Page 55 of The Christmas Yes List

“Very. I love it. Thank you, James.”

“We’re almost guaranteed not to lose our ears to hypothermia now.”

“The ears will be staying. Absolutely.”

It occurs to me as we get into the truck that despite all we did today, I didn’t once ask him something absurd to try to get a rejection. Not once. In fact, something grinds in my chest at the very thought of doing that now.

This is all too precious.

I don’t want to lose him.

I’ll go for a rejection some other time.

Also, I do have two points today already.

Instead, I let myself relish this moment, dwell right now on the happiness blooming between James and me. I want to figure out what’s going on here.

And discovering the answer to that question, even if it means camping in zero degrees, is what I fully intend to do.

Chapter 6

“This was the stupidest idea. Whoever thought of this camping trip needs to be strung up and left for the bears.”

“You!” I say emphatically, half out of breath as we trudge up the mountain. In the dark. Frozen stiff. I throw out my hand for emphasis. Not that it matters. Because Genie can’t see my hand anyway. “It was you!”

“Me?” she cries, as though she has never heard such a ridiculous idea. “That doesn’t sound right.”

She pauses for half a minute, probably because she can’t breathe either and we’re all busy trying not to slip like that one guy. I’m still not exactly sure where he is. She grabs hold of a tree and hauls herself over a stump. “I think this is all your fault!” she announces through a fighting exhale. “I saw you, and you got me all excited thinking about the things we get to do together again.”

Not my fault.

“Then for your sake I asked the new guy to see just how into you he is, and it turns out the answer is a lot.” She wheezes through a few more breaths. “And our whole idiot group of friends”—her friends; to me these are a bunch of people I knew in band class—“apparently love me and my ideas so much they’d follow me off a bridge.”

“Well, you did ask a bunch of guys if they wanted to camp.”

“And then part of me thought, Oh, Peter will just loooove this. Like I need to impress Peter,” she spits out, as though it’s the dumbest idea she’s ever heard. “I’m an indoor cat, Chloe. I need to stay indoors. Things have changed since high school days.”

“You were never athletic, Genie. You once broke your ankle on the sidewalk.”

“It’s also the kids’ fault,” she adds self-righteously. Oh, she’s really stirred herself up now. We’re expanding blame to the town’s children.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, because they were all ‘Look, Ms. C.! A snack stand! Can we pleeeease stop at the snack stand?’”

“I bet Mrs. Reinhart didn’t let any nasty little children sway her.”

“You can bet your bottom dollar on that,” she trills. “And so, in my infinite teacherly generosity I took Emerleigh and Lake to the concession stand before the play started. And I got a little treat for myself. Coffee.”

“Well, sure. Hard work deserves treats.”

“And then Aiden and Alex and the other half of the class wanted to go. So I took them during intermission. And got a coffee treat for myself. It was only a little Styrofoam cup, you know.”

“Sure.”

“And then after White Christmas was over, I had to go to the snack stand one last time for the few kids who had missed their chance. Because fair’s fair.”

“And of course you needed a treat,” I supply.