Abdominal Snowman: A Feel Good Holiday Romance Read online

  A middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter stood next to their vehicle, holding themselves in the snow, and naturally my good Samaritan instincts kicked in to slow down and see if they needed a ride. But as I was decelerating I noticed the figure in a pea coat jacket crouched next to the vehicle with a tire jack in his hands, clearly having beaten me to the punch...

  “Are you kidding me?” I actually yelled into my vehicle. “How does a snowman even know how to change a tire, anyway?”

  I sped off before Nole had time to look up from the task at hand and notice it was me. It occurred to me that my car had been piled with snow on the night we’d met anyway, so he might not be able to recognize me regardless. Still though, he seemed to know a lot of things that he shouldn’t have been able to, thanks to his so-called “Christmas magic,” or maybe just his stalking, so there was really no way I could know for sure...

  All the same, it was after that encounter that I began to regularly expect Nole to pop up around Loveland- although no matter how much I tried to expect it, he always seemed to materialize when and where I was least prepared for it.

  Later that afternoon, for instance, I pulled up to a red light next to the Lawrence Street Bridge, and was drumming my fingers on the steering wheel to Sinatra, or Martin, or Crosby, or one of those standard Christmas crooners on the radio. I glanced to my right and who do you think I saw there?

  That’s right. Nole, once again, doing a good deed, passing a handful of dollar bills to a homeless man camped out under the bridge.

  “What the- how does he even have money?” I asked aloud, wondering if he’d somehow gotten a job somewhere in the days since he’d shown up naked on my porch.

  I sat there staring at him for so long that the pickup behind me honked at me to go. I jumped and saw that the light was green, and when I looked back at Nole, he was turning to check out the cause of the commotion.

  I stepped on the gas and sped off through the intersection, unsure of just how much more of this I could take.

  The next time I saw him was on Wednesday, shoveling snow from the McIntyre’s front walkway as I drove Jule over to her friend Stephanie’s house for a study session. Jule asked me why I looked so angry as we passed, and I tried to pretend like it was nothing.

  Thursday was the first day that week that I didn’t actually have a personal encounter with the snowman who’d decided to haunt me.

  Instead I pulled up to the coffee shop where I always got my peppermint Frappuccino before work, placed my order at the drive-thru window, and began to extend a crumpled wad of bills out toward the barista. Her hand quickly shot out however, stopping me before I could pay her.

  “Oh don’t worry about it, you’re good!” she said cheerfully through the window.

  “I am?” I asked, totally puzzled.

  “Sure are! A man came through here earlier and said he was paying up the entire morning’s drink orders. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

  I had to stop my lips from curling into an outright grimace.

  “Oh, yeah...Very sweet,” I said through gritted teeth. “He didn’t happen to say what his name was, did he? This sweet, sweet man?”

  The barista shrugged.

  “He didn’t, actually. I guess he was just a nice guy who wanted to pay it forward, ya know?”

  “Yeah... Sure.” I said, and joylessly took my coffee from her hand.

  I didn’t see him at all that day, and thanked my Christmas star for that fact, but I can tell you right now that was the bitterest free cup of coffee I’d ever had the displeasure of drinking...

  Chapter Five - On Thin Ice

  Somehow I’d survived through to the weekend! I’d managed to do the impossible, getting through this complete head trip of a week without going completely crazy, although I’ll be the first to admit I came awfully close a time or two.

  I was off from the bakery again this Saturday, and I desperately wanted to get out of town again with Jule. I wished I could think of some excuse for us to go back to Westport and stay in a hotel for the weekend, shake off the memory of the past several days, and hopefully return to a version of Loveland that was completely free of any snowmen masquerading as human beings, or vice versa.

  Jule, unfortunately, was spending the night at her friend’s house this evening, so this plan wouldn’t work out even if I could have afforded to shell out so much cash on so frivolous an endeavor.

  Still, though, what was to stop me, personally, from getting out of town overnight? It was rare these days that I should get an evening to myself, after all. At the very least, maybe I could treat myself to a nice dinner in the city, then catch some cheesy holiday film at the movie theater just to kill some time.

  Surely, I told myself, Nole’s incessant head games and cameos in my day-to-day life wouldn’t extend past the Loveland corporation limits.

  Would they?

  I actually had no idea why this should be the case, but it felt right somehow. Like there was some unwritten rule about Christmas magic that kept it contained inside the small town where it originated. Sort of like, well, being inside a snow globe.

  Whether or not this was actually accurate, though, I never really got a chance to test my theory for certain.

  I’d just clocked out at Loveland from the Oven, and was already scheming about what I should do with my precious evening of freedom ahead. In my absentmindedness, I guess I didn’t notice the black ice that had formed across the sidewalk next to my car until it was too late.

  All at once the whole world toppled out from under me. I slid back and began to fall, feeling like I was suspended in slow motion, already imagining myself slamming into the cold pavement, my head busted open on a gurney as they wheeled me off to the ER.

  The nearest hospital, it just so happened, was in Westport, so it was starting to look like I might get to have my girl’s night out after all...

