Under the Mistletoe: A Blythe College Holiday Story Page 2

  “Or ever,” I added with a sharp look aimed at him.

  My son wisely kept his mouth shut as he nodded, but his sister’s curiosity was already piqued. “What bad word?”

  “Nothing, sweetie.” Lexi ran her hand down Marie’s hair. “Eat your pancakes while I run upstairs to take a quick shower.”

  I snagged Lexi by her waist before she made it past me. “You need to eat something too, baby. It’s going to be a long day, and you’re not going to start it on an empty stomach.”

  She twined her arms around my neck and grinned up at me. “I love how even after all these years, you still think you’re the boss of me.”

  “Only because I am.” I smirked at her and winked, waiting for her to react to me pushing her buttons. I loved when my feisty wife got all fired up; it only made the spark between us burn even brighter.

  She never disappointed me, and today was no exception. “It’s cute that you think that when you’re oh, so wrong.”

  “Dad is too the boss,” Tanner grunted around a bite of pancake.

  Marie glared at him from across the table. “Nuh-uh. Mommy’s the boss of everything.”

  “I’ll let you take care of this little argument while I get ready for my day.” She patted me on my chest before pressing her finger against my lips when I was ready to remind her again that she shouldn’t skip breakfast. “And don’t worry; I already snuck two pancakes and a slice of bacon while I was cooking.”

  “Bacon?” Tanner echoed, jumping up from his seat to circle around the counter and snag the paper towel-lined plate piled high with his favorite breakfast meat. Before he set it on the table, he grabbed five slices for himself. The greedy little shit would’ve eaten the entire pound if we let him, so I wasn’t going to complain when he took less than half of it.

  After giving Marie a piece, I filled my plate and sat down to eat with my kids. Lexi treated us to her favorite breakfast at least once a week, and her pancakes were fucking incredible. It didn’t take long for us to finish off everything she’d made, and I sent the kids upstairs to change out of their pajamas. I’d just carried the dirty dishes over to the sink when Lexie came back down, her hair pulled up in a ponytail and her lips shiny from her favorite lip balm. “How in the hell do you always manage to look so fucking gorgeous when you get ready so damn quickly?”

  “Maybe I have some of Santa’s magic?” she teased with a grin.

  “I wish,” I grumbled, my lips curling down in a frown. “If you did, then I wouldn’t be stuck going to the store and could spend the day with you guys like I’d planned.”

  She didn’t seem very sympathetic when she jerked her thumb over her shoulder and suggested, “You’d better get going before our youngest starts to ask pesky questions like where you're headed and can she come with you.”

  “Good call.” I crossed the room and pulled her against my chest, pressing a finger under her chin to tilt her head back so I could claim her mouth. “But first, I need a kiss to help me get through the shitty morning ahead.”

  3

  Alexa

  Marie’s last-minute request for Santa put a crimp in my plans to get a few things done while Drake wrangled the kids after breakfast. So I wasn’t a happy camper when I had barely finished loading the dishwasher, and she came back into the kitchen and asked, “Can we make cookies to put in the baskets, too?”

  Baking another batch of cookies after making what felt like eleventy billion of them over the past week wasn’t something I really wanted to do. But I couldn’t refuse when my daughter’s generous nature was one of the things I loved most about her. A couple of days ago, we had put together baskets of holiday crafts and presents to bring over to the homeless shelter today. There was already a nice selection of treats inside, but adding some home-baked cookies would be a nice touch. “Sure, sweetie.”

  “Yay,” she shrieked, doing a cute little dance before running over to the pantry to start pulling out the container with sprinkles and other baking decorating stuff.

  Tanner walked into the room and rushed over to help before she dropped the whole thing. “Careful, sis.”

  “I coulda done it,” she muttered, jutting her chin out as she followed her brother over to the counter.

  Knowing how fixated she could get on doing things herself, I suggested, “How about you get a stick of butter out of the fridge?”

