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I Can Lurk Under The Mistletoe With The Best Of Them

Sarah pulled onto the rough country lane. “That was crazy.” She flicked on her high beams. “This is crazy. It’s so dark out here, I can’t see anything.”

She turned on the radio and set it to surf channels. After scanning every channel three or four times, she turned it back off. “He’s so cute. Oh. My. God. He is so cute.”

A deer sprung onto the road in front of her. She fishtailed as she screeched to a halt. The thing just stood there in the middle of the road. “Go pull a sleigh!” She shouted as she laid on the horn. The creature was undeterred.

Sarah looked around. She and the deer were entirely alone on this stretch of nowhere. She drove around the placid creature and continued homeward. “He’s cute, but he kissed Carol.” Her eyebrows knitted.

She flipped the radio on again, hoping for better luck this time. Nope. Dozens of channels she didn’t feel like listening to.

“Well, two can play that game, Ms. Snyder. I can lurk under the mistletoe with the best of them.” She stared at the endless countryside. “And when he kisses me, I’m darned well going to kiss back! So there!”

Carol backed down her driveway into the garage. Watching the door slide down usually made her feel safe and secure. Tonight, it made her feel isolated and alone.

“What are you doing?” She rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “Sarah wants to be with him and I’ve got Nathan.” A knot twisted in her stomach.

Did she?

Carol headed into the house and turned off the garage lights. The house? Her house. Everything was hers. The house, the furniture, the decor, the loneliness.

Jeb and Aundrea had merged their lives. It was beautiful.

Carol considered herself tasteful. She had a lot of things that spoke to her style and sensibilities. Looking around, she felt like she had neither. The place looked empty, barely lived in.

She should let Sarah have dibs on Paul, but that kiss. That was no obligatory peck under the mistletoe. He had really planted one on her, and she was still feeling it.

Looking around the place, she chided herself. “You’re just being selfish.”

She checked her phone. No calls or texts from Nathan or Ryan.

Ryan?

Why would he call? He doesn’t even know her number. They broke up years ago.

“He looks great, though. Even better than he used to.”

He used to have longer hair. He had that bad boy attitude and his criminal tendencies. She thought that was sexy and dangerous. Well, it was dangerous anyway.

Nathan is the opposite in nearly every way. He was refined and safe. He had that stupid Van Dyke and his too expensive, bespoke wardrobe. ‘He’s not sexy and the only thing dangerous about him is that he might schmooze me to death.’

Paul was like an overgrown kid. He was so unfiltered and joyous, but he was a professional superhero. ‘What’s dangerous is that kiss. Oh, dear. Even Ryan never kissed me like that.’

She plopped down in her overstuffed chair. “What am I going to do?”

Ryan sat on the edge of his bed, reading the booklet Greg had given him. The mini-sermon spoke, naturally, about having an attitude of gratitude. It was the Thanksgiving Day page, so that made sense to him. It pointed him to Psalm 103. Setting the booklet aside, he searched through the Bible that Greg had left in his nightstand drawer.

“Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.”

‘Okay, that’s a good start. Let’s see where this goes.’

“Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—”

‘Great, comes with a checklist.’

“who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,”

‘Plenty of sick people around. Guess they’re not praising hard enough.’

“who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,”

He looked around the room. ‘Definitely not in the pit anymore.’

“who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

‘Good things?’ He itched his cheek. ‘Yeah, things are pretty good for now.’ He got up and checked himself in the mirror. ‘Lookin’ a little scruffy, pal. Better set the clock a little earlier, so I’ve got time to shave before work.’ He returned to the Psalm, scanning down a bit.

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

‘Fear him? I never got that part.’

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;”

‘Okay, you lost me.’ He snapped the Bible shut and set it on the nightstand. ‘My father never had compassion for me or anybody else. The guy was garbage, and garbage comes from garbage. No wonder I wound up like I did.’ He switched off the lamp, punched his pillow a few times and curled up under the blankets. ‘It was good while it lasted…’

Ryan closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. It was like he’d told Greg, he needed to be good and tired. Was that possible? Could he just keep grinding as hard as possible so he’d be too tired to dream? He didn’t want to dream. He couldn’t face that.

The lamp was on. The Bible was open again.

“for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”

‘Great, rub it in. Not feeling any better here.’

“But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.”

‘Fear again? That’s got to be the wrong word. I need to ask Greg about that.’