“Hey…” He gestured toward the corridor. “Can I tell you something? Something I should have said yesterday?” Ominous, but I followed him. It took two attempts to fit me through the door, and when I made it through, Nick looked uncomfortable. Not as much as when I’d attacked him with a singing dog, but up there.

He exhaled so hard, his fringe fluttered up.

“Glad I chose the brightest lit, most echoey place to do this.” He cleared his throat. “Yesterday.…” Uh-oh, here we go. “One of the reasons I got so mad in the car was because…well, I just thought you knew me better than that.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No, don’t apologize. That’s not what I mean.” He rubbed his forehead, as if this were just as painful for him. It really wasn’t. Was I going to get a lecture on just how many things I’d gotten wrong this week?

“I just thought you hated Christmas.” I shrugged. “Hated me.” Nick shook his head—and almost laughed.

“You really have no idea, do you?” He looked back up at me, but this time there was a tiny smile. A tiny, gorgeous smile. “You go to all this effort for Christmas, all these things to make it special, but you have no idea it’s you… You’re what has made this Christmas special.”

“Me?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Yes, you. It’s you being here that’s made everyone so happy this year. Mom, Dad, Dottie…me. That’s what’s changed. And yes, I know you said you were all about ‘catch flights, not feelings.’” He rolled his eyes and laughed. “And, no, I still can’t make that sound okay, but I need you to know… Whether it’s on the list or not, it’s too late for me—my feelings have been well and truly caught.”

Oh. Wow. Nick liked me?

Nick liked me.

I hadn’t left it all too late?!

“Even though I do things like this?”

I looked down my giant orange body, wishing I wasn’t at least three quarters of a meter in depth. And width.

“Especially because you do things like that.” Nick looked up. I looked up.

How had Charl managed to put the one piece of mistletoe here?!

Was Nick going to kiss me?!

Were we going to kiss? He raised his eyebrows. “Little twig dung, huh?”

I raised mine back. “What’s that doing there?” is what I wanted to say but all I managed was “dwig tung” instead.

The gap between us was getting smaller—even with a giant foam fruit between us.

But that’s when we both heard it. The little glockenspiel noise playing out.

The international signal for Christmas. Could we pretend we hadn’t heard it?

“Holllllly.” Charl burst the door open. “This is your request, right?”

Yup, it was. My brilliant, stupid, terrible-timed request.