Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota #3)(35)

This was the first time the two of them had been alone together, at least since the time he asked her out. He’d been preparing himself mentally for their date tomorrow, but he had not expected to see her out in the wild this morning. This was risky and terrifying.

She gnawed on one of her long, pointy nails as she stepped up to the counter. “Hi.” She kept trying to peer through the door to the back room as if looking for something, or maybe someone, like Jamison or Brian—some buffer to guide their conversation. Danny may have been wishing for another customer to walk through the front door himself.

“We missed you at the gingerbread contest yesterday.” His voice cracked a tiny bit. Pathetic.

“Oh my God. My dad and uncle tried to change out the basement toilet by themselves, and they forgot to shut the water off, so there was this huge mess.” She clamped her mouth shut for a second, then said, “It was…um…yeah.”

Back at the beginning of the year, his friends Oliver and Elena had been in kind of a similar situation to what he and Elda were going through. They’d started accidentally chatting online with each other while playing this augmented reality game, but they didn’t know who it was they were texting. The two of them absolutely hated each other in person. It was kind of how things were with Danny and Elda right now, minus the passionate loathing. Texting Elda was the highlight of his day. She made him think about things in a way he hadn’t in a long time. For too long, he’d shut off the more intellectual side of himself, at least from the public. On the phone with Elda, he could talk about geeky things, like how he thought Corinthian columns were due for a comeback, and it was an asset, not a liability. But, in person, somehow their conversations always came back to plumbing.

“So,” he said. “Did you fix it?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

And…crickets.

Danny knew what this was, at least on his end. He’d built up the impossible expectation that this was going to be some major, sweeping romance, because Elda’s grandma had predicted it, because they had seemed so perfect for each other when they were kids, because their text conversations came so easily. If Danny was scared of blowing it with her in person, Elda probably was, too.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

Relief crossed Elda’s face, and Danny totally got it. Coffee. Coffee was something concrete they could talk about. It was safe. “Half skim, half two percent, half caf, no foam latte with one Splenda and one Sugar in the Raw. Extra hot.”

Danny started entering her order into the register.

“Oh wait, no,” she said.

He looked up.

Elda was frowning. “Or should I get almond milk? I’ve been thinking about changing from cow’s milk. What do you think?”

“Um.” So, this was the kind of conversation he was doomed to have in real life with the girl he’d been texting for days about anything and everything, the girl who’d said last night that he had a “charming personality.” Well, that was certainly not on display right now. Had he and Elda exhausted every topic via text, so now they were relegated to discussing milk preferences? This was not the kind of story they’d one day eagerly tell their grandchildren. “I don’t know,” Danny said. “Choosing the right milk. That’s kind of a personal preference.”

“You’re right.” Elda spun around as the bell above the door jingled. Danny could’ve sworn she’d whispered “Thank God” under her breath. He was thinking it himself.

Craig and Dinesh strolled in. Both of them looked completely drained. “Caffeine,” Craig said. “We’ve been up all night working on our showstoppers.”

“Hey, guys.” Elda was positively beaming at them. She tossed her hair over one relaxed shoulder with an impressive flourish. It was not a move she’d ever used on Danny. But she was whipping her hair for Craig and Dinesh. Danny couldn’t tell if she was flirting with them or if their geekiness had just made her super comfortable and unselfconscious.

“Hello, Esmerelda,” Craig said.

“Did you get the toilet fixed?” Dinesh asked.

“The shower, too. Oh my God, let me show you.” Elda pulled out her phone. “I have pictures. They’re disgusting.”

Danny had entered some alternative universe where Elda was way more excited to talk to Craig and Dinesh than she was to talk to Danny. And they seemed to have more in common, too. She and Dinesh were literally bonding over the hair and soap scum she’d pulled out of her grandma’s drain. They were talking about the wads of goo in Elda’s pictures with the kind of enthusiasm Danny usually reserved for basketball.

He cleared his throat. “Um, Elda. Did you decide on milk?”

She touched Dinesh’s wrist. “What do you think? Combo two percent and skim or almond milk?”

Dinesh scratched his temple. “I’d go with coconut, honestly.”

Elda turned to Danny. “Coconut.”

Danny made her beverage as his trio of customers chatted about extreme plumbing videos on the internet. Danny mentally tossed out everything he’d learned about North Pole architecture. Those things apparently weren’t going to impress Elda. He had some studying to do before his date tomorrow.

…

That night Holly and Elda took time out from working on their showstopper and cleaning out Grandma’s house to join the North Pole natives in some Christmas merriment. People had packed St. Nicholas Park to sing carols and drink hot cocoa. Since no snow had fallen yet this month and the temperature was near fifty degrees, a game of touch football had broken out on the grass where the skating rink usually went. Kids in light jackets and no hats climbed all over the monkey bars and swung as high as they could, touching the stars with their toes.