Heston froze. “Oh, no. What time is it?” He lunged for the phone which he’d left on the block wall and swore—something he rarely did. “Hallie’s Christmas concert is starting right now. Sarah took Hallie to the practice and I was supposed to meet them at six. I totally lost track of time.”
Luke threw the ball into a bin in the garage. “I’ll see you later then.”
Heston moved for his truck and abruptly stopped. “Would you mind dropping me off? Parking is going to be insane and I’ll end up missing the whole thing.”
“Sure, why not?” From the sounds of it, he was about to be the hero who saved Heston from sleeping on the couch tonight, and Luke could use all the brownie points with Heston’s wife he could get. A month after he moved in, he accidently took out half of her prized rose bush when he was trimming close to the property line. It didn’t give off another rose for a whole year, and although it fully recovered this past summer, Sarah still held a grudge.
They got in Luke’s car, and he gunned it down the street before realizing he had no idea where they were going.
“Where’s the school?”
“Turn left up here on Western and go another couple miles. You’ll turn right onto Clark Street, and it’s on the left.”
“It’s on Clark Street?” When Heston had mentioned a Christmas concert, Luke couldn’t help thinking about Sandy from the department store. While there were likely dozens of schools having concerts on a Friday night in December, only one of them had Sandy waiting on him. But it couldn’t be this one. It just couldn’t. Even though he was pretty sure she’d written Clark Street on that piece of paper. Maybe there was more than one school on Clark Street.
“So, Heston. I never told you this, but some lady at the store asked me to come to a Christmas concert tonight. I guess her niece is the music teacher and she’s hoping to set us up.”
“What?” Heston was busy texting Sarah. “The concert we’re going to?”
“I don’t know.” He turned on the radio to distract himself from the nervousness building up in his belly. It didn’t really matter because he wouldn’t be going inside.
He turned onto Clark Street and slowed as he entered the school zone. The street dead-ended into the school parking lot. There was definitely not a second elementary school on Clark Street.
“So, are you coming in?” Heston asked. “I guess I could just try and covertly send you a picture of the music teacher.”
Luke stared him down. “That’s a terrible idea. Sarah would kill you.”
Heston laughed. “Yeah, never mind. You’re on your own there.”
Luke slowed down in front of the auditorium, and his friend jumped out as soon as the car came to a stop. The strains of “Jingle Bells” being butchered by screechy little children indicated that yes, Heston had almost missed the whole thing. Now it was Luke’s turn to make a decision. He was right here. He could just peek in. No one had to know.
A car blared its horn behind him, and he startled before moving forward into the parking lot. There was no way an empty spot should have been available, but there was one up on his left. The jerk who honked and was currently riding his bumper didn’t deserve to get it. Luke smiled and pulled in. It was a sign. Not that he needed one.
He jogged up to the auditorium doors, remembering that he was in a knit long-sleeved tee and basketball pants as the cold seeped right through the thin material and hit his legs. Yeah, just a quick look.
He slipped inside with his back against the wall. The auditorium felt a hundred degrees hotter than the air outside and ten times as bright. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust as the children up on stage belted out “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
There was a woman below the stage conducting, but all he could see was the back of her straight blonde hair.
The kids finished singing, and everyone broke out into applause. Up on stage, he spotted Hallie at the same time she noticed him. She waved wildly and he gave her a wave back. His little next-door neighbor was a spitfire, and the reason he’d gotten to know Heston and Sarah in the first place. His first week in the neighborhood, Hallie had thrown her ball over his fence and rang his doorbell to retrieve it with a gaggle of neighborhood kids in tow.
The music teacher walked up the steps to the stage, and Luke’s eyes were riveted there, taking in her festive red wrap dress and red heels. This was a woman who did not need her aunt picking up men for her. She smiled and pulled a microphone off the mike stand.
“Thank you for coming to our holiday concert. I’m Miss Harris, the music teacher here at Franklin Elementary, and I have to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed working with your children. They’ve been so excited to show off their hard work. I’d like to thank—”
“You came!” Sandy’s overjoyed face blocked his view. She’d pounced on him out of nowhere. Well, not out of nowhere. His stupid guy attention had been on the stage. Sandy tugged on his arm and brought him forward, farther away from his escape route. He glanced up and saw Miss Harris’s eyes widen. She was watching, even though she continued her speech as if everything was normal. If he pulled away and ran now, it would only make this situation worse for her.
“Yeah, hi. This is actually just a coincidence. I was dropping off my friend. His little girl sang tonight.”
“Well, what a happy coincidence.” Sandy patted his arm. “Isn’t Tara beautiful?”
“Yes.” That wasn’t hard to admit. “But I didn’t come to meet her. Like I said, I was just someone’s ride here.”
Miss Harris finished speaking, and parents began mobbing the front, trying to take pictures before the kids left the stage. Another flood of people headed straight for the double doors just behind him. Luke took the opportunity to dodge Sandy like the matchmaking assassin she was. He needed to find Heston and Sarah, if nothing else, to back up his story. Sandy shouldn’t be under the delusion that her setup actually worked.
Getting over to them was taking forever. All these chatty people and their kids seemed to dart in front of him just as he found a break in the crowd. He finally climbed over a chair to reach Heston and Sarah’s row and squeezed between them.
Sarah gave him a funny look. “What are you doing here?”
