Getting Kole for Christmas

Getting Kole

for

Christmas

KIMBERLY KREY

Getting Kole for Christmas

Copyright © 2015 KIMBERLY KREY

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by
KIMBERLY KREY © 2015

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

ISBN: 1517610729

ISBN-13: 978-1517610722

To Rob,

my own best friend crush.

Twenty-one years and counting.

Love you forever

A world of thanks to every

one of my betas.

How grateful I am for you!

“Green spaghetti?” I say, looking down at my plate. Thick, red sauce coats a tangled mass of green noodles. Connie’s new holiday dish – with its unique vomit-like blend of color – is far from appetizing.

My mom’s face scrunches up in apology mode. “I know. It didn’t turn out how I wanted. It looks disgusting, but I swear it tastes good.”  

Dad inspects the blob on his own plate while reaching for his fork. “Guess you’re going to have to rule this one out, right Connie?”

She nods, looking anything but discouraged, and shoves a forkful into her mouth. I sigh, dreading all of the holiday meals in our near future. Mom (AKA Connie in the Kitchen) goes on the local news station each week to share clever new recipes with all the kind folks in Shadow Springs. Now’s the season for festive food, and we here in the Bronson home are like rats in her test lab.

Tiff takes a bite. “You’re totally right, Mom,” she says, covering her mouth while she chews. “This actually tastes good if you can get past the nasty look of it.”

Trina, Tiff’s literal twin, sloshes her pile from one side of her plate to the next. “Seriously? There’s no way. Can’t you just make smaller portions of whatever new thing you’re trying so we don’t have to eat it?”

“Nope, she can’t,” my dad sings cheerily. “I don’t mind one bit that your mom tries new holiday recipes on us. Just gets us into the Christmas spirit all the more. Right, Kylie?” He shoots me a grin.

I shrug. I have no idea why Dad calls on me for backup; he never gets the answer he’s looking for. I reach for the parmesan and bury my food beneath a heaping mound.

My younger sister, Melanie, smears butter onto a slice of French bread. “I’m already in the Christmas spirit.” 

Once I can no longer see the clashing color of my food, I dig in, glad the green pasta isn’t flavored like spinach or something gross like that.

“So, Kylie,” Dad says, “have you figured out what you’d like for Christmas yet?”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“Need any new soccer gear? A bounce-back goalie box? Iron shin guards? A spinning display case for all your trophies?”

I give him a sardonic look.

“C’mon, Ky-bear, Santa needs to know soon. He’s been done shopping for your sisters for two months. There’s got to be something you’ve been wanting for a while now.”

An image of Kole seeps into my mind. Brown eyes, dark hair, and a smile that sinks a dimple into his cheek every time we talk. I sigh. “I’ll let you know.”

“I think Evan is going to ask me to the Christmas dance,” Tiff announces with a squeal.

I try to hold back an eye roll, but fail. Of
course
Evan Timberson is asking her to the dance. Tiff and Evan have been dating for months.

“Oh, you’re
so
lucky,” Trina says with a pout. “I’m positive that nobody is going to ask me this year.” She stares her twin square in the face. “Positive.”

I stab my food once more while the twins – just fourteen months older than me – tell one another how perfect they are, which is totally conceited because they’re identical twins.
Hello-oo.

“Trina,” Tiff says with a ring of finality, “let’s face it: You’re perfect, and you will
totally
get asked.”

I don’t think Trina is anywhere near perfect, but I
know
she’ll get asked to the dance. She always does.
I’m
the one who will be dateless on dance night, and the truth of it makes my eyes sting.

It’s not so much the I-won’t-get-asked-part; it’s how certain I am that I won’t get asked – like, it’s not even a possibility.

“I wish someone would ask me,” Melanie says. She’s too boy crazy for her own good; she takes after the twins, not me.

I throw her a glare. “You’re not a sophomore yet, Mel.”

“Yeah, but I’m in high school now.”

“I can’t believe that all of my babies are in the same school again,” my mom says, that dreamy smile on her face. “It won’t ever happen again, so you girls better enjoy it.”

Enjoy it? In what universe? Having all four of us Bronson girls crammed into the same school only makes me stand out more than ever. If we all lined up in birth order, let the average prepubescent at West Ridge High evaluate us as they walked by, it would go something like this. (I’d be standing second to last.)

Hot.

Hot.

Not.

Hot.

I don’t flirt and cheer and throw my hair and if that’s what it takes to be seen as hot in my school then I’ll gladly be among the
nots
until I’m through.

“Mom, I’m in high school now,” Melanie persists, “so that means I can go, right?”

“Who cares if you’re in high school,” I snap, “you’re only a freshman.”

Melanie and I are obviously not twins, but when she gets her blue eyes glaring with all that angst and heat, she looks a whole lot like me. Only with brown hair instead of blonde.

“Mom says if I get asked she’ll let me go.”

I shoot my mother a look. “You never said
I
could go before sophomore year. I thought that was the rule. No dating until sophomore year.” I hate that I’m throwing Melanie under the bus, but even more, I hate the idea of
her
getting asked to all the dances too, while I sit here, the only one not getting asked. I’m nearly two years older than she is. She should have to watch
me
get asked out first. Something is wrong with this picture and I want to break it before it gets hung on the wall for all eyes to see.

My mom stands her fork upright in the heap on her plate. She smooths a hand over her dark brown hair while pulling a face I recognize from her live cooking segment. It’s the face she makes whenever her uber-hyper co-host puts her on the spot.

“Well…” she says, “that’s
still
the rule. But I figure that a Christmas dance is different. Christmas is the most special time of the year. And if some poor boy goes to all the trouble to ask her to a dance, the least she could do is say yes.”

