“Incredible,” Mira’s mom said. “Well, as long as it’s safe, everyone should be excited.”
That’s what we’re hoping for, Mira thought, crossing her fingers under the table. They just needed to be able to sell the idea to the Arbogasts.
She had to hope they would believe it. An animatronic polar bear sounded ridiculous, but arealpolar bear sounded wildly unsafe, so convincing everyone that Wade was simply an unusually lifelike fake was definitely the way to go. It was the only way to explain how it was completely safe, since they couldn’t reveal the existence of shifters to the whole world just to save one mall’s Christmas Village.
They finished up dinner—there was pie for dessert, since they’d used the cookies as appetizers—and Mira and Wade offered to clean up.
“No, go,” her mom said, giving her an indulgent look. “I can tell you want to sell the mall on your idea as soon as possible, and it’s getting late. No executive wants to be hauled out of bed, no matter how good the idea is. If you catch them now, they’ll hopefully be in a good post-dinner haze.”
“I know the feeling,” Mira said, patting her stomach. “But are you sure?”
Her mom kissed her cheek. “I’m sure. You’ve done so much for us, Mira. Go do something for yourself.”
“Wade?” Cliff called from the living room. “Before you go, can you give me a hand building the fire back up?”
“Sure thing,” Wade said, heading right over.
Mira’s mom looked at Cliff and Wade, and Mira followed her gaze. The two of them were lit up orange and yellow by the flickering firelight, mellow and handsome. They looked like they were already family, perfectly matched bookends to Mira and her mother.
It made Mira’s breath catch in her throat. She had introduced men to her parents before, but none of those men had been Wade: none of them had stolen her heart so quickly and so completely. And none of them had ever made her feel like there were two true love stories in the room instead of only one.
“He’s it, isn’t he,” Mira’s mom said.
Mira hadn’t realized that she could see it too. Warmth suffused through her, and not just because Wade and Cliff had succeeded in getting the fire roaring again.
“Yeah,” Mira said softly. “I don’t know how I know it already, but I do. He’s great. I’ve never met anyone like him before. The more time I spend with him—”
“The more you love him,” her mom finished.
Mira had been ready to say “the more I like him,” just because she still felt like she should cover up for how deep her feelings already were. But if her mom could already tell, what was the point in hiding it?
“The more I love him,” she agreed.
Her mom smiled. “Have you told him yet?”
“Not in so many words,” Mira said, hedging a little. “We’ve both made it pretty obvious that we’ve got it bad. He askedme if it was okay to start talking about plans for next year’s Christmas. We haven’t said ‘I love you,’ though. But I think he wants to. There’s something he started to tell me earlier, but we got interrupted. It sounded like it might be that.”
If it was, maybe he could tell her tonight. Or maybe that would be the perfect confession for Christmas Eve, after they had (hopefully) saved the Christmas Village. She couldn’t decide. Wade was the one who had started the big moment off, so she would let him decide when to finish it.
“Well, I hope the interruptions stop,” Mira’s mom said. “There’s no point in wasting time. Believe me, you’ll always want as much of it as you can get.”
Mira knew that was true.
“I’m glad you and Cliff are going to be able to make good use of your time,” she said.
Her mom smiled. “Thanks to you, sweetie.”
“All I did was close the gap. It’s not like you guys didn’t put plenty of money into it too. I’m just happy that this’ll get Cliff the help he needs and let the two of you stop worrying so much. That’s all I really wanted for Christmas.”
“Us too,” her mom said, giving her a one-armed hug. “But I’m glad you got Wade along with it. And that gives us another present: getting to see our daughter look happier than ever. Now go persuade these mall executives that alltheywant for Christmas is an animatronic polar bear.”
*
“Are you sure about this?” Mira said, eyeing the Arbogasts’ front door. She could feel nervous sweat start to prickle up on the back of her neck. “Paying a surprise late-night visit is a big risk to take.”
Wade grimaced. “I’m not as sure as I’d like to be. But this is the kind of request it’s hard to make over the phone. We don’t want them assuming it’s a prank call and hanging up on us. And we don’t have time to do it all over email.”
True. If the Arbogasts didn’t check their mail outside of working hours—and good for them if they didn’t, honestly—then they wouldn’t know about the “animatronic polar bear” idea until the morning. That could be too late to drum up the necessary publicity and make the event as much of a splash as they needed it to be.