  Oh God! my thoughts raced as I plummeted. Who will take care of Jule? How the fossilized fruitcake will I afford to pay for my medical expenses??? Oh God, I’ll have to sell the bakery! What will happen to poor sweet Marie?!

  Thankfully, though, it never came to any of that. I was saved from the ground by a firm set of hands, gripping me just under my arms, my legs still skidding out from under me as I tried to steady myself.

  “Easy there! I’ve got you!” said a familiar voice, and he pulled me back up onto my feet with only a few hairs out of place, but no real harm done. I leaned against the side of my car to make sure I didn’t go toppling onto my marshmallows all over again, then turned around to face my rescuer once his hands were off of me.

  Nole looked more stupidly handsome than ever in the glow of the setting sun, his stubble having filled out into a short, sexy beard since the last time I’d seen him up this close. He looked at me with concern in those cool blue eyes of his, but that irritating grin was still slathered across his lips- the ones I hadn’t stopped imagining myself kissing in the week that had gone by since I’d actually done so.

  “My goodness, Addison, that was a close one,” he said, seeming totally oblivious to my annoyance with him. “Are you alright? You didn’t twist your ankle or anything, did you?”

  I should have been grateful. I should have thanked him. Instead I exploded on him.

  “Why do you keep following me?!” I yelled, throwing my hands into the air in a way that might’ve caused a scene, had there actually been anyone around to pay us any mind.

  “I’m following you?” he asked, his tone innocent enough but grating on my last nerve.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you’re not! You keep showing up all over town! Carrying that old lady’s groceries... Stopping to help that woman change her flat tire... Buying me coffee!”

  The more I thought about it, I realized Nole hadn’t actually followed me to any of those places- in each instance, he’d been where he was first, and I’d just happened to roll up onto the scene shortly thereafter.

  Nole shrugged, no longer smiling, but his expressio
n still one of complete and total innocence.

  “To be fair, Loveland is a pretty small town,” he said. “Honestly, I haven’t seen you around at all this past week. I mean, I guess I thought that might’ve been you getting honked at near the bridge the other day, but you drove off before I could say for sure. But I am sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Like I mentioned before, I was brought into this world for a reason. And, well... Since you clearly aren’t interested in that reason yourself, I guess I’ve just been doing good deeds around town to kill time.”

  “Kill time until what, exactly?” I pressed him, although I unexpectedly found myself feeling sympathetic to him all of the sudden. It was starting to sink in for me that I may have been making a mountain out of a molehill this entire week, and that as strange as our initial introduction may have been (and it was still weird as all get-out), I was starting to get the impression that Nole, whatever else he might have been, was all-in-all a pretty decent guy.

  “I dunno,” Nole answered me, with another disinterested shrug. “Until springtime, I guess?”

  “And what happens in springtime?” I asked him.

  “Good question,” he said, and his smirk returned.

  I sighed. “Look. I’m sorry. I mean, I’m grateful. Thank you, for saving me from falling just now.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said, with a polite nod.

  “And I mean... Well, I guess maybe I sort of went off the handle on you a little bit. Both just now, and the other night. I’ve just been... Well... This whole situation, it- I mean come on, you’ve got to admit it’s strange.”

  He nodded again. “I freely admit it,” he said. “And I realized pretty quickly that my approach the other night was just about as ass backwards as it could’ve possibly been. I mean, maybe I should’ve at least tried to find some clothes first before showing up at your door with such a crazy story, and pouring my feelings out the way that I did...”

  I bit my lip, remembering the sight of his naked body in front of my fireplace, then shook my head to try and stay focused.

  “I still don’t know that I buy your whole song dance about you being some kind of snowperson, or whatever...”

  “And like I said,” he shrugged, “I didn’t totally expect you to. At least not right away.”

  “...But I can at least see that, well... Maybe you are a nice enough guy,” I finally admitted. “And you don’t seem like you’re completely crazy. You know, aside from the one incident.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that was totally on me. I feel like we definitely got started out on the wrong foot all-around. And I would really love the chance to try and fix that, if you don’t mind giving me the chance.”

  I took a very deep breath, then held it for a moment. I really didn’t want to spend the next week in as much agony as I had been the previous one, and I had no idea whether giving him another chance would make the situation better or worse for me.

  Finally I exhaled, a thick white cloud of my breath billowing up in front of me, fading very slowly into the darkening red sky.

  “What did you have in mind, exactly?” I finally asked, and a look of relief seemed to pass over his face.

  _____

  The two of us sat in the Starlite Diner, picking over our cheeseburger and fries in a corner booth. This was the same establishment, you might recall, where my ex met the two floozy waitresses who jointly managed to sabotage my marriage. Dining options were limited in Loveland, however, and there were no sign of the offending parties anywhere to be found. I wondered whether they may have quit working here altogether due to all the personal drama that had gone down, when each of them realized they were being cheated on with the other by the same married man.

  The food, I was pleasantly surprised to find, was much warmer and tastier than I recalled it being the last time I’d eaten here.

