s shoulder firmly and he cleared his throat. “Though, I ah… I guess it must seem like morning, if you’ve been working all night?”
“You’d guess right,” I approved. “And Joe? Right now, you’re standing between me and the thing I need to survive. Does that sound…wise?”
“Uh. No?”
“No,” I confirmed sadly. “But worse than that? Worse thanthat? You’re trying to hand out papers that are gonna end up strewn all over the street in a few hours. You’re simultaneously creating litterandwasting precious natural resources. Are you singlehandedly trying to destroy the earth, Joe?”
“What? No! Course not! But it’s… it’s forChristmas.”
I snorted. “It’s for Christmas. Here’s a fact for you to ponder. This town can goweekswithout a fucking fire. Weeks without even a malfunctioning smoke detector! And then suddenly? Thanksgiving rolls around, and my tiny, black heart starts to beat double-time with pure fear. Do you know why that is, Joe?”
“Uh. No?”
“Because it means Christmas is coming.Christmas, as in the time of year when people purposely bring highly flammabledecaying shrubberyinside their homes, festoon it withelectrical wires, place brightly wrappedkindlingunderneath it, and say‘It’s so fucking magical.’ You know what’s not magical, Joe?”
“Uh.” His voice went up an octave and his eyes widened. “No?”
“Spending the evening standing outside in the cold pouring water on a blaze, while the wind whips the fucking spray into your hair and freezes your ears into icicles. Definitely doesnotfill a man with holiday spirit. You get me?”
