Holly managed to choke out a “fine” as she stared at the ghost from her past. She’d let her guard down for a minute to think about global warming and a dead squirrel, and now here he was.
Danny Garland was wiping down the counter. The Danny Garland. Holly had seen his recent photos online, so she was prepared for the hotness. Modern day Danny was perfection. The dorkiness was a faint memory. He no longer wore glasses. His sandy brown hair was perfectly tousled, and his arrow-like, angular nose pointed straight down to plump, pouty lips.
Danny hadn’t noticed Holly at all, at least not really. He’d glanced at her for a second, then fixed his eyes on Elda.
Holly’s world crumbled around her. The ideal scenario she’d imagined, where Danny caught sight of her, remembered their connection as kids, and fell madly and deeply in love with her, was utter fiction. Holly was the dumbass who’d failed to see the obvious. She and Elda had looked like twins when they were younger (tall, skinny girls with brown hair and brown eyes), but puberty had been much kinder to Elda. Holly’s cousin had blemish-free olive skin and medium brown hair that was so shiny it defied scientific explanation. She was the girl next door of every boy’s dreams. Holly was the girl next door who actually lived next door. Of course he was checking out Elda. Anyone with eyes would have done the same.
Holly hunched her shoulders. She’d been a fool to expect him to recognize her. She was no one. And she was not the girl she’d been at ten. Back then, she’d been a bean pole with long, brown pigtails. Now she was curvy—okay, “plus-size”—with red statement glasses and dyed jet-black hair, which she’d had chopped into a bowl cut after getting ill-advised bangs that parted in the middle and swooped out to the side like little wings no matter what she did. Her tongue touched the tiny scar that bisected her upper lip. It was a nervous reaction, something she did all the time without thinking.
“What can I get you?” Danny stared right into Elda’s eyes, clearly under her spell. “And you.” He nodded slightly toward Holly, but he didn’t take his eyes off Elda. That was about right. Holly’s daydreams had led predictably to disappointment. Again.
“Half skim, half two percent, half caf, no foam latte with one Splenda and one Sugar in the Raw. Extra hot.” Elda blushed a bit on the word “hot.”
“Got it.” Danny typed the order into the computer. Then he turned to Holly and waited expectantly for her order.
Holly searched for a hint of recognition, but nope. It was official. Danny Garland, the guy she’d been dreaming about—off and on, she wasn’t that pathetic—for the past eight years, had no idea who she was. “Iced cinnamon latte,” Holly said. “Two percent. With whipped.” She’d drown her disappointment in sugar and milk fat. Maybe that, too, counted as negative calories. Eating one’s feelings was a tradition of sorts.
Elda leaned against the counter in a way that Holly assumed was supposed to be casual. “So, North Pole, am I right?” She said it like a bad actress in a bad movie trying to read her lines, moving her body deliberately, as if she’d forgotten how to control the muscles in her arms and face.
Danny didn’t watch her display, which was probably a lucky thing for Elda. He seemed too busy focusing on his task at hand—navigating the tiny space behind the espresso machine while on crutches. “North Pole,” he said in agreement.
To which Elda replied, “North. Pole.”
This was perhaps the most pathetic mating ritual Holly had ever witnessed. Every cell inside her body groaned in second-hand embarrassment for her cousin. Maybe Holly didn’t have the physique of a model, but at least she knew how to talk to a guy and not give off the impression that she was an alien trying its darnedest to impersonate human interactions.
Danny glanced up at Elda with a faint smile. Holly couldn’t tell if he was patronizing her or if he was truly interested in seeing this banal conversation through to its conclusion.
Elda batted her eyelashes. Ah, she was bringing out the big guns, going in for the kill. Holly started picturing herself as a bridesmaid at their wedding. She’d survive it. She’d give a lovely toast, relaying Danny and Elda’s meet-cute to a few hundred guests. But then Elda said, “I found a really mangled dead squirrel in the street outside.”
Danny, no doubt alarmed by Elda’s unorthodox idea of foreplay, dropped one of his crutches.
Holly, without even thinking, dashed behind the counter and rescued the crutch from the floor.
“I have a girlfriend.” Danny looked right at Holly, as if enlisting her help, like he was expecting her to break the news gently to her roadkill-obsessed cousin. “I really do. I have a girlfriend.”
“Okay.” Whatever, Danny, we got it. You’re not single. “Here.” Holly handed him his crutch.
“Thanks.” Danny’s eyes softened. He was staring right at Holly, and now her insides were melting for a whole new reason. His eyes were a striking blue, but it was more than that. She could sense Original Danny behind those eyes. His brilliant brain hid behind those eyes, analyzing the situation, working through this cousin-related foolishness. “I like your glasses,” he said finally.
Holly opened her mouth to introduce herself, to tell him she knew him back when, but she held back. She’d been thinking about Danny forever—she’d googled him, for goodness’ sake—but he didn’t remember her. He hadn’t been waiting around, pining over her for years. He had a girlfriend. He really had a girlfriend. Holly handed him the crutch and retreated to her rightful place on the other side of the counter.
When he finished their order, the girls grabbed their drinks and left the shop. Elda smacked herself on the forehead after the door to Santabucks had shut behind them. “Gah, he’s so cute! Maybe I should’ve gotten his name instead of talking about squirrel carcasses.”
“Danny,” Holly blurted, her eyes down on her beverage.
“Danny? How do you know that?”
Holly clamped her mouth shut for a moment. She’d tipped her hand. “Um…Elda, that was Danny Garland, the dorky kid from the gingerbread competition.” She made sure to emphasize the word “dorky.”
“That was Danny?” Elda spun around and stared at the door to Santabucks.
“That was Danny.”
“Well, he got cute.”
“Nah,” Holly said. “I didn’t notice.” She’d never admit to her cousin the eight-year torch she’d carried for Danny Garland, beautiful human and king of the gingerbread contest. She’d never tell anyone that, because it was sad and moot. She’d imagined a connection eight years ago. Holly had been living that lie for too long.
“Well, I did notice,” Elda said, “and I made a complete fool of myself. As I do.”
Holly dropped a few coins into the bucket next to an elf collecting donations for the local food pantry. “You were fine.” Ah, the lies we tell our loved ones.
“I was a complete goober, like always,” Elda said. “And you were cool as a cucumber.”
Holly glanced up at her cousin, who was blowing across the lid of her beverage, making a low whistling sound. “Hey, Elda.”