Page 8 of Joy to the Girls (She Gets the Girl #2)

After our long breakfast, we stand in the center square of town, holding our phones, timers at the ready.

“One hour. Three gifts. Then we all meet back right here. Ready?” I ask. I look around at everyone nodding, except for Alex, of course, who is frowning down at me.

“Okay, but this does feel a little unfair considering May grew up here and we’ve only been here for a—”

“Go!” I shout, cutting her off midsentence. All of us scatter in separate directions.

“Real nice, Parker!” Alex shouts from behind me, making me laugh.

As soon as she’s out of sight, I veer off in the direction Cora went and find her right before she heads into a store.

“Hey, I need a favor,” I say, grabbing her by the arm. She spins around to face me, karate hands at the ready.

“Oh my God, Molly!” She places her hand over her heart.

“Did you think one of Santa’s elves was mugging you?” I ask, puzzled, then quickly shake my head. Stay on task . “My Zoom with King’s College is at one. I need you to distract Alex after this so I can run back to the inn for a bit.”

“Molly! You have to just tell her already! I don’t want to lie to her anymore. She’s my friend too,” Cora says, and I close my eyes, letting out a sigh.