Page 33 of Elf-ish

“Because you’re an atheist? Or an agnostic?”

Jude shrugs, looking off toward the trees. “I just don’t get the big deal.”

“The big deal?” I choke. “It’s Christmas.”

“But why is it important?” He turns his head back toward me, asking the same question he asked last night.

“Besides the presents and packages? The things bought from a store?”

Jude remains silent, pursing his lips and twisting them in that way he does, like he’s angered, maybe anxious. He’s waiting on an answer, and he wants it now.

“Christmas is about faith in the un—”

“Give me a real answer.” He reaches for his sunglasses, tugging them free from his face so he can look at mine with those icy eyes.

“Fine. There is something special about winter, almost magical. The snow and the silence. The cold that forces you to sit by a fire. The comfort of hot chocolate. The lights.” I wave at the ones over our heads. “The peace in them. The beauty of them. The promise that sunshine always follows darkness.”

Life goes on even when your parent dies in a drunk driving accident, a burning building, or a plane crash. Yet somehow, I’m not certain Jude has moved on. Or maybe he’s always been stuck in a role. An image. An act.

Slowly, my shoulders lower and I exhale. The Instagram images of his family flash through my head. The coordinated outfits. The false smiles.

“Who hurt you?” I whisper. Who made him so cynical? What happened to him to make him hate Christmas?

“Everyone,” he says, lowering his head. Then he pops it back up, slips on his sunglasses, and spins toward the remaining path, taking quicker steps, which force me to walk double time to keep up with him.

There is so much to say and so much to ask, and yet silence feels simpler. I don’t want to push Jude. I don’t need to know more about him.

He’s a man with a boy trapped inside him, who has lived with a life of disappointment. He’s conjured the belief that he wasn’t wanted, because he hadn’t been wanted by his father, and his mother sounds like a mess, having an affair and running off, as he said, to be with her lover, only to perish in a plane crash. I surmise his great-grandfather was long gone by then, and his dad had started a separate business.

Jude had Ashford’s, but who had Jude?

When I finally catch up to him, we only have a few additional feet before we exit the tunnel of trees, stepping back into the brilliant winter daylight. Music fills the air, and to my surprise, a skating rink is before us.

“We should ice skate,” I blurt. The rink looks like a frozen pond, complete with a portable wood hut for skate rentals, and a cart with roasting chestnuts. The strong, nutty aroma mingles with cinnamon and wafts toward us. Another cart distributes coffee or hot cocoa to the skaters.

This is straight out of a historical romance, and I’m not passing up the chance to ice skate on an actual pond.

I reach for Jude’s arm, tugging at his sleeve. “Please.” I pout, pressing out my lower lip and batting my eyelashes, which probably makes me look more like a Furby than the coquettish expression I wish to portray.

“An Ashford skis and snowboards, but they do not skate.” His tone is almost sarcastic while sounding overly aristocratic.

“Well, we’re going to change that, starting today.”

Jude lets his head drop back a second, then rolls his neck. “Fine,” he grunts, but the tone isn’t quite so dismissive as the word intends. He might even be smiling, if that grimace can be mistaken for one.

Perhaps Jude doesn’t know how to grin, other than when mentioning his sister.

Maybe smiles are as absent as Christmas for him.

And my new wish for the season is to make Jude find a reason to curl those lips in happiness.

chapter 12

[Jude]

I cannot believe we are doing this. Putting our lives at risk, balancing on a thin steel blade against thick ice. I can’t remember the last time I ice-skated. I also don’t think I can remember how to skate, and I was about to make the biggest fool of myself.

I think back to last night when I did that silly trick my great-grandfather taught me. The one where you walk forward while squatting lower and lower like you’re descending a staircase. Only I’d perfected the move in a way it looked like I was lowering on an escalator. I hadn’t done that trick in decades.