Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Yay, Stuart, I thought. Yay for Christmas miracle happening after all.
Stuart grinned at the girl and said, “This is Jubilee. Jubilee, this is Addie. She goes to my school.”
Awwww,  I  thought  again.  How  adorable  that  he  was  going  out  with  someone  named  after  a  yummy
Christmas dessert. How adorable that he got his yummy Christmas dessert—even though he was Jewish
or whatever.
“Thanks  for  that,”  Jubilee  said  to  Stuart,  blushing.  To  me  she  said,  “Weird  name.  I  know.  I’m  not  a
stripper, I promise.”
“Uh . . . okay,” I said.
“You can call me Julie,” she said.
“Nah, I like Jubilee,” I said. Saying her name out loud made a memory ping in my brain. Tegan . . . the
Kissing Patrol . . . some un-Jeb guy thrusting his fist into the air . . .
“Maybe  you  could  take  their  order?”  Christina  prompted,  knocking  whatever  it  was  right  out  of  my
head.  Oh,  well.  Stuart  was  with  a  lovely  girl  named  Jubilee,  and  she  wasn’t  a  stripper.  That’s  all  that
mattered.
“As in, now?” Christina said.
“Uh . . . yes!” I said enthusiastically. Possibly too enthusiastically. “In just a second, ’kay? I just have to
do this one teeny thing.”
“Addie,” Christina warned.
To my right, Tobin stirred in the purple chair. Was he just now waking up? He blinked at me and said,

---

“Whoa. Your name’s Addie?”
“Um, yep, that’s me, Addie,” I said, thinking, See? Knew you didn’t know my name. I juggled Gabriel
to keep him hidden under my coat, and he made a funny noise that sounded like wheep. “And now I’m just
going to run to the back—”
Gabriel wheeped again. Louder.
“Addie,” Christina said in a trying-not-to-freak voice. “What do you have under your coat?”
“Addster!” Charlie said from the bar. “You gonna set me up with that chai?” He grinned, and I realized
why when I saw his arm slung around the girl beside him. Oh my God, this was like Christmas Miracle
Central.
“Hi, Addie,” the evil Brenna said. “Nice hair.” She might have smirked, but I wasn’t sure, because she
didn’t look quite as evil as I remembered her. Today she looked more glow-y than snarky. Maybe because
of Charlie’s arm?
“Seriously,” Tobin said. “Your name’s Addie?” He nudged Angie, who woke up and rubbed her nose.
“Her name’s Addie,” he told her. “You think she’s the Addie?”
“The Addie?” I asked. What was he talking about? I wanted to push for details, but I got distracted by
the sight of Tegan’s Civic turning into the parking lot. Dorrie was in the passenger seat, clutching Tegan’s
shoulder and speaking intently, and I could only imagine what she was saying. Probably something like,
“Now,  remember,  this  is  Addie  we’re  talking  about.  It’s  highly  possible  she’s  having  some  crisis  and
didn’t get Gabriel after all.”
“Adeline,” Christina said. “That’s not . . . a pig, is it?”
I glanced down to see Gabriel’s head peeking out from the top of my zipper. He wheeped and looked
around.
“Well,” I said proudly, since the pig was out of the coat, so to speak. I rubbed Gabriel’s ears. “Not just
any pig, but a teacup pig. Very rare.”
Jubilee glanced at Stuart and grinned. “You live in a town where people carry around elf-size pigs?”
she said. “And here I thought my life was weird.”
“Not elf. Teacup,” I said. “And speaking of, I need one of the holiday mugs, ’kay, Christina? You can
take  it  out  of  my  paycheck.”  I  headed  toward  the  display  shelf,  but  Tobin  stopped  me  by  grabbing  my
elbow.
“Are you the Addie who goes out with Jeb Taylor?” he asked.
That threw me. Tobin didn’t know my name, but he knew I went out with Jeb?
“I’m . . . well, um . . . ” I swallowed. “Why?”
“Because Jeb gave me a message for you. Crap, I completely dropped the ball.”
My heart whacked around in my chest. “He gave you a message? What was the message?”
Tobin turned to Angie. “I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t you remind me?”
She smiled drowsily. “That you’re an idiot? Okay: you’re an idiot.”
“Oh, that’s great, thanks,” he said. She giggled.
“The message?” I managed to say.
“Right!” he said. He turned his attention back to me. “The message was that he got delayed.”
“By cheerleaders,” Angie contributed.
“I’m sorry?”
“Cheerleaders?”  Jubilee  said,  somewhat  manically.  She  and  Stuart  came  over  to  where  we  were
standing. “Oh my God, cheerleaders!”
“The cheerleaders were on a train with him, only the train got stuck,” Tobin said.
“I was on that train!” Jubilee shouted. Stuart laughed the way you do when someone you love is a goofy
nut. “And did you say Jeb? I gave him a microwavable pizza disc!”
“You gave Jeb a . . . what?” I said.

---

“’Cause of the storm?” Charlie asked.
I turned to him in a daze. “Why would she give Jeb a microwavable pizza disc because of the storm?”
“Dude, no,” he said. He hopped off his stool and pulled Brenna along with him. They joined us by the
purple chairs. “I mean did the train get stuck ’cause of the storm, asshat.”
Tobin  twitched  at  the  word
ASSHAT
 and  looked  up  at  Charlie  like  he’d  seen  an  apparition.  Then  he
shook  it  off  and  said,  “Uh,  yeah.  Exactly.  And  then  the  cheerleaders  abducted  Jeb,  because  they  had
needs.”
Charlie laughed. “Right on.”
“Not those kind of needs,” Angie said.
“Yeah,” Brenna said. She jabbed Charlie in the ribs.
“What  kind  of  needs?”  I  said,  feeling  lightheaded.  In  the  back  of  my  consciousness,  I  registered  the
sound of a car door shutting, and then another. In my peripheral vision, I saw Tegan and Dorrie hurrying
toward the store.
“Huh,” Tobin said, and he got that inward look of his I was growing familiar with, the one that meant
that no answer was forthcoming.
“Well . . . was there more?” I said, trying a different strategy.
“More what?” Tobin said.
“More to Jeb’s message!”
“Oh,” Tobin said. “Yes! Yes, there was!” The set of his jaw was purposeful, but after several seconds,
he deflated. “Ah, crap,” he said.
Angie took pity on me. Her expression went from giddy to kind.
“He said he’s coming,” she said. “He said you’d know what he meant.”
My  heart  stopped,  and  the  cheerful  buzz  of  Starbucks  receded.  It  was  as  if  someone  pressed  a  mute
button on the outside world, or maybe what was going on inside of me was simply drowning everything
else out. He said he was coming? Jeb was coming?!
A jangling penetrated my consciousness, and in my muddled state, I had the most random thought: Every