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Genie, meanwhile, saunters over and clobbers me with a hug that just about knocks me down. The tightness of it would threaten to pop the down right out of James’s coat.

“Genie,” I croak from somewhere deep inside the blackness of her enveloping hug. Her sweater of choice today is something infinitely scratchy, and my face feels like it’s getting the exfoliation of its life. “You’re going to pop a lung.”

“It’s just so good to live in a world where I see you out in the wild.”

“I saw you last night,” I choke. I can’t see anything. I’m running out of oxygen in here.

Her hold is ironclad.

This must’ve been exactly how her childhood lizard, fish, and collection of hamsters felt under her ownership.

It could be my hearing, but it sounds like the classroom singing begins to wane.

“Keep singing!” Genie says shrilly, then begins throw-swinging me back and forth as she hums to “Joy to the World” and its newly roared fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

Then, as abruptly as the kidnapping began, it’s over, and she drops me like a hot pancake to stick out her hand at James. The sky comes back into view. I can smell the fresh air of snow again. The sweet, sweet air.

“Hi. You must be the new guy,” she says.

Oh, throw me back inside her coat—she did not say that.

But James just smiles unaffectedly back at her and shakes her hand. “James Stone. Hi. I didn’t realize Chloe had a habit of picking men off the side of the road so often.”

“We all have our little quirks,” she says with a shrug that makes me want to die. “But seriously, thanks for not kidnapping her yesterday. That was very good egg–like of you.”

James grins. “I try my best to be a very good egg.”

“What are you guys out shopping for?”

“Oh, some last-minute Christmas gifts. Odds and ends.”

Genie leans over my bag, peering in. “Oh? For people we care about? I’m a size ten, if anyone’s forgotten.” She gives me a pointed look.

In the distance, Mrs. Reinhart is staring impatiently at Genie, mentally pushing her to start walking toward the school buses and stop clogging up the sidewalk. “Ms. Carlisle!” she hiss-calls over the singing.

Genie ignores her.

The kids keep singing.

“So, James, what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“I’m visiting family for Christmas.”

“And are you staying for a long time?”

“Actually, yes, now. Worked out my new flight last night.”

I turn pink. Grin as my gaze skirts and then connects with his.

Genie looks from him to me, clearly seeing something’s up. She refocuses pointedly on James. “Tell me something, James. How do you feel about meteor showers?”

“Glad they exist.”

“And how about once-in-a-lifetime experiences?”

“Depends. If you’d asked me two weeks ago, I would have said they were overrated. Now? It’s complicated.”

“And sleeping outdoors?”