Holiday Madness: A Boyfriend Thief Christmas Story (2 page)

“Lights!” Zac said. He bent
over his notebook, scribbling this at the bottom of the already
long list. “All kinds of colors. Maybe a disco ball too. For the
‘dance’ kind of feel, you know? Oh, a stage! Bob has to dance on a
stage so everyone can see him.”

I raised my eyebrows as Zac
added these newest ideas to his notebook. “Are you sure you’re not
going overboard just a bit?” I asked.

Zac gave me an exasperated
look. “It’s a dance-a-thon, Avery. Featuring a giant Hot Dog Santa.
I think this thing went overboard long ago.”

I was trying to be the
supportive girlfriend, I really was. I loved that Zac had crazy
ideas and could be so passionate about things. It was what made him
completely different from me and what drew me to him.

But there was still a little
part of me that was ticked off that I didn’t think of this idea
first. The canned food drive had been my thing. And it had taken a
lot of convincing just to get Mr. Throckmorton to agree to it in
the first place. Now Zac had this crazy idea and Mr. Throckmorton
was all over it with no hesitation at all. Since when did Zac care
about canned food drives?

And even though I loved Zac, I
had to admit that sometimes he let things get out of hand. Over
summer vacation he decided to run a dog walking business to earn
some extra money. Was he satisfied with just walking four or five
dogs? No. Ten? Nope.

He somehow
found
thirty-two
dogs to walk. And then he tried to walk them all at the same
time, while cleaning up poop and keeping the dogs from fighting
with each other. He ended up getting dragged on his stomach across
the park when the dogs spotted a squirrel.

“We could do little surprises
in the meals too,” Zac went on. “Like, find the fry container with
the special hot dog sticker on it and win a prize.” He tapped his
chin. “Maybe a gift card somewhere?”

Thankfully, I was not dancing
in this Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop. I tried to avoid showing
off my terrible dance moves in front of people whenever possible.
Elliott had volunteered to do it. Zac had put me in charge of
selecting music to play during the dance-a-thon. I had suggested
Christmas music, since it was, you know, Christmas. But Zac said
people would be tired of Christmas music (probably true) and he had
instructed me to find fun, poppy dance music. So I was sorting
through his iTunes playlists, which, unfortunately, contained a lot
of songs about Fridays and dancing.

It was undeniable: My boyfriend
had a weakness for bubblegum pop. This was one of those things I
probably should have asked him before we started going out.

“Where are we supposed to get
gift cards?” I asked. “Mr. Throckmorton hopes to make money by
drawing people in for the canned food drive. I doubt he’s going to
spend money buying gift cards to give away.”

“I’ve already thought about
that.” Zac shuffled through the papers hanging out of his notebook
and then produced a bright green sheet that he handed to me.

SPONSOR THE DIGGITY DOG HOUSE
HOLIDAY WONDERLAND HOP/CANNED FOOD DRIVE!!!!!

Despite the overuse of capital
letters and exclamation marks, the flyer was well designed and
eye-catching, and provided a lot of information about what we hoped
to do.

“Do you really think anyone is
going to buy a sponsorship for our fundraiser?” I asked. “They’re
probably all doing their own things. And we only have two
days.”

“I’ve already sold four
sponsorships.” Zac grinned, looking pleased with himself.

My mouth dropped open. “When
did you do that?” How could he have gotten so much work done in
such a short time?

“This morning. I visited a few
of the shops around my dad’s store. I can be very persuasive, you
know.”

“No kidding,” I said, smirking
at him. “You did convince me to go out with you.”

Zac made an exaggerated hurt
face and clapped his hands over his heart. “You wound me. All this
time, I thought it was my exceptionally good looks that made you
crazy for me.”

I turned back to the iTunes
library. “One of us certainly is crazy. I'm not sure which.”

Zac grabbed the back of my
rolling chair and pulled it across the carpet toward him. He
swiveled me around to face him, his arms and knees fencing me in on
each side.

“Admit it,” Zac said, leaning
toward me. “You can’t resist me.”

I pretended to yawn. “Actually,
I’ve been feeling a bit bored. Where’s the life? The spontaneity?
It’s the same old thing, day in and—”

Zac leaned forward and pressed
his lips to mine, interrupting the last of my sentence. Oh, yeah,
that was another thing I liked about him. He was crazy,
hyperactive, smart, funny, and cute. And whoa, could he kiss.

“What were you saying?” Zac
asked, his lips still millimeters from mine. His warm breath
brushed across my skin as he breathed out.

I didn’t want to think about
hot dogs or dancing or the annoyance I still couldn’t push aside at
Zac taking over my project. “I forgot.” I wrapped my arms around
his neck, shivering as tingles spread through my body when our lips
met again.

“Don’t forget to donate to our
canned food drive!” I called out to the couple as they left with
their hot dogs and onion rings to go. Cringing, I added, “And have
a Diggity Dog day!”

Mr. Throckmorton had to be
making up all these ridiculous phrases and dances just to drive me
crazy.

As if he sensed employee unrest
in the air, Mr. Throckmorton emerged from the swinging door that
led to the kitchen area where my other tormented coworkers were
trying to look busy.

“Where’s Reiser?” Mr.
Throckmorton asked, his hands on his hips.

