Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by Myracle, John (good book club books TXT) 📕

Reston, being the world’s strongest man, just pushed aside thousands of pounds of snow and successfully opened his door. He stood up, only his shoulders and head above the snow, and shouted, “You. Gonna. Die.”

It wasn’t entirely clear to me whether Timmy meant “you” singular, as in JP, who had already started running, or “you” plural, as in a group of people that included me. But regardless, I took off, urging on the Duke. I kept behind the Duke because I didn’t want her to slip without my knowing or anything. I turned around to check the twins’ progress and saw Timmy Reston’s shoulders and head make their way through the mass of snow. I saw Tommy’s head pop up in the space where Timmy had initially exited the car, and he was shouting an angry, incomprehensible flurry of words, the words so smushed in on each other that all I could really hear was his rage. We got past them while they were still trying to get all the way out of the snowbank, and then kept running.

“Come on, Duke,” I said.

“I’m . . . trying,” she answered, breathing between words. I could hear them shouting now, and when I glanced back, I could see that they were out of the snow and running toward us, gaining with every stride. There was too much snow on both sides of us to run anywhere but on the street. But if we continued much longer, the twins would catch us and, presumably, proceed to feast upon our kidneys.

I have heard it said that sometimes in moments of intense crisis, a person’s adrenaline can surge so much that for a brief period of time he experiences superhuman strength. And perhaps this explains how I managed to grab the Duke, throw her over my right shoulder, and then run like an Olympic sprinter across the slippery snow.

I carried the Duke for several minutes before I even started to get tired, never looking back and never needing to, because the Duke was looking back for me, saying, “Keep going keep going you’re faster than they are you are you are,” and even if she was talking to me like she talked to Carla on the way up the hill, I didn’t care—it worked. It kept my feet pumping beneath me, my arm wrapped around her waist and the small of her back, and I just ran until we reached a small bridge over a two-lane road. I saw JP lying flat on his stomach on the side of the bridge. I figured he’d slipped, and slowed down to help him up, but he just shouted, “No, no, keep going keep going!” And so I kept going. My breathing was quite labored now as the Duke’s weight bore down on my shoulder. “Listen, can I put you down?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m getting kinda queasy anyway.”

I stopped and let her down, and said, “You go ahead.” She took off without me, and I just slumped down, hands on knees, and watched JP running toward me. In the distance, I could see the twins—well, I could see Timmy, anyway; I suspected Tommy was hiding behind his brother’s endless girth. I knew the situation was hopeless now—the twins would inevitably catch us, but I believed we had to fight on, anyway. I took a series of quick, deep breaths as JP reached me, and then I started to run, but he grabbed my coat and said, “No. No. Watch.”

So we stood there in the road, the wet air burning my lungs, Tommy bearing down on us, his fat face dominated by a broad scowl. And then, with no warning, Tommy fell face-first into the ground, like he’d been shot in the back. He barely even had time to reach his hands out to break the fall. Timmy tripped over Tommy’s body and sprawled out on the snow, too.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked as we took off running toward the Duke.

“I used all my remaining floss to tie a trip line between the sides of the bridge. I raised it right after you carried the Duke past,” he said.

“That’s rather awesome,” I said.

“My gums are already disappointed with me,” he mumbled in response. We kept jogging, but I couldn’t hear the twins anymore, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I could see only the still-driving snow.

By the time we caught up with the Duke, the brick buildings of downtown surrounded us, and we finally made our way off Sunrise onto the recently plowed Main Street. We were still jogging, although I could barely feel my feet anymore from the cold and the exhaustion. I couldn’t hear the twins, but I was still afraid of them. Just one mile to go. We could be there in twenty minutes if we jogged.

The Duke said, “Call Keun, find out if those college guys have already beaten us.”

Still keeping pace, I reached into my jeans, pulled out my phone, and called Keun’s cell. Someone—not Keun—answered on the first ring.

“Is Keun there?”

“This Tobin?” I recognized the voice now. Billy Talos.

“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, Billy.”

“Hey, do you got Angie with you?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“Y’all close?”

I hedged my bets, not knowing if he would use the information to help his friends. “Reasonably,” I said.

“Okay, here’s Keun,” he said. Keun’s boisterous voice came on the line then. “What’s up! Where are you! Dude, I think Billy is in love. Like, right now, he is sitting down next to a Madison. One of the Madisons. There are several of them. The world is full of Magical Madisons!”

I glanced over at the Duke to see if she had heard anything through the phone, but she was just looking straight ahead, still jogging. I thought Billy had asked about the Duke because he wanted to see her, not because he didn’t want her to catch him trying to hook up with someone else. Lame.

“TOBIN!” Keun shouted into my ear.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Uh, you called me,” he pointed out.

“Right, yeah. We’re