  Her expression brightened. “Okay.”

  “Do you want to help, too?” I asked Tanner.

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “There’s a video game calling my name.”

  I pointed my finger at him. “One hour tops. When your sister and I are done with the cookies, you need to be ready to head out.”

  “You got it,” he agreed with a grin before sprinting out of the kitchen. Marie usually pestered him to let her play, too, so he probably wanted to make the most out of his uninterrupted time on his video game console.

  I couldn’t blame him—I’d love to have an hour to myself right about now. Instead, I had cookies to bake and a bunch of other things to get done before the day was over. “Okay, let’s get everything else we need to make the cookies. I’m guessing you’d like to do sugar cutouts since you grabbed all the decorating stuff?”

  “Uh-huh.” Marie’s answer sounded distracted, and when I glanced over at her, she was rummaging through the decorating bin to find her favorite holiday sprinkles and colored sugars.

  While she was occupied with that task, I grabbed the rest of the ingredients and set them next to the stick of butter Marie had already gotten out of the fridge. Then I pulled a mixing bowl and my stand mixer out of the cabinets. After whisking together the flour, baking powder, and salt, I beat the butter and sugar together in the mixer before adding egg and vanilla. Then I added the dry ingredients to the wet mixture until everything was blended together. Once that was all done, I divided the dough into two batches, rolled it out, covered it with parchment paper, and stuck it in the fridge. “Alrighty, that needs to set in the fridge for an hour before we cut everything out.”

  “What’re we gonna do till then?” Marie asked.

  “Let’s put together some cute little boxes to put the cookies in once they’re done,” I suggested.

  She pressed her lips together and blew air out of her nose in a deep sigh. “We can’t just put them in a box after I’m done making them pretty.”

  “Why not?” I asked as I dug through the drawer of cookie cutters for her favorite holiday shapes.

  “’Cause the frosting will be all gooey.”

  My head jerked up, and I muttered, “Crap.”

  Marie stomped over to the end of the counter, where I was keeping all of the other cookies we’d already made. “I guess we could use these.”

  I was surprised to find her pointing at the cookies she’d decorated for Santa. “Are you sure, sweetie? You worked awfully hard on those to get them just right.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed again and nodded. “Santa gets lots of cookies. I think he’d want me to share with those kids.”

  My heart melted over how sweet my girl was. When she asked why we were doing the baskets, I’d struggled with how to explain homelessness to my five-year-old. I’d decided to give her as much of the truth as I felt she could handle and explained that some families were having a hard time right now and didn’t get many presents or treats over the holidays. It had been enough for her to want to help pick stuff out for the baskets until they were practically overstuffed.

  Since the dough would be fine in the fridge until later today, I quickly rinsed out the bowls and whisks before tossing them into the dishwasher. Then I dried off my hands and grabbed the extra holiday bakery boxes from the pantry. Spreading everything out on the table, I suggested, “How about you pick which cookies go into each basket?”

  That seemed to cheer Marie back up, and she clapped her hands together. “I can do that!”

  We put four cookies into six of the boxes and added them to the baskets. Then I readjusted the cell
ophane wrapping and the ribbons before calling my son downstairs. “Tanner, we’re almost ready to go!”

  A few minutes later, he ran down the stairs and grumbled, “Man, that was fast.”

  “Sorry.” I pointed at the baskets. “We decided to use the cookies we already made, and Marie is going to decorate the new batch when we get home later.”

  Tanner’s brows went up in surprise, but all he said was, “Cool.”

  “Can you hit the button to open the garage and help me carry the baskets out?” I asked, grabbing my keys off the hook hanging on the wall by the door. “And hit the button for the tailgate on my SUV?”

  “Sure.”

  Turning to Marie, I said, “Go grab your boots and coat, sweetie.”

  “Okay.” She grinned at me before running toward the front of the house, where we’d left all of her stuff after going for a walk to check out our neighbor’s lights yesterday after dinner.

