“I know Craig handles disappointment poorly and that his friend Dinesh has to calm him down.”
“Well, everyone knows that.” Danny kept typing, and Holly had to stop herself from grabbing her own piece of candy to distract her while waiting. Finally, his message popped up. “I think it’s sweet that you remembered. Get it? Sweet? Candy? I was trying to make myself look like less of a dweeb by pointing out that pun, but I think it backfired.”
Grinning, Holly wrote him back. “It definitely backfired. And you may think it’s ‘sweet’ that I remembered, but I’m only trying to lull you into a false sense of security. I want you to trust me. Then I’ll pounce.” And a cat emoji.
“Consider me lulled,” he said. “What are you doing now?”
Holly’s heart slammed against her chest. Her second text conversation with Danny Garland was no less exciting than the first. “Hanging out in the garage,” she said. “Want to come over?” Oh my God, she’d just asked him over. Who was she?
“I’ll be there as fast as my crutches can carry me.” He punctuated that with a winky face.
Holly tossed the phone back to Elda. “There you go. He’s on his way here.” Holly had reeled him in, and now it was time to let her cousin do some of the work.
Elda stared at the phone. “He’s…coming here?”
“Yeah. He wants to see the girl who remembered his favorite candy bar.” Danny was probably grinning big right now, loping over here on his crutches. For Elda. Not for Holly. It was important to keep remembering that.
“What do I say to him?” Elda asked.
“Talk about our day. Tell him about all the battles we fought in town.”
Elda grabbed another lollipop, but Holly batted it out of her hand. They needed every ounce of that candy. “It’s too much pressure.” Elda started pacing. “All I can think about are those scorpion suckers we found at the gift shop and the chocolate-covered crickets.”
“Do not talk about the crickets.” Holly placed her hands on her cousin’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “You can do this. Tell him we went to Santabucks, and that we missed seeing him there. Say he’s way better at making coffee than his brother.” All day Holly had been watching for Danny out of the corner of her eye, practicing what she’d say to him if and when she saw him, assuming she was someone who looked like Elda and had the confidence that went with all that genetic good fortune. “Tell him you were hoping to see him around town, that you imagined running into him in the M&M aisle at the candy shop, that you were distracted all day because, as much as you want to win this competition, you realized somewhere around the Lemondrops that you wanted to see him more.”
“Wow…” Elda’s eyes got all dreamy and glassy. “That’s way better than the bug thing.”
“He’ll love it coming from you,” Holly told her. “Believe me.”
Chapter Six
Danny’s judgment with girls was totally faulty. Today just proved it.
Elda was hilarious. She was smart and sweet, and she remembered that his favorite candy bar was a Take 5. He’d gone all gaga for Holly in person, but Elda…she got him. She understood him. That was way more important than some stupid tattoo. Anyone could get one of those.
He grabbed his crutches and booked it next door to Mrs. Page’s garage. He’d ask Elda to hang out. The bakery was sponsoring an event tonight—the Sugarplum Sweets competition. Some of his friends from school were competing in it, and he promised he’d watch. Besides, it’d be a low-pressure first date—not much talking required.
When he opened the side door of the garage, he found Holly and Elda sitting on chairs flanking a table, staring at a mound of sweets that covered an entire king-size sheet. Holly slammed a sketch pad shut and shoved it under her seat when Danny walked in.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw Holly with a pencil stuck behind her ear. He knew it couldn’t be the case, but it almost felt like she was mirroring him. Ever since the accident, he always had a pencil over his ear. Maybe she’d noticed.
Oh, who was he kidding? No, she hadn’t. It wasn’t like he was the first person to ever put a pencil behind his ear.
Danny gripped the handles on his crutches, focusing on Elda. Elda was the one who liked him. Elda was the one who’d sent him gif after gif of people wagging their fingers. Elda was the one who knew he loved Take 5 bars. And she was very, very pretty. Like, no one would debate him on that.
“So here’s where all the candy went.” He’d just returned from driving around town with Jamison, hunting for ingredients to make his gingerbread showstopper. North Pole had been cleaned out. The only stuff left at the sweet shop had been brown Sixlets and discounted items from Halloween and Thanksgiving—like white chocolate turkeys and those gross peanut butter things in the orange and black wax wrappers.
Elda jumped up and fetched him a chair, which was super nice. “We’d be happy to share some of our candy with you.”
“Elda,” Holly said, eyeing the candy stash, “stop giving away our stuff.” She nodded to Danny. “Though you can have the Take 5 bars, obviously.”
“It’s all right.” Danny sat down and put his leg up. The garage was musty and smelled of mildew, but at least it wasn’t too cold. “I don’t need your charity. What are you guys building?”
“It’s gonna be amazing!” Elda said. “We’re build—”
Holly stomped on her cousin’s foot, keeping her from spilling the beans. “Nice try. Like we’d tell you.”
“So, um, Danny.” Elda faced him, sitting on the edge of her seat. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she stared at him with big, brown doe eyes. “I was hoping to run into you in town today.”
“Yeah?”
“I just…I kept peeking around every corner, waiting for you to pop out”—her hands turned into claws, like she’d been imagining Danny as a bear or something—“and surprise me. Grrr!”
Holly kicked Elda in the shin.
“Ow!” Elda rubbed her leg. “I mean, our texting…wow. And I found the Take 5 bars, so.” She shrugged.
Holly buried her face in her hands.
“Um, so…” Danny said. It was time to do it, even if only to put an end to the abomination of a conversation the two of them had going right now. He was going to ask out Elda Page. He hadn’t asked a girl out in six years, basically. His mouth went dry. “There’s this thing tonight.” His voice definitely squeaked. Wow, he was pathetic at this.
“Holly!” a boy’s voice boomed from outside. “Where are you?”
Danny’s throat clamped up. Who was this dude yelling for Holly? Maybe she had a boyfriend. It was entirely possible. Maybe that, and not some other reason, was why Holly was so completely uninterested in him.
“Garage,” she shouted.
A guy about Danny’s age walked in, and, wow, this dude was competition. He was tall and muscular with dark, wavy hair and chiseled features. And he was looking for Holly. No wonder she didn’t like Danny.