Page 117 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas

“Oh, why’d you park on this side of the building?” Jeannie asked as I parked the mommy-mobile.

“Just figured the bigger parking lot right in front is going to be real crowded,” I fibbed, bracing for one of my kids to call me on it. But I should have known better, because even though a lot had changed since Christmas, what hadn’t was that my daughters were excellent co-conspirators. “Plus, this way, we miss the big jam of people trying to exit all at once.”

“It’ll be nice to stretch our legs, anyway,” Addy said as she opened the side door. I’d recently turned off the child locks, but I still wasn’t sold on the idea.

“Huh, okay, then.” Fortunately, Jeannie didn’t question it, if only because she was just as excited as Max to get into the water. It was already building up to be a scorcher of a summer, and she didn’t use the AC in her townhouse because of the cost.

“Hey, Jeannie,” I said as we all made our way into the community center, which was fairly quiet. We hadn’t come on a weekend, which was the busiest time. Besides, who wanted to hang inside when there was a splash zone to play in.

“What’s up?”

“Did you know you can actually reserve a chunk of the wading pool and splash area for private parties?”

“Oh, really?” she asked, and I saw the ideas bloom across her features. Sometimes it was sofunwatching her creative mind pick up a thought and run with it.

“Yeah.” I wondered if this was how our kids felt when they were putting together their scheme to get us together.

“Do you think that maybe we could do something like that? None of us have summer birthdays, but I don’t know, there’s got to be some reason to celebrate.”

I definitely got why our devious little trio had so much fun hatching up a plan to get us lost on the trail. Jeannie was playing right into my hand, and it was ever so satisfying.

“Uh, I don’t know. Is that really something we want to do?”

“Sure! Why not? Everyone here loves playing in the water except for you, but if the seating is anything like it was with the ice rink, you have lots of places where you can lounge around or hang out and just chill.”

“I don’t know...” I was flirting too close to the edge, because Addy looked over her shoulder and gave me the slightest shake of her head. Whoops. The expert was telling me to back off.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Jeannie asked. “It’s not like you to shoot down an idea so quickly.”

Thankfully, I was saved from having to answer as we finally stepped through the doors that led to the rink. Max and Jeannie stopped dead in their tracks.

Jeannie’s eyes went wide. “I…”

“Why are there Christmas decorations everywhere?” Max said, arms above his head as he raced forward. “This looks just like Santa’s Workshop! Just with water!”

Jeannie’s head slowly turned to me like it was half rusted, that shocked expression on her face turning to one of suspicion. I tried not to look too pleased with myself, but I was failing miserably.

“Christmas in July?” she asked, her voice going small like it always did whenever she was afraid something was too good to be true.

I dropped all pretenses and beamed at her. “I figured we have a whole lot of Christmases to make up for, especially with Max, so what better way than to celebrate the season while Mr. Claus himself is on vacation.”

“I…” Shaking her head, she flung herself at me, her lips crashing to mine. I lifted her off her feet and spun her around.

Right on cue, the kids yelled, “Ew!”

“That’s no way to talk to your father,” a soft voice said from behind us.

“Mamie!” my girls cried out before running to my mother-in-law, throwing themselves at her. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t think I’d miss a Christmas, did you?”

“Even one as hot as this,” my father-in-law added.

I didn’t know where they had hidden, but I never would have been able to pull off the surprise if Jeannie had the same hearing they did. There certainly were advantages to surprising a human.

“W-what?” Jeannie sputtered, and it was evenmoresatisfying to see her surprised all over again.

“Hello, Jeannie,” Amara said as she set Eva down and opened her arms to my girlfriend. Jeannie untangled from me to accept the embrace, and warmth filled me at the sight of it. “Happiest holidays!”