Holiday Madness: A Boyfriend Thief Christmas Story (3 page)

My stomach churned. A huge
chunk of something that felt like the hot dog I’d had for dinner
earlier was working its way up my esophagus.

“I don’t think I can do this,”
I said.

Zac wrinkled his nose. “Do
what?”

I flailed my arms. “This! The
Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop.”

He patted me on the shoulders.
“Yes, you can. You have to.”

I crossed my arms, scowling as
he bent back over his pile of Christmas junk. Specks of glitter had
fallen off one of the Santa Claus hats onto the beige carpet I had
vacuumed that morning. He didn’t even seem to notice the mess he
was making. He never noticed the messes he created, like he
expected everyone to just deal with it and live the same way he
did.

“
I don’t
have
to do anything, Zac.”

Zac sighed. “Okay, sorry.
You’re right, you don’t have to do it. But it was your idea.”

“
No,” I said, my teeth clenched hard. “My idea was a canned
food drive. Which no one paid any attention to. All of this
insanity is
your
idea.”

“Yes, and I would really
appreciate it if you would dance tomorrow.”

Fury bubbled
inside me. My neck felt hot and my collar itched at my skin. “Why?
So you can bask in all the glory of putting this together? Everyone
is so in love with your idea, but they never even bothered to
notice what I was trying to do all along! So now
you
can be on TV and in
the newspaper, with everyone admiring how brilliant you are and
how
you
got people
in this town to think about someone other than themselves?
Meanwhile, I’m just the stupid giant hot dog, doing a stupid dance
for a stupid fundraiser!”

When Zac’s expression turned
from confusion to hurt, I realized what I’d said.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, my
tantrum deflating fast. “I didn’t mean your idea is stupid—”

“That’s what it sounded like,”
Zac said, his voice flat. He turned the box right side up and began
tossing things into it.

“It’s not stupid,” I told him.
“It’s not you. It’s me. I don’t want to dance in front of everyone.
Especially not on TV.”

“You’ve danced in front of
people before,” Zac pointed out.

“That’s different!”

“How?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, but I
couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to be the center of attention, with
all of those eyes on me while I humiliated myself. I didn’t like
for people to laugh at me. Even now, even after how far I’d come
with my insecurities, I didn’t want to be the giant hot dog dancing
for hours on stage while people laughed.

“If you thought my idea was
dumb, you should have told me two days ago.” Zac stood and hefted
the box up on his hip. “You would have saved me all this work for
such a stupid idea.”

“Zac,” I said.

But he stomped out of the
house, slamming the front door behind him.

Christmas Eve.

I stared up at the ceiling, not
wanting to get out of bed. Once I got up, I’d have to face a day of
dancing in a giant hot dog costume. A day of my boyfriend being mad
at me. A day of being laughed at.

I grabbed my phone and checked
for text messages. Nothing. I had texted Zac at least twenty times
after he’d left my house the night before, but he still hadn’t
responded. I wanted to call him and apologize, but I also didn’t
want to give him a chance to hang up on me. It would be completely
understandable if he did, but I didn’t want to deal with the
possibility of it actually happening.

When I couldn’t avoid it any
longer, I rolled out of bed, showered, dressed, and drove over to
Diggity Dog House. Zac’s beat up car was already in the parking lot
and my stomach lurched at the sight. I parked a few spaces away and
then sat in my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel. Deep
breaths. I could get through this. I would not have a panic attack
just because I’d be dancing in a giant hot dog costume all day and
my boyfriend wasn’t speaking to me on Christmas Eve.

A knock on the window next to
my head made me jump. Molly grinned at me through the window.

“You look like you’re thinking
about running off to the Himalayas,” she said when I climbed out of
the car.

“Don’t tempt me.” I pressed a
hand to my stomach. “I don’t feel so great.”

“Have you eaten anything this
morning?” she asked.

I tried to remember everything
I’d done since I rolled out of bed. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s your problem, then. Go
inside and get a hot dog.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. “I cannot eat
a hot dog this early in the day.”

Molly grabbed my hand and
pulled me toward the door. “It’s too early for whining too. So get
in here and see what your boyfriend’s done with the place.”

When I stepped through the
glass door, I wasn’t sure that I had entered the right restaurant.
It did not look like the Diggity Dog House I knew. The ugly orange
and brown walls had been covered with sheets of cotton matting.
Colorful lights were strung all around the walls, so that it looked
like Christmas lights glowing against a snowy background. The floor
was also covered with white cotton, with lumps here and there
covered with the cotton matting to create snow drifts piled around
the room.

The tables closest to the drink
dispenser had been cleared away and a small temporary stage had
been set up, with tiny Christmas trees all around it and a
glittering disco ball hanging overhead. There was even a fake
snowman standing in one corner and a chair covered in a red cloth,
with a big red Santa's toy sack next to it.

My mouth hung open as I turned
circles, taking in the transformation. Even the sponsor posters
were nicely done and made to look like sign posts attached to giant
red and white striped candy canes. Zac had gotten more sponsors in
the last day. There had to be at least fifteen posters around the
room.

“Zac did all of this in two
days?” I asked.

