Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota #3)(30)

She shook her head, glancing up. Since her glasses were out of the picture, Danny could see that her eyes were brown, like Elda’s, but with flecks of green and yellow that added depth. She’d painted her eyelids a bright orchid, which contrasted all the colors in her irises. “No,” she said. “I’m too practical for that. And I want to make money. Sorry. I know that’s not the sexy answer.” She grinned at him, for real, like she didn’t totally despise him.

“So what’s the practical thing you’re going to study?”

“Ar—” She clamped her mouth shut, and something resembling panic filled her eyes. But she recovered quickly, erasing all memory of that smile from her face. “Management,” she said.

Danny pointed to his own cheek. A spot of icing had landed right by Holly’s nose. She wiped at it but missed.

“May I?” Danny asked. The day the Page girls first came in to Santabucks, Elda’d had a spot of chocolate on her face, and it hadn’t occurred to him to tell her to wipe it off, let alone offer to remove it for her. But all he wanted right now was any flimsy excuse to touch Holly.

Her brow furrowed, she nodded. She leaned down, and he flicked away the icing. Her skin was soft and smooth, and his fingers were only about a centimeter from her lip. She was so close now, he could smell her. Holly. Warm sugar and vanilla. He wanted every room, every car, every piece of clothing in his life to smell like that.

Danny pulled his hand away and leaned back. She took the hint and stood, retreating to her station. Danny was probably just hard up, desperate for any physical contact now that he was single. He smiled, trying his best to act like her being so close to him had meant nothing. He ran his hands over a piece of gingerbread, trying to kill the sensations left behind by Holly’s skin, trying to smell anything other than the trail her scent had left behind. He put a gingerbread wall to his nose and inhaled. “I’m thinking about studying architecture,” he said. “Or engineering.”

She nodded, but her attention was back on her gingerbread house.

“It’s kind of a recent decision, actually. Ever since my leg thing, I’ve had to start figuring out what I really want to do with my life. This seems like a good pick. I mean, I used to think about engineering, when I was a kid. I loved to build stuff.” He swiped a glob of icing onto his cardboard like it was punctuation, like that was the end of their banter. She didn’t want to talk, and that was fine. He’d let her off the hook.

But after a moment, Holly asked, “You don’t build stuff anymore?”

He shook his head. “Not for a long time. Not since…” He trailed off. The truth was, he hadn’t done that stuff since he started focusing on basketball, since he got popular, since Star. Now he no longer had any of those things, really. Maybe he was still popular, but not in the same way. “Basketball took priority,” he said. “And my social life.”

She snickered. “Never a problem for me.” She focused hard as she steadied her third wall. “What was your plan, though? You were going to go to college and play basketball and then…”

Danny’s hands shook as he held his walls up. The icing wasn’t hardening fast enough for him. “I hadn’t thought past college. I never had time to think. I only had time for basketball.” And hanging out. And Star.

Holly was doing the same thing he was, trying to physically hold together her house as it dried, but her hands looked a lot steadier than his did. She wasn’t off-balance around him, like he was around her.

“But, like, were you going to try to play professionally, or coach, or what?”

She was still watching him, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. It sounded so stupid when she said it out loud. He’d had no plans. He was going to play basketball for as long as he could, whatever that meant. He’d never in a million years suspected the end could come when he was only eighteen.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” Holly’s voice was soft. There was no hint of sarcasm, no question as to whether or not she meant what she was saying. “I’m honestly curious. My dad has always been big on the ‘back-up plan,’ and honestly I agree with him. Like, I can keep sculpting and whatnot on the side, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn something more practical. And after all of Elda’s stuff—” She clamped her mouth shut.

“What Elda stuff?”

Holly shook her head. “Nothing. Just, she got me thinking about the whole college thing and why am I going and what do I want from it. You know? I feel like we’re baby birds being pushed out of the nest, and I’m trying to figure out what to do when I hit the ground.” She stepped back to admire her work so far. It looked good. Very good. So good Danny needed to shut up and focus or he’d lose this round for sure.

Holly assessed the edges of her next wall. “Is it because of Elda you’re thinking about engineering again?”

Why’d she have to keep bringing up Elda? “Yeah,” he said.

A faint smile appeared on Holly’s lips. “You guys are perfect for each other.”

For some reason, his shoulders drooped like a leaky balloon. “We are,” he said. “Of course we are.”

…

Holly’s nerves still tingled where Danny’s fingers had grazed her cheek. Danny Garland had touched Holly’s face. He’d talked to her like she was someone worth knowing. Obviously, she had to ruin the moment it by bringing up Elda, hitting the destruct button on their conversation. It had to be done—the nuclear option.