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“I cannot be hanging in a town hall in a yeti sweater with ornaments on my nipples.”
“What if we put them on inside out?” I suggested.
“Good idea.” She peeled her sweater off and pulled it back on in reverse. I glanced over and grimaced. “How is that actually worse?”
The backside of the yeti was still a yeti, only it was a mess of tangled yarn. The ornaments pressed through the fabric like she’d put two limes down her shirt.
“Can you just take the bulbs off?” I asked, looking between her and the road.
“No. It’ll leave holes on my nipples.”
She leaned forward and put her head in her hands. Then she let out a resigned breath and sat up. “You know what? Screw it.” She took her sweater off again and put it on right. Her hair sparked with static on the second pass, little strands floating. “It is what it is,” she said. “We’ll be in ugly sweaters, we’ll both have bedhead, I won’t be contoured—we’re heroes. This is what heroes look like. I don’t even care.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you look very beautiful,” I said honestly.
“Thank you, William. I don’t believe you, but I do appreciate you.”
We watched as we passed the WELCOME TO LITTLE CHRISTMAS sign on the side of the road.
“We did it,” I said.
“We might be the best maid of honor and best man ever.”
“We deserve an award,” I said. “For all of it. And financial compensation.”
“Ha. Do you think Nick would have bailed us out of jail?” she asked.
“Oh, absolutely. I also think Wayne would have kept the handcuffs loose.”
She smiled, her hair still floating.
“Children will come through the halls on field trips. They’ll look at Nick’s wedding photos and want to know who we are,” she said. “We’ll be googled. What more can we ask for, right? We’ll be legends.”
“But only for the sweaters. Nobody will ever know what we did today,” I said, glancing at her. “Nobody will know we saved Christmas.”
A slow smile crept across her face. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Neither could I.
Then we just looked at each other. Like there was more to say, but we didn’t know what.
I remembered the first time I saw her. Three days and a hundred years ago. Pounding eggnog at the bar. The late-night prenup over ramen, the drive down to Minneapolis, the red dress. Dancing at the engagement party, walking home in the snow, looking at the stars. A bed in a cheap hotel room. Whispers in the dark.
I felt like I knew her as well as anyone I’d grown up with here. Better even.
She was déjà vu.
It wasn’t any particular situation we found ourselves in—just her.
She was somewhere I’d been and someone I’d been with. She was memories I couldn’t recall and things that hadn’t happened yet that I remembered anyway.
I guess you could fall in love in three days. Whether you believed in it or not.
Fifteen minutes later we stood with our best friends while they said their vows. Lauren looked at me from her side of the ceremony. I looked from mine. She wore the ugliest sweater I’d ever seen. And it was beautiful and perfect.
And over.
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