“Can you believe it?” Molly
said. Even her eyes sparkled as she looked around the room. “He
said he’s been here since six this morning, setting everything
up.”

“By himself?”

Molly nodded. “I told him he
should have called and asked for help, but...” She shrugged. “Zac
likes to do things his own way.”

Yes, he did.
And he had done something amazing. He had taken my little idea of a
canned food drive and turned it into a
real
winter wonderland.

He had given us snow for
Christmas.

Mr. Throckmorton walked out of
the kitchen and clapped me on the shoulder. “I don’t know how he
did it, but your boyfriend pulled it off.” He shot me something
that I assumed was supposed to be a smile, but looked more like a
grimace. “Now we just have to hope the people come.”

“Of course they’ll come,” Molly
said. Her phone beeped and she pulled it out of her pocket to check
the text. “That’s Elliott. His parents drove him over. Poor thing
is on crutches for a couple of weeks. I’m going to go help him
inside.” She pointed at me. “You should go get into your
costume.”

Mr. Throckmorton looked at his
watch and his eyes widened. “Yes, go! We need Bob ready in five
minutes. Shoo!”

“Where’s—” But Mr. Throckmorton
pushed me toward the kitchen, not letting me get the question out.
My gaze scanned the room and the kitchen area, but there was no
sign of Zac anywhere, only my coworkers scurrying around to start
up the grill and hot grease.

He was probably busy with some
last minute preparations. It didn’t mean that he still wasn’t
talking to me.

I changed into the giant hot
dog costume in the small employee bathroom, trying to ignore the
dull ache in my stomach. If I could just see Zac and make sure
everything was okay between us, it would all be fine.

“Customers are here!” Mr.
Throckmorton shouted, pounding on the door. “We need Bob now!”

I sighed, then prepared myself
for a day of total humiliation.

It’s for a
good cause,
I told myself as I waddled into
the restaurant.
It’s all for a good
cause.

A cheer erupted when I walked
out of the kitchen and into the dining room. It was hard to see
well through the mesh screen, but I could make out a crowd already
packed into the restaurant.

But not just any crowd. Most of
the people in the room were dressed up. There were giant snow
people and Santa Clauses and Mrs. Clauses and elves and even a
bottle of mustard helping a bottle of ketchup balance on
crutches.

One of the Santas, an
especially round one with a thick white beard, helped me onstage. I
stood facing the crowd, waving my giant puffy-gloved hand.

“Welcome to the Diggity Dog
House Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop!” Mr. Throckmorton called out
over the restaurant’s P.A. System. “We are about to start our
canned food drive and Bob is ready to dance! Do we have an opening
request? Each can gets you five minutes of dance time.”

“I have ten cans!” one of the
snowmen shouted, holding up a plastic grocery bag. He grinned and
pointed at me. “Get dancing, Bob!”

Mr. Throckmorton took the cans
and then the music blasted through the speakers. All eyes turned to
me. I gulped as I stared out at the crowd.

“Go, Bob! Go, Bob!” someone
started to chant. Soon, the rest of the crowd followed, the sound
roaring through the tiny restaurant. People clapped and cheered and
many of them even started dancing--bouncing snowmen and Santas and
elves everywhere, arms flailing as people laughed.

The spirit in the room was
infectious. I grinned behind my face mask and let myself go,
turning into Bob the Giant Dancing Hot Dog Santa instead of Uptight
Avery.

It was the best canned food
drive ever.

Six hours later, I was a
sweaty, panting, exhausted hot dog. The TV crew had shown up and
got video of me dancing, but when I started to feel panicked, I
just danced harder.

I had danced my bun off, only
stopping a few times for food and bathroom breaks. During those few
times I was on break, a collection of Santa Clauses and elves would
take the stage in my place and dance for the crowd. The roundest
Santa sat in his chair in the corner, talking to kids and handing
out candy canes and posing for pictures. The giant bottle of
mustard helped collect the cans while the giant ketchup bottle
balanced behind the register on crutches along with four more of my
coworkers dressed as elves. Even while I danced, I could see how
busy the counter was, constantly rushing back and forth to take and
fill orders. Mr. Throckmorton was absolutely beaming by the end of
the day.

The people from Willowbrook
Helping Hands had just left with the entire collection of
cans—hundreds of them. Way more than I had imagined getting three
days ago.

“All right, time to close up,”
Mr. Throckmorton called. He looked around at the Holiday Wonderland
inside the store and shrugged. “Ah, it’s Christmas Eve. We’ll clean
this up in a couple of days when we reopen. You all go home. Merry
Christmas.”

Who was this guy and what had
he done with my stressed out boss?

Not wanting to give him a
chance to change his mind, I hurried to the back to change out of
the hot dog costume. I tossed Bob into the supply closet and wiped
at my sweaty brow, pushing sticky hair from my face. I felt good.
Zac had done a great job with everything.

My stomach churned. Zac. I
hadn't seen him all day. I didn’t want to think about what that
meant.

“You were great!” Molly called
out as she walked through the swinging door into the kitchen, the
mustard and ketchup costumes tucked under one arm.