I shrugged. I hadn’t seen Blake
all day. “I don’t know.”

“He was supposed to be here
fifteen minutes ago.” Mr. Throckmorton pulled a dingy handkerchief
from his pocket and mopped at his sweaty brow. “That boy is pushing
my limits. First the whole ketchup fiasco and now he’s late.”

I didn’t think that stepping on
a packet of ketchup on the floor and accidentally squirting a
customer in the leg really counted as a “fiasco,” but Mr.
Throckmorton had had his eye on Elliott ever since the incident. At
least it took some of the pressure off me, Mr. Throckmorton’s
former least favorite employee.

“Your boyfriend is getting
everything ready for this hop thing, right?” Mr. Throckmorton
asked, eyeing me with skepticism etched across his face.

“Yes, sir,” I answered. “I
think he has it all just about done.”

The Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland
Hop would be taking place in less than twenty-four hours, on
Christmas Eve. We’d open early just for the event, and Willowbrook
Helping Hands would come by when we closed at five to pick up all
the cans. I frowned as I looked at the small stack of corn and peas
under the Christmas tree. Hopefully Elliott’s dancing could
convince everyone to donate.

“He better,” Mr. Throckmorton
said, running a hand through his hair again. “I’m counting on the
two of you to pull this off and get some business back in here
before I go broke.”

How did I manage to get the
blame for something my insane boyfriend had come up with?

Mr. Throckmorton disappeared
into the back again while I tried to find ways to pass the time at
the counter. I swept the floor. Then I organized the packets of
ketchup and mustard so that they all faced up in the baskets. I
stacked the drink lids so they were neat and even. The stack of
small sized lids was a little shorter than the others, so I went to
the back and counted out seven lids to make them all the same
height.

If Zac were there, he’d give me
a look and say, “Avery, you’re being obsessive-compulsive again.”
It was one of the ways we worked together. He reminded me to not be
so uptight and I reminded him to focus.

Although, when he set his mind
on something, he had way more focus than anyone I knew. In just two
days, he had gotten almost everything together for the Hot Dog
Holiday Wonderland Hop. No one else would have been able to throw
this thing together at the last minute.

Maybe I was
still just a
tiny
bit jealous that Mr. Throckmorton loved Zac’s idea so much.
But I was a supportive, enthusiastic girlfriend. I could stand in
the shadows for one night while Zac got all the glory. It was for a
good cause.

Just as I felt my eyelids
growing heavy and wondered if I could actually take a nap while
standing up, Mr. Throckmorton burst through the kitchen door again.
His face was red and sweating even more profusely.

“That boy!” he roared, running
a hand through his hair and making it stick up even more. “He can’t
stay out of trouble for five seconds! He knows how important this
is, and he has to go and break his leg!”

My eyes widened. “What? Who
broke their leg?”

“Reiser.”

“Blake broke his leg?” I
gasped. “How?”

Mr. Throckmorton sucked in a
deep breath, then let it out, his nostrils whistling. “Well, maybe
not broken. He says he slipped on a patch of ice while walking out
his front door and twisted his ankle. He’s at the emergency room
now, waiting for it to be looked at.” My boss paced back and forth,
mopping at his forehead with the dingy rag again. “He can’t dance
now, not with a twisted ankle.”

My stomach had already begun
that sinking to my toes sensation before Mr. Throckmorton’s gaze
even fell on me.

He pointed a thick finger.
“You’ll do it.”

No. No. No.
No.
No.

I shook my head. “How about
Mark? Or Luis?”

“They can’t get the shuffle
right,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “You’re doing it, James. No
complaints.”

“But—”

“No complaints!” Mr.
Throckmorton called as he disappeared into the kitchen again.

Great. Just great. Of course
Elliott would twist his ankle the day before the dance-a-thon.

I pulled my phone from my
pocket and texted Molly.

Your boyfriend and my
boyfriend are teaming together to torment me. It’s a
conspiracy!

A few seconds
later, Molly texted back,
You think
everything’s a conspiracy. Calm down. Deep breaths. Nothing is as
bad as you always think it is.

Yeah, right.

Zac
arrived at my house just as I had gotten off work that night.
School was out for winter break and we had planned to spend a lot
of time together, but this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.

“I have a lot to do and not
much time to do it,” Zac said as he stepped into my house. He
carried a box overflowing with Christmas lights and ornaments and
Santa Claus hats.

“What is all of that?” I
followed him into the den, where he dumped the box on the floor by
the couch. The box tipped over, spilling the contents across the
carpet. There was even more inside than what seemed possible to
stuff in a box that size.

“Decorations my mom said I
could use for the Holiday Wonderland Hop,” Zac answered. “I was
planning to go to Diggity Dog House in the morning and get
everything set up.” He dug into the stuff and found a pile of
papers clipped together. “These are the sponsor posters I’ll tape
on the walls and windows. It’s been a rush since we didn’t have
much time, but it’s all coming together really nicely. I even
called the newspaper and the local TV station to let them know what
we’re doing. The paper is going to run a notice in the events
section tomorrow and the TV station said they’ll send a reporter
out to film us for one of those feel-good holiday stories.”

Film us? By
us, he meant
me
.
Because I would be dressed as a
giant Hot Dog Santa, doing the Diggity Dog Shuffle. On television,
in front of the whole county.