  “I’ll get my stuff, too.” Tanner moved past me to follow his sister. “And I’ll help Marie with her boots.”

  “If she’ll let you.” I laughed as I slid my feet into a pair of shoes near the door to the garage before heading over to grab one of the baskets. Then I headed out to put it in the back of my SUV.

  “Hey there, neighbor,” Mike called out from the end of our driveway. He’d moved into the house next door to us back in September, after his divorce. His daughter was only a few months older than Marie, and they enjoyed playing with each other when she stayed at her dad’s house every other week.

  “Merry Christmas Eve, neighbor.” I jiggled the basket I was carrying. “Sorry I can’t wave hello, but I can’t risk messing up Marie’s pretty decorating job on these.”

  He jogged up our driveway. “Here, let me help.”

  “I’m fine.” I jerked my chin toward the back of my SUV. “Tanner already got it opened up for me.”

  Almost as though he heard me talking about him, my son came marching into the garage with another basket. He wedged his way between us to put it in the back of my vehicle. Then he grabbed the one I was carrying to do the same. “I’ll be back with another one in a sec, Mom.”

  I barely held back a giggle when my son gave our neighbor the side-eye, reminding me so much of how his dad would have reacted to Mike if he was home. “As you can see, I already have a super-strong helper. But thank you anyway.”

  “If you’re sure.” He took a couple of steps back before pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I noticed that Drake headed out earlier. I’ll be home all day if anything comes up. Emily isn’t coming over until tomorrow after breakfast, so I’m kind of at loose ends since this is the first Christmas since my ex and I split.”

  “Oh.” I felt awful for him. I couldn’t imagine not being able to do all our holiday rituals with the kids. Or seeing their faces light up when they saw all the presents under the tree in the morning. It had to be incredibly difficult for Mike. “We’re getting ready to head to the homeless shelter—”

  “You should probably double-check Marie’s boots, Mom,” Tanner suggested as he stomped back into the garage, carrying a basket in each hand this time. “She wouldn’t let me help her with them, and the laces don’t look like she tied them right.”

  “Sorry, I better go make sure they aren’t too bad.” I flashed Mike an apologetic smile. “The last thing we need is a visit to the emergency room on Christmas Eve because she tripped over her laces.”

  “Yes, of course.” He nodded as he walked backward down our driveway. “I know how stubborn they can be at this age.”

  “There was no need to scare Mr. Stuart off, Tanner. He was just being neighborly,” I chided as I followed my son back into the house.

  Tanner shook his head and sighed, “Yeah, sure he was.”

  This was why I was happy to have Drake take charge of our son so often. Raising a mini-alpha in training was tough on a mom sometimes.

  4

  Drake

  After striking out on my first two attempts, I was walking into the third store of the morning when my phone rang. Seeing my gorgeous wife’s face on the screen lifted my spirits, and I smiled as I answered, “Hey, baby. Everything okay?”

  “Ew. Quit it with the lovey-dovey stuff. It’s me, Dad,” Tanner replied. “And no, everything is not okay.”

  We’d originally planned on waiting until Tanner was in middle school to get him a phone, but he’d finally worn us down and was getting one for Christmas this year. It was a gift for us, too, because Lexi and I weren’t going to miss him borrowing our phones to make calls whenever he wanted. He’d almost ended up scarred for life a few times when I’d thought Lexi was calling. It was going to be nice not to have to worry about how I answered the phone. “What’s going on?”

  “That jerk next door offered to help Mom load the stuff for the homeless shelter into her car.”

  Our newest neighbor was a single dad who seemed popular with the women on the block. The thought of Mike trying to chat up my wife while I wasn’t there pissed me the fuck off. Plenty of women who lived on our street would be more than happy for him to come knocking on their door, and that asshole was going to learn real fucking fast that the same wasn’t true for my woman. “Is he still there?”

  “Nah, I scared him off,” Tanner bragged.

