The Twelve Dates of Christmas (6 page)

“Really?”

“Really. Apparently they stopped off somewhere for coffee after the banquet and talked for over an hour.” She took a deep breath. “Basically, Lex, it sounds like they
both
had a really great time.”

I have to admit it, I was stunned. For a while there, I'd started to assume that my little get-Cam-a-new-girlfriend project could take all year.

But I shook it off. After all, this was exactly what I'd wanted. Okay, so maybe I hadn't expected it to happen right now, or with this particular girl. Then again, Alexander Fleming probably hadn't expected to discover penicillin when he'd noticed that mold in his petri dish. And just look how that turned out.

“That's great!” I told Allie. “If they really do like each other, that means it's time for the
real
work to begin. It's not like Cam is just going to suddenly kick
me to the curb because a cute girl smiled at him and he kinda liked it.” I shook my head fondly. Gentlemanly indeed! “No, we're definitely going to have to push this along if we want it to have any chance of sticking.”

“What do you mean,
we
?” Allie frowned. “Uh-uh, no way. Don't include me in that. I did my part by setting up the Jaylene thing, and I feel weird enough about that.”

“Okay, chill. You're right; you did your part. You're off the hook for the rest.” I knew that if push came to shove, she'd back me up on whatever I needed. That was what friends were for. But she was such an incurable romantic that I knew I shouldn't be surprised if she wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the thought of helping Cam move on.

She nodded, then cleared her throat. “Um, so what do you have in mind, anyway?” she asked cautiously.

I held back a smile. Allie was incurably curious, too.

“Well, I hadn't really thought about it yet,” I said, my mind already clicking into high gear as it worked through the next
stage of this plan. “But Cam already volunteered to be on Mom's food committee. So I guess I can start by getting Jaylene on the committee too, so they'll have to spend lots of time together. . . .”

Nick swung the roll of snowflake-print wrapping paper like a golf club, connecting with a pudgy little tube of silver ribbon and sending it flying into the rec room wall with a solid
thwack
. He nodded with satisfaction as the ribbon unraveled its way to the floor, then turned to face me.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” he said. “You want me to have a man-to-man talk with Cam about how he should dump you?”

“Sort of.” I tied off the bow on the empty box I'd just finished wrapping. Nick and I were supposed to be working on the fake gifts that would go under the town's Christmas tree, though he wasn't working on them very hard at the moment. “You'll need to be way more subtle about it than that. Just remind him that he should never be afraid to go for what he wants or do what's best for him. That kind of thing. You know, guy stuff.”

“Yeah.” Nick snorted. “Guy stuff. Got
it. 'Cause we guys just love a nice chat about relationships and feelings and that sort of thing. Maybe we can sip some chamomile tea and have our nails done while we discuss it.”

I grinned. “Hey, whatever works for you. Remember, this is all for Cam's own good.” I set my gift-wrapped package aside and reached for another box. “I've been dropping hints for the past week and a half since their date, so your little chat is just a way to make him think about things so he can't blow it off and pretend nothing's different.”

“Hints? What kind of hints?”

I shrugged. “You know. Mentioning how I hope that whatever happens with college and stuff next year, we'll always stay friends. Turning my head or coughing whenever he looks like he's thinking about kissing me. That sort of thing.” I took a deep breath. “And tonight, I'm going to call and cancel on him for next Friday. I'll tell him I need the time to finish up the last of my applications or something.”

“What?” Nick looked startled. “You mean you're backing out of your traditional day-after-Thanksgiving date?”

I wasn't surprised by his reaction. Over the past three years, Leftover Turkey Day had been sacrosanct. Cam and I always spent the entire afternoon eating cold turkey sandwiches, snuggling on the couch watching movies, and just enjoying each other's company.

“Yeah. I have to.” I sighed. It wasn't going to be easy to purposely miss my last chance at that particular tradition. But what choice did I have? “Blowing him off for Leftover Turkey Day is guaranteed to get his attention even if nothing else does.”

Sure enough, Cam sounded shocked when I called him to pull out of our post-Thanksgiving date. “You're joking, right?” he said, sounding so plaintive that I almost changed my mind about the whole thing. “But we always get together for Leftover Turkey Day.”

“I know.” I clenched the phone tightly, glad that I hadn't tried to do this in person. “I'm really sorry. But maybe a rain check? Say, Saturday night? I should definitely be all finished by then. We could go see the Candy Cane Carolers concert down by the lake.”

“Um, all right. Saturday night it is, then.” There was a long pause. “Good luck with those apps.” Cam still sounded disappointed and a little confused. Most guys probably would have pointed out that I could have planned to finish my applications on Saturday night instead so we could keep our Friday-afternoon date. But Cam wasn't most guys; he knew me too well. He probably assumed I had the application process planned out down to the minute. And he was far too caring and respectful to ask me to change that just in the name of tradition.

“Great, thanks. You're so understanding, Cam. A really good friend,” I said. “That's the thing I've always appreciated about you the most, you know. Your friendship.”

“Uh-huh, me too. Listen, maybe on Saturday we can talk about our costume for the Ball,” he said. “Nick and I were talking the other day and I asked him to pick up the reindeer costume just in case, but if you don't want to do that, then we only have a month left to figure something out. And you know the good ones always go early. . . .”

“Sure, maybe. There are a few things we should probably talk about on Saturday, actually. Oops! I think I hear Mom calling me. Gotta go.”

I hung up quickly. Whew! That had been harder than I'd expected. Images were flashing through my mind—me and Cam laughing over leftover turkey last year, and the year before, and the year before that . . . Me and Cam dancing together at the Ball last year, and the year before, and the year before that . . .

But I did my best to push all that aside as I picked up the phone again. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out Jaylene's number and then dialed. When she answered, I took a deep breath.