“
Poor
boy? You say that like she’s getting asked by Tiny Tim.”

Tiff covers a laugh and I’m pretty sure my dad does the same.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” I say. I’m on my feet before anyone can protest, yet just as I stomp past my dad he pipes up. “Why don’t you finish your dinner first, Kylie?”

I bolt down the stairs, knowing he only says it out of obligation. He knows I won’t stay.

I flick on my music and yank open the window to get some fresh air. Beyond the glass, a layer of snow covers the gravel at the base of my window well. The sight reminds me of how depressing this season was last year. Tiff & Trina getting asked to the dance (after they’d already gone to homecoming, no less). And then there was me, finally old enough to go and wondering if I’d get asked too. 

I flop onto my bed and sink into my usual, pre-dance dumps. “Now even Melanie’s going to go,” I mumble. Being in the same family as the Bronson twins is not an easy thing. They’re loud and flirty and boys flock to them at every turn. I’ve always told myself that I’m just … not like them. And that’s why I don’t get asked out or followed around or desired by even one guy in that school.

I flip onto my stomach, reach for my cellphone, and type out a text to Kole.

Watch out Shadow Springs. Connie in the Kitchen is already gearing up for the holiday with festive food ideas. 

I stare at the screen, waiting for him to reply.

Well if it’s any consolation, my mom’s boyfriend just gave her a spank right in front of me and the little bro. Thought that whole barfing in the mouth thing was impossible until this moment.

I laugh. Kole always knows how to make me smile. I think back on the way he cheered me up when I hurt my ankle and had to sit out a game. He came over, arms loaded with Oreos and jerky (my favorites) and every flavor of Dorito known to man (his favorite). We watched the freakiest show Netflix had to offer while Kole forced me to try each kind of chip. He insisted I close my eyes and guess which flavors were which.

No matter what else I experience in this life, that night will hold a secret spot in my heart ‘til I die. Right beside the handful of times he showed up to watch me play soccer when it wasn’t even a home game.

I sigh, forcing myself to get back on track. I decide to hint to the object of my real distress with a simple lead-in:

Prepare yourself for a shock, but word on the street says that Evan might *gasp* ask Tiff to the Christmas dance!!!

My heart starts to race as I look at the text. My palms get cold and clammy. Sure, the subject just came up at dinner, but I’ve been thinking about Kole and the Christmas dance for months now. Wishing he would just ask me to it. Magically. You see, he’s not my boyfriend. He never has been. He’s a platonic friend who’s also the boy I’ve had a crush on for two solid years.

I bring the phone back up to eye-level as his reply beeps in.

Shocker. Wonder if she’s going to put tinsel in her hair again.

I smile and text back.

How did you know she did that?

Pictures.

Oh. That’s right. My parents have this horrible mess of a montage in the upstairs hallway where they paste wallets of all my sisters’ dance date pictures. I hate how it looks on the wall and yet I can’t help but wish I had at least one stupid picture in the thing.

My dad, bless him, evens things out by hanging my soccer pictures along the same wall. What he doesn’t realize is that he may as well be taking a fluorescent Sharpie and highlighting the drastic contrast between me and girls guys actually ask out.  

My phone lights up with another text.

Why do girls get so worked up over getting asked to a dance? I don’t know what the big deal is.

Whoa. The question feels like dangerous territory for me. On one hand, I don’t know what the big deal is either. But at the same time it
is
a very big deal to me. The Christmas dance is all I can think about lately. If I could come up with an accurate comparison for Kole – aka baseball extraordinaire – it would go something like this: Say he’s in a game and he’s up to bat. The pitcher is holding onto that ball, cupping it in his hands, whirling it around like his life depends on it, and ready to let it fly in a beat.

No matter what is said or done in those moments, Kole would not take his eyes off the ball. Ever. (I know this because I’ve seen him in action; he’s magnificent.) It’s like that with me – my ball is the Christmas dance. And for whatever reason, I cannot strike out this time.

I climb off my bed and walk over to the full-length mirror, checking my skin for breakouts while I think of what to say back. At least I don’t have any pimples coming to the surface. My skin might be pale, but at least it’s clear. At last I force myself to answer.

I don’t know. I guess it’s just because dances are kind of a limited-time thing. I don’t see my parents going to any dances. Just high school kids. You know?

I leave the message there while the cursor flashes at me, daring me to hit send. This is something I have spent an extensive amount of time thinking about. I’ve told myself time and time again to stop caring about the stupid dances but I can’t stop caring. I didn’t go to one dance my freshman year. Not one during my sophomore year.  And with the lack of a homecoming invite this year I’m already zero for one. My life is slipping away before me.

In the moment of panic, my thumb presses
send
. Immediately I read over it again, this time out loud, to see what it might sound like to him. “…don’t see my parents going to any dances. Just high school kids.”

My stomach is sick. “I can’t believe I just sent that.” Will Kole see right through my comment? Will he somehow know that I pray with all my hurting heart that he’ll ask me to the Christmas dance this year?

The doorbell rings, and I hear Tiff give out a squeal.

Oh, joy. It’s tonight.
The miserable part of me wants to stay in my bed and stare at my phone and listen for everyone’s reaction to whatever display stands beyond the front door. The masochist in me wants to cause myself even more pain by running upstairs to witness the display for myself.

I don’t know how it’s done in normal towns with normal kids, but here, guys don’t just come out and ask girls to go to a dance. They have to participate in a doorbell ditching ritual where they leave things behind that ask the question for them. It must include a cryptic little note that gives clues she must solve to discover who is asking her to the dance. The girl is to answer back in a similar fashion.