  “Good boy,” I praised, my lips stretching into a wide grin. “You just earned yourself something extra from me for Christmas.”

  “Make it a rated mature video game, and I might keep the whole thing a secret from Mom,” he slyly offered.

  My grin turned into laughter. “Nice try, kiddo. But your mom has a radar when it comes to stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, but it was worth a shot,” he grumbled.

  “That it was,” I agreed.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll keep my mouth shut anyway.”

  I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t going to say anything to Lexi. He probably didn’t want her to know he’d called me to complain about Mike because it would earn him a lecture from her about being nice to our neighbors. She was too damn sweet for her own good sometimes, and my son’s call lit even more of a fire under my ass to find the damn toy Marie wanted so I could get back home before the single dad next door tried to pull any more shit.

  Deciding that the mall might be my best bet since there were several toy and department stores that I could hit up in one trip, I headed in that direction after Tanner hung up on me. There was a ton of traffic on the way there, and finding a parking spot was difficult as fuck. My mood was the furthest thing from jolly when I was finally walking through the mall’s entrance half an hour later.

  Shoppers were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. It was a damn good thing I was in shape even though I’d left my rugby career behind a decade ago because people weren’t worried about shoving or knocking other shoppers over. They were too focused on grabbing what they needed and getting out of the mall to even realize the damage they left in their wake. About a dozen people bumped into me while I was on my way to the first store. I was already grumpy when I spotted a harried-looking employee and asked, “Do you have any Once Upon a Unicorns in stock?”

  After shoving a board game on the shelf she was restocking, she turned to me with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’m looking for a Once Upon a Unicorn for my daughter. Do you have any?” I repeated.

  She burst into laughter, bending at the waist and slapping her thigh. Her giggles were loud enough to draw the attention of a man who I assumed was the store manager based on the button-down shirt his name tag was pinned to. His confused gaze darted toward me before he walked closer to her and asked, “What’s going on, Mindy?”

  “This guy”—she jerked her thumb in my direction—“wanted to know if we have a Once Upon a Unicorn he could buy.”

  To add insult to injury, the manager joined in on her laughter. But when he spotted my furious expression, he quickly pulled himself together. “Sorry, sir. You’re
about a month late. They’re one of the hottest toys of the season, and they flew off the shelves faster than we could keep up. We won’t be getting another delivery until after the start of the new year.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, not that I was grateful for their humor at my expense or their inability to help me. But at least I didn’t need to rifle through the shelves in a futile attempt to find what I was looking for. Crossing this place off my mental list, I headed to the closest department store. I really hoped that the manager was wrong, and my mission was successful. If not, my little girl was going to be disappointed tomorrow morning, and I’d feel like an utter failure as a father.

  My morning only got worse as the hours dragged on. As I walked out of the mall empty-handed, I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. Yanking my cell phone out of my back pocket, I hit the third person down on my recent calls.

  “Merry Christmas Eve!” my mom greeted through the line.

  “Bah humbug,” I growled as I stomped through the parking lot.

  Since I loved the holidays, my mom knew right away that something was going on. “What’s wrong?”

  “When Lexi was putting Marie to bed last night, our sweet daughter announced that she’d changed her mind about what she wants from Santa,” I explained as I pressed the unlock button on my key fob.

  “Ah, last-minute Christmas wishes can be tough. What did she ask for?” my mom asked.

  I barely stopped myself from punching the steering wheel after I climbed into my car. “A Once Upon a Unicorn. They’re a stuffed—”

  “Unicorn with a hardcover book with it as the main character,” she finished for me.

  “And they’ve apparently been sold out every-fucking-where for the past month,” I growled.

  My mom’s laughter filled the car as my phone switched over to Bluetooth. “I’ve experienced the same level of frustration many times when you or Drea decided you wanted the hottest toy of the season. Frantically searching the stores at the last minute is a rite of passage for parenthood. Only you’ve had it easy since you can usually just buy everything online if you want.”