  “Okay, I’m giving you a chance to come clean,” I said to Nole across the booth, as I squeezed a pool of ketchup onto my plate. “I don’t know what made you think that whole snowman mythology of yours was a good idea in the first place. But now’s your chance to give me the truth about yourself. Where you came from, how you ended up here. No judgment. No questions asked that you don’t want to answer. I just need you to look me in the eyes and tell me honestly, who you really are, before I can even begin to think about this going any further whatsoever. Whatever this is, I mean...”

  Nole was silent for a moment, studying me across the table. He took a sip of his Coke, then set it aside, and leaned forward on his elbows.

  “Honestly, Addison? If I had a better explanation to give you, you can certainly believe that I would. I know just how bonkers it all sounds. Heck, I feel like you would probably trust me more if I told you I was an escaped inmate or something, or a man on the run from the law. But I feel like I can’t be anything but honest with you. I care too much about you to be anything else, even if the truth I share is too much for you to believe.”

  I frowned. “So you’re really sticking with Christmas magic, then?” I asked. “It’s really just as simple as that?”

  He smiled. “Nothing’s ever as simple as you think,” he said. “Christmas magic isn’t simple. It happens to some people, and it doesn’t happen to others. Even I can’t explain why. I just know that it chose you. That I chose you. And that I think, by building me, you sort of, in a way chose me, too.

  None of this was anything I hadn’t been racking my brain over for the past week, but I considered it all the same. I munched away on my fries, staring down at my plate, as I tried to parse out some of the thoughts that had been whirling around in my head ever since he’d shown up at my door.

  “So you chose me,” I said. “And now you’re here to fix my life for me? Help me raise my daughter, or whatever? Save my hemorrhaging bakery from going under? Magically make everything better for me?”

  “I love your sarcasm,” he said, still smiling, and I frowned.

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry...” I caved.

  “I would say that my being here is a miracle,” he said. “My existing, sitting across from you, I mean, when I began my life as a cluster of snowflakes blowing around in the atmosphere... That’s pretty miraculous, at least in my opinion. But that said, I’m not some kind of magician who goes around performing my own miracles, or anything like that. I’m honestly just some guy. I really can’t promise you anything, except that I want to be there for you. I mean, sometimes, just having someone around to lean on for support, to be there when things get rough. Well, that can make all the difference, don’t you think?”

  I sighed, yet again, and wondered how much air I’d lost through sighing so far over the course of the evening.

  “One of the things I was immediately worried about when Scott and I broke up was how I was ever going to get back out there and start dating again, or even if I was. I mean, Loveland is Loveland, after all. You mostly know all the same people all your life, and if you haven’t met your soul mate by the time you get to be my age, that person probably just doesn’t exist. Maybe that was the case for me, so God had to whip up a whole new man out of the snow for me instead...”

  Nole laughed. “Well, that certainly is one way of thinking about it, I suppose.”

  Finally I looked up at him, my expression as serious as I could make it. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” I finally confessed. “All week... And the truth is, you’re right. I can’t keep going on alone by myself anymore. I can’t be there for Jule, I can’t run the shop... Not without help. I know you know a lot about me somehow. But you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear someone tell me the things that you’ve been. Not just since the divorce. But since my parents died. And even before that, when my marriage started to get bumpy only a few years in.

  “So to feel that way, for so long, and to need support so badly, only to have someone like you show up out of the blue and offer me everything I’ve been missing in my life... Well, you know how they say that if something
seems too good to be true, it probably is? That’s just kind of where I am right now...”

  Slowly, Nole nodded his head, fixing me in the cool blue of his gaze.

  “I appreciate you sharing that with me, Addison. I totally understand where you’re coming from, and you aren’t wrong at all to feel that way.”

  “I know I’m not,” I said. “And if I’m going to let you get anywhere close to me, and more importantly to my daughter, I need to know that you aren’t going to end up being like my ex-husband all over again. I need to know that you aren’t just trying to use me. That it’s not just some game to you, and that you won’t turn around and abandon me just when I’ve decided to trust you. Because I can’t do that again. I won’t do that again. I deserve better than that. And so does Jule.”

  Nole reached across the table for my hand. I let him hold it, and the same lovely warmth I’d experienced on the night we met, our fingers entwined back home on my couch, came spreading through my body all over again.

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said softly. “You do. You deserve so much more than that. And I want to do whatever it takes to make you comfortable with trusting me. I mean that, Addison. Anything I can do. Even if that means taking things slow. Making sure this is right for you, and for Jule. Us, I mean. The possibility of us being together. If, of course, that’s something you end up deciding that you want.”

  “Slow,” I repeated, gazing off as if it was an entirely new concept to me. Then I smiled. “I like that,” I said. “I really think that might be the best idea. I do, well... I can tell that whatever this is, there really is something between us. But yes. Let’s take things slow for now. And then once I get to know you a little bit better, if things are the way the way you are, then... Well, then we can see.”

  “That sounds perfect,” said Nole, smiling his warmest smile, the glint in his eye from the diner’s neon signage awakening an untold fire in me.

  _____

  The next thing I knew the two of us were bursting in through my front door, snow blowing into the house as we stumbled in through the living room, our lips locked together and our hands all over one another.