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

“You think Earl’s lumberjack buddies tease him about getting such a girly drink?” I asked.

“Not more than once,” Christina said.

The door jangled, and a guy held it open for his girlfriend. At least, I assumed she was his girlfriend, because they had that coupley look to them, all goofy and love struck. I immediately thought of Jeb—I’d gone, what, two seconds without his crossing my mind?—and felt lonely.

“Wow, more early birds,” Christina commented.

“More like late birds is my guess.” The guy, whom I recognized from school, had bleary eyes and an up-all-night sway to his posture. I thought I recognized the girl, too, but I wasn’t sure. She couldn’t stop yawning.

“Could you quit that?” the guy said to Yawning Girl. Tobin, his name was Tobin. He was one grade above me. “You’re giving me a complex.”

She smiled. She yawned again. Was her name Angie, maybe? Yeah, Angie, and she was nongirly in a way that made me feel too girly. I doubted she meant to, though. I doubted she even knew who I was.

“That’s just great,” he said. He appealed to me and Christina, spreading his arms. “She thinks I’m boring. I’m boring her—can you believe it?”

I kept my expression pleasant but noncommittal. Tobin wore scruffy sweaters and was friends with the Korean guy who said “asshat,” and he and all of his buddies were intimidatingly clever. The kind of clever that made me feel cheerleader-dumb, even though I wasn’t a cheerleader, and even though I personally didn’t think cheerleaders were dumb. Not all of them, anyway. Chloe-the-Stuart-dumper, maybe.

“Hey,” Tobin said, pointing at me. “I know you.”

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“But your hair wasn’t always pink.”

“Nope.”

“So you work here? That’s wild.” He turned to the girl. “She works here. She’s probably worked here for years, and I never knew it.”

“Spooky,” the girl said. She smiled at me and kind of tilted her head, as if to say, I know I know you, and I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but “hi” anyway.

“Can I get drinks started for you guys?” I asked.

Tobin scanned the menu board. “Ah, Christ, this is the place with the messed-up sizes, isn’t it? Like, grandé instead of large?” He stretched it out all stupid and fake-French, and Christina and I shared a look.

“Why can’t you just call it a large?” he asked.

“You could, except grandé is a medium,” Christina said. “Venti is large.”

“Venti. Right. For the love of God, can’t I order in plain English?”

“Absolutely,” I told him. It was a delicate balance: keeping the customer happy, but also, when needed, calling him on his crap. “It might confuse me, but I’ll figure it out.”

Angie’s lips twitched. It made me like her.

“No, no, no,” Tobin said, holding his hands up and making a show of recanting. “When in Rome and all that. I’ll, uh . . . let me think . . . can I get a venti blueberry muffin?”

I had to laugh. His hair was sticking up, he looked utterly exhausted, and yes, he was acting like a tool. I was fairly sure he didn’t know my name, either, despite the fact that we’d gone to the same elementary school, middle school, and high school. Yet there was something sweet about him as he looked at Angie, who was laughing along with me.

“What?” he said, bewildered.

“The sizes are for drinks,” she said. She put her hands on his shoulders and aimed him toward the pastry case, where six identically plump muffins sat at attention. “The muffins are all the same.”

“They’re muffins,” Christina agreed.

Tobin blustered, and at first I assumed it was more of his act. Hapless counter-culture-boy, thrust against his will into Big Bad Starbucks. Then I noticed his rising blush, and I realized something. Tobin and Angie . . . their togetherness was new. New enough that being touched by her still came as a glorious, blush-worthy surprise.

Another wave of loneliness flooded through me. I remembered that skin-tingling exhilaration.

“This is my first time in a Starbucks,” Tobin said. “Seriously. My first time ever, so be gentle with me.” His hand fumbled for Angie’s, and their fingers locked. She blushed, too.

“So . . . just a muffin?” I asked. I slid back the glass door of the pastry case.

“Never mind, I no longer want your stinking muffin.” He pretend-pouted.

“Poor baby,” Angie teased.

Tobin gazed at her. Sleepiness, and something else, softened his features.

“Um, how about your biggest-size latte,” he said. “We can share.”

“Sure,” I said. “You want any syrup in that?”

He shifted his attention back to me. “Syrup?”

“Hazelnut, white chocolate, raspberry, vanilla, caramel . . . ” I said, ticking them off.

“Hash brown?”

For a second I thought he was making a joke at my expense, but then Angie laughed, and it was a private-joke kind of laugh, but not in a mean way, and I realized maybe everything wasn’t always about me.

“Sorry, no hash-brown syrup.”

“Uh, okay,” he said. He scratched his head. “Then, um, how about—”

“A cinnamon dolce white mocha,” Angie told me.

“Excellent choice.” I rang it up, and Tobin paid with a five and then stuffed a bonus five in the “Feed Your Barista” jar. Maybe he wasn’t such a tool after all.

Still, when they went to the front of the store to sit down, I couldn’t help thinking, Not the purple chairs! Those are Jeb’s and my chairs! But of course the purple chairs were the ones they chose. After all, they were the softest and the best.

Angie dropped into the chair closest to the wall, and Tobin sank into its mate. In one hand, he held their drink. With his other, he reclaimed Angie, lacing his fingers through hers and holding on tight.

Chapter Nine

By six thirty, the sun was officially on the rise. It was pretty, I suppose, if you liked that sort of thing. Fresh starts, new beginnings, the warming rays of hope . . .

Yeah. Not for me.

By seven, we had an actual morning rush, and the demands of cappuccinos and espressos took over and made my brain shut up, at least for a while.

Scott swung by for his customary chai, and, as always,