Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota #3)(54)

“How am I even remotely to blame for this situation?”

“Because you were never genuinely interested in me. You wanted her the whole time.”

Danny staggered backward a bit. He blamed his crutches. “You have a lot of nerve, Elda.” He focused on putting a lid on Dinesh’s cup.

“I could tell you were vibing on her right from the start. I only went along with Holly’s plan because you were cute, I needed to shake up my romantic life, and Holly insisted she wasn’t into you. I bought her lie because she’s an evil genius, but I saw right through you. You were looking at her dog tattoo the day we spoke at the dance.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Yeah. I noticed a tattoo. As people do.”

“Oh, but it was more than that. You never had two words to say to me. You were always checking her out when we were together. She’s the one who made you laugh.”

Danny shrugged. None of that meant anything, because it didn’t erase the fact that they had sold him a bill of goods posing as his dream girl.

“Instead of being honest with her—or me, for that matter—that Holly was the one you wanted, you kept up this charade that you had a thing for me when you most certainly did not.”

Well, she had him there.

“Frankly, I should be the one who’s pissed off. You could’ve broken my heart,” Elda said. “Or I could’ve kept pursuing this thing with you and missed out on meeting Dinesh.” She wrapped an arm around Dinesh’s shoulders.

She had a point, but she was leaving out a key piece of information. “Elda. You never liked me, either.”

“True.” She rested her head against Dinesh’s shoulder.

“So, we’re all to blame. We all screwed this up,” Danny said.

“Not me. I’m blameless.” Dinesh pointed to the pastry display. “So, I’ll take a cinnamon crunch muffin with my latte.”

Danny reached for the tongs.

“Yup. We’re all to blame,” Elda agreed. “But blame is a waste of time, my friend. Holly and I are only going to be here for one more week, then we’re gone. You could stand here blaming her, or you could go to her, forgive her, and spend the next week making out with a girl you’re totally attracted to.”

Between “make out with Holly” or “not make out with Holly,” the former definitely sounded a lot more fun. “I’ve already tried the whole dating a girl who treats me like garbage thing. Not recommended.” He handed Dinesh his muffin in a bag.

Elda reached across the counter and squeezed Danny’s hand. “Yeah, Holly was texting you under someone else’s name, but that was the only thing fake about it. She showed you who she was. She opened up to you more in the past week than she’s ever opened up to anyone.”

Danny glanced out the window. People were filing past, heading to the town hall for the gingerbread contest. He checked the Rudolph clock on the wall. They still had a little time, today and until Holly left North Pole for good. Frankly, they’d wasted enough time. “Where is she?”

“Home.” Elda raised her eyebrows. “She felt so bad about hurting you that she’s forfeiting the gingerbread contest.”

His heart sped up. “What? No. She worked so hard—for herself and your grandma. She can’t just give up.”

“That’s what I told her, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

Danny glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty. The competition was due to start in a half hour. His mom should be here at any minute to take over his shift, but Danny had to do something. Now. He couldn’t just let Holly give up. “Okay. Anybody have a car? Dinesh?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

“Shit.” He scanned the people passing by on the street. Danny was looking for something, divine intervention. They didn’t have time to walk to her grandma’s house and get back to the town hall. “You can run, right?” he asked Elda.

“Better than you right now, probably.”

“Touché.” He reached for his jacket under the counter. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. You run to the town hall. Tell my brother Brian to take his car, pick up Holly’s showstopper from her garage, and bring it to the competition as fast as he can. Then you stick around and stall the mayor for as long as possible—make something up.”

Elda clapped. “Now this is a plan I can get behind.”

“Dinesh,” Danny said, “I need you to stay here and watch the shop until my mom gets here in a few minutes.” He zipped up his hoodie. His body wanted to bolt, to run as fast as humanly possible over to Holly’s grandma’s house. A clock ticked in his head. They’d already wasted too much time, and he had a set of crutches slowing him down.

“What are you going to do?” Dinesh asked as Elda bolted for the door.

Danny pulled the hood over his head. “I’m going to get Holly, obviously.” As soon as he said it, he felt his lips pull into a grin.

Dinesh shot him a thumbs-up, and Danny scurried out the door. He was finally going to “meet” his dream girl.

…

Holly turned off the TV as soon as her family left the house. She couldn’t find the remote, and she was not going to sit here in solitude and listen to Fox News talk about the war on Christmas. She flicked one of the metallic red balls on the tiny Christmas tree the family had set up on the coffee table in the living room. Christmas seemed to be doing just fine.