“Jaylene, hi!” I said cheerfully. “It's Lexi Michaels. Listen, what do you have planned for Saturday night?”

And just like that, the deed was done. I arranged for Jaylene to attend that Saturday night concert as well, convincing her that a very special surprise blind date would be meeting her there. The annual Carolers show was pretty informal—just bleacher seating on the lawn in Lakeside Park near
the ice-skating inlet. I figured Cam and Jaylene would spot each other once they were both there. Like I said, Jaylene tends to be pretty hard to miss.

Still, I was a bundle of nerves as I paced back and forth across my room, watching the clock hanging over my desk. It was six forty-eight. The concert started at seven.

Allie was there too, lying on my green checkered bedspread, tickling Blitzen under the chin. That cat hated just about everyone and everything else in the world, but she always tolerated anything Allie did to her, even breaking out in a raspy purr once in a while.

“There's still time to change your mind, you know,” Allie said. “You could call and tell Cam you're running late. Then we could go down there, explain to Jaylene that her date got held up . . .”

I shook my head. “I've come this far. I can't wimp out now.”

Taking a deep breath to settle the squirrels doing backflips in my stomach, I picked up the phone and hit the speed dial button for Cam's number. He answered on the second ring.

“Lexi? Is that you? Where are you?”

“Cam!” I shot a glance at Allie. For half a second I was tempted to take her advice and change my mind. But I fought the feeling. This was for the best. For
both
of us. “Um, are you at the lake?”

“Of course. The show starts in, like, five minutes. Are you on your way?”

“Not exactly. I'm so sorry, Cam. I don't think I can make it tonight after all. Something came up.”

“Are you serious? You're not coming?” It takes a lot to irritate Cam, but I thought I detected a note of irritation in his voice now. I certainly couldn't blame him—I hadn't exactly been Girlfriend of the Year lately—but it still made me feel kind of bad.

“Sorry,” I said again. “Um, I have to go. I'll explain later. Sorry.”

When I hung up, Allie was staring at me with a frown. “So that's it?” she said. “That's your great master plan? What if he just decides to leave?”

“He won't.” I set down the phone and collapsed into my desk chair. “By now the singers will be setting up. He won't want to leave in front of them—it would be rude.”

Allie couldn't argue with that. She's known Cam a long time.

“Okay,” she said. “But how do you know he'll end up hanging out with Jaylene just 'cause you stood him up? There are probably lots of other people there he could hang out with instead.”

“She's not exactly the bashful type, remember? Even if she doesn't end up assuming he's her blind date, she's sure to spot him and go over and say hi, especially after all the time they've been spending together lately on the food committee and everything.” I grabbed the phone again. “Besides, I have a spy there to make sure it all happens like it should.” I hit a different speed dial button.

“Yo,” a familiar voice answered. “Lex? Mission accomplished. Was that you who called him a minute ago? I saw him answer his cell.”

“It was me.” I mouthed Nick's name at Allie to let her know who was on the line. “So he's with Jaylene now?”

“Uh-huh. She spotted him as soon as she came in and made a beeline straight for him. They've been sitting together for, like, ten minutes.”

“Great. So where are you? You have to make sure Cam doesn't spot you, or he'll
definitely invite you to hang with them, or—”

“Relax, Lexi.” Nick chuckled into the phone. “Leave that to me,” he added, lowering his voice and putting on an atrocious attempt at a British accent. “Remember, I am Michaels.
Nick
Michaels.”

“What?” Allie whispered as I rolled my eyes. “What's he saying?”

“In case you haven't noticed, my dear cousin is actually a ten-year-old boy,” I told her. “He's living out his James Bond fantasies.”

“Hey, who are you talking to?” Nick asked.

“Just Allie,” I said into the phone. “Listen, call me if anything happens, okay? I'll be here all night.”

“Ten four.” Nick hung up, and I did the same.

Allie still looked kind of confused. “So I still don't get why Jaylene would assume that Cam's her date,” she said. “I thought you convinced her you'd set her up with some hot mystery guy.”

“Right. But I dropped just enough hints for her to assume that guy might be Cam.”

This had been the trickiest part of the plan. Jaylene knew that Cam and I were a couple, of course. But I was counting on the fact that she hadn't been around long enough—or paid enough attention—to realize just how serious a couple we were.

This was how I'd figured it would go. Thanks to my hints and the lack of other eligible guys wearing a striped scarf at the concert, Jaylene would think that Cam was her mystery date and assume that I'd set the two of them up on purpose. If I knew Cam—and I did—he would figure out the mistake quickly, but would be far too polite to tell Jaylene the truth. He would naturally assume that she'd been stood up by her real date and wouldn't want her to feel hurt and rejected. Besides, there wouldn't be much time for explanations before the concert started.

So he would play along, planning to figure out a way to let her down easy at the end of the evening. But Jaylene liked Cam—I already knew that. And she wasn't the least bit shy. . . . If she assumed I'd set them up on purpose, I figured that the good feelings left over from their earlier “date,” along with the friendship they were
building on the food committee, would take care of the rest. It was sort of like mixing chemicals in chem lab. If you put the right ones together in exactly the right proportions, you got the result you wanted.

Now all I could do was sit and wait to see whether or not I'd measured those chemicals right.

Nick finally called at around ten thirty. I'd forced Allie to stay and help keep me distracted from what might or might not be going on down at the concert. We'd spent the first part of the evening working on her college essays, and when she'd gotten bored with that we'd switched to listening to music and then to playing Monopoly. When the phone rang, I jumped up so fast that I knocked the game board off the bed. Playing pieces, dice, and fake money scattered everywhere. Blitzen, who had been napping on the rug, woke up just long enough to bat the thimble under the bed.