My sweater smells like cedar and mothballs courtesy of the fact that it’s lived in a cedar chest for the past fifteen years. Amanda’s mom’s cedar chest, to be precise.
She saved it since Amanda’s dad passed away.
I’m wearing my dead fake father-in-law-to-be’s ugliest Christmas sweater.
Correction: I’m sweating through his sweater.
And everyone wants to see Amanda’s ring.
And talk about how I saved Christmas at the Gingerbread House.
One, Christmas is still four months away. I didn’tsave Christmas. I fixed their industrial mixer. And two—
Getting Amanda a ring was the worst thing I could’ve done.
“There’s the man of the hour,” my old English teacher says. Mr. Briggs claps me on the shoulder. He’s in an ugly Hanukkah sweater and shorts. “Never thought I’d live to see the day that a Silver would save the Andersons. And marrying one too. Don’t end this in tragedy. That’s an order.”
“No tragedies here.”
“Good. Amanda’s performance inTaming of the Shrewwill always be my favorite, but that doesn’t mean I need you two going real-life Shakespeare in this town.”
“No real-life Shakespeare.”
“I mean it.”
“Mr. Briggs, my fiancé has already assured you there will be no tragedies happening here.” Amanda slips to my side and squeezes my left hand, leaving her free to lift the engagement ring for the teacher’s inspection.
It’s all anyone wants to see.
We knew it would be when we decided that we had to come to the photo shoot.
That we had to be out in public, letting our families see the town’s excitement over our impending wedding as one more solid example of why they need to pull their heads out of their asses and let this stupid feud go.
“How did you two meet? I haven’t heard the whole story,” a woman dressed like a Christmas tree says.
“Dane was on a trip to New York for work, and I was walking dogs past his hotel when he was waiting on a ride, and one of my dogs humped his leg,” Amanda says.
I slide her a look. This is a new version. Or at least new details of the version we’ve agreed on and told other people.
She throws her hands in the air. “I’m tired of not telling the truth about what Mr. Fluffles did to you that day.”
Mr. Fluffles humped my leg.
I file that one away for the questions Lorelei will have when that reaches her in approximately forty-two seconds.
“Anyway, after I got Mr. Fluffles off of Dane’s leg, I asked if I could buy him coffee to apologize. AndthenI realized who he was, and I couldn’t take it back without being rude, and honestly, I’ve always adored Lorelei, and she always spoke so highly of Dane that it wasn’t truly hard to want to have coffee with someone from back home. One thing led to another, and here we are.”
Amanda smiles.
Her ugly Christmas sweater is one of the gingerbread scenes from the movieShrek.
She has an entire series of them stored at her mom’s house. It’s unexpectedly charming that she can tell a whole story with her Christmas sweaters.
Also, I was incredibly glad that her mother wasn’t home when we were going through the Christmas sweaters.
But now—“Amanda!” Kimberly calls. She’s in a blow-up gingerbread costume. “Grandma and I are over here, and they’re about to start.”
“Dane,” my dad calls at the same time from the other side of the gazebo. Like the rest of my family, he’s wearing the fruitcake version of a Green Bay Packers cheese hat. “Over here. With us. We have an extra hat for you.”
