“I know them. They came into Santabucks yesterday, and I was a total mess.”
“What did you do?” Now Craig leaned toward Danny and Brian, trying to butt into this conversation, because he was obviously so skilled with the ladies and had much wisdom to impart. Whatever, Craig.
“I don’t know.” Danny’s face warmed just thinking about it. “I thought one of them was flirting with me, so I blurted out that I had a girlfriend, and then the other one kind of looked at me like I was a weirdo.”
“Well, you don’t have a girlfriend anymore,” Brian said.
“And you are a weirdo,” Craig added.
“Thanks, guys.” Danny spotted Star on the dance floor with Phil, the two of them having a great time together, spinning across the floor like tops.
“You should go over and apologize for being a little off yesterday,” Brian said. “Tell them you were going through a breakup, and you didn’t know what you were saying, something like that.”
“Let them see how sad you are,” Craig said. “Girls love a wounded guy. They’ll want to help you. Seduction 101.”
Danny blinked at Craig. “What do you know about seduction?”
“I’ve seen a lot of movies.”
The girls were over by Frank from the hardware store now, talking and laughing with him and Nancy, who owned the bakery. The Page girls were both, objectively, really good looking. Now that he thought about it, he vaguely remembered them as kids, when they all used to enter the gingerbread contest. They’d been twins, almost, with their long, skinny legs and brown hair. He hadn’t been able to tell them apart back then. They were just Mrs. Page’s granddaughters. Interchangeable.
But now he’d definitely noticed them, and they were only going to be in town for a short time. Yeah, he’d made a bad first impression at the coffee shop, but circumstances had changed. He was single now. It was time for him to get out there and start learning how to flirt. These girls, tourists with whom he had a shared history, would be a good start. They’d be like the training wheels on his bicycle of being single.
Danny grabbed his crutches and stood. Craig started a one-man cheer of “Danny, Danny, Danny!”
“Shhh!” Danny hissed. He maneuvered himself across the room, like he was trying to find an open hole on the basketball court—bobbing and weaving his way through people dancing and balloons and streamers littering the floor.
He slid to a stop right behind the girls, swaying a little as his crutches stopped before he did.
Frank waved. “Danny!”
“Hi, Frank.”
The girls swung around.
“Oh, hey,” Danny said, feigning surprise at seeing them at the dance. That’s what flirting was all about, right? Pretending to have other things going on in your life besides trying to snag the attention of a desirable human being? “We met at Santabucks the other day.”
The taller one, the one in the blond wig, grinned right at him. Her teeth, which had been hidden behind full lips, were perfect, straight and white. She was a living, breathing pop-up ad. She was the kind of girl who could convince a guy he needed skinny jeans even when he most definitely did not. “We remember,” she said.
“You seemed unimpressed by my cousin’s thoughts on dead squirrels.” The shorter one had a harder edge to her, which kind of terrified Danny, honestly, but in a way that intrigued him. She kept looking at him like he hadn’t fooled her. It was how Star used to look at him, like he had to earn her respect and admiration.
Something that was not like Star? This girl had a tattoo of a puppy on her collarbone. A puppy, not a skull or a dragon or something else that was cheesily hardcore. A puppy. That made it even more punk rock, for some reason. This girl would eat Danny alive. She nodded toward her taller cousin. “Elda’s always using the animal carcass line on guys. It’s like a personality test. If you bolt, you’re no fun. If you laugh at the joke, we know you’re cool. If you come off way too interested, we cut and run.”
“You bolted.” Elda raised an eyebrow.
“I had a girlfriend,” Danny reminded her.
“Had?” the shorter one asked.
The whole situation still felt surreal. Danny was single now. He was talking to two girls he might want to ask out. “We broke up. Last night.”
The shorter one folded her arms and frowned at him, unimpressed.
Danny focused on Elda, who actually seemed to welcome his presence. “My brother tells me you’re Mrs. Page’s granddaughters.”
“Elda.” She offered him a perfect, slender hand with pointy, gunmetal nails. “And this is Holly. My cousin.”
Holly gave Danny a bored little half-nod as her eyes followed Frank, who had wandered off to talk to someone else.
“You two used to do the gingerbread contest,” Danny said. They were his biggest competition, and once they stopped coming to North Pole, Danny stopped entering the contest.
“Yes, we did.” Elda beamed at him. The lights glinted off her white teeth.
“You kicked our ass every year.” Holly’s voice was soft. She’d dropped the death glare and grinned at him now. God, she was cute when she smiled. More than that, Danny felt like he’d earned something. Her top lip was slightly crooked thanks to a scar that bisected the divot between her nose and lip. What was that called again…? “Philtrum,” he said out loud. Then he covered his mouth. He’d actually blurted that out. Smooth, Dan.
“What?” Elda said.
Holly blushed and put a hand to her mouth. She knew exactly what he was talking about. “Street fight,” she said, dropping her hand. “Bad habit.” He could see the motion of her tongue running along the back of the scar.
He narrowed his eyes at her. She wasn’t for real, obviously. She was playing with him, being mysterious. Well, two could play at that game. He gave her a slow smile and nodded to his leg. “I gave up my Mortal Kombat days too late, myself.”
Holly opened her mouth to reply, but Elda cut in. “You two are goofy. You doing the gingerbread contest this year?”
“I don’t know.” Danny hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t competed in years, because he never wanted to. But he had absolutely nothing else going on right now. “Maybe.”
“We are.” Elda did a little hop, then nudged Holly in the ribs.
“I found Grandma’s day planner, and Elda and I are doing everything on her calendar through the end of the year.” Holly nabbed a cup of eggnog from a passing waiter. “Our parents are selling the house, so this is our last time in North Pole. We’re knocking everything off our bucket list.” Holly looked off to the side as if hunting for someone better to talk to. She did not like Danny, that much was obvious. She probably thought he was an ass for flirting with her and her cousin yesterday while he still had a girlfriend. Well, that was no longer the case. Flirting was totally legal now.