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He laughed. “You’re still so easy to rile.”
“You’re still…” I couldn’t finish that thought. I mean, I could have, a hundred different ways. But it was best for everyone if I didn’t.
But Cass asked, “I’m still what?”
“You’re still you,” I said before I could stop myself.
His laugh this time was awkward. “I’d hope so.”
“Do you feel different, though?” I went on. “I mean, do you feel older? Because sometimes I do, but other times it’s like high school was yesterday.”
Cass’s smile didn’t quite fade. “Yeah, I feel older. You should hear the sound my hip makes when I stand up.”
I snickered, and then got shy. Like full-on bashful, warm-cheeked, unsure what to say.
“I like your Christmas tree,” he said, turning his gaze once more to our seven-foot-tall legit blue spruce which had shed a second tree’s worth of needles all over the tree skirt and carpet.
“Thanks. You’ll notice all the ornaments are on one side. That’s five-year-olds.”
“I stare at professionally decorated trees all the time. This has much more charm.”
“Check this out.” I leaned toward the tree and clapped my hands, and the string of colored lights began to play “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
I gazed at him while he gazed at the tree. There were silver hairs–just a few–at his temples. “I kind of wish I could see you in the suit.”
He turned back to me, brows lifting. “The suit? Oh.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet you pull it off.”
“Well. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Five to nine p.m. Elfwood.”
“Do you wear a fake beard?”
“I do.”
“Can I hear your ‘ho-ho-ho’?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t just do it on command. I have to be in character.”
“Cass, come on,” I whined. And it brought back a hundred memories of the two of us wheedling each other just like that. I’d had a skin tag on my shoulder he used to tease me about—begging me to let him touch it, or worse, to let him pluck it off. I’d had it removed ten years ago; I wondered if he’d remember or care. And I used to beg him to go to the mall arcade with me and face off inCruisin’ USA.Or play nerdy board games, or pick a movie that wasn’t horror for us to cuddle up and watch.
He looked a little uncomfortable, like maybe he’d been remembering the same things. Then he grinned. “I mean, if you come to Elfwood you can.”
“Challenge accepted.” I felt a flash of guilt as I recalled the crime I’d recently committed at Elfwood. Which wasn’t a crime unless I didn’t return Peachblossom to Dr. Stephen Florris. Which I would. Even if Ada would lose all faith in Santa and Christmas and me if she didn’t open Peachblossom on Christmas morning. “Can I hear your hip?”
“My hip?”
“Yeah. the sound it makes when you stand up.”
“Oh. Uh…sure?”
I stood still, waiting.
“You’ll have to come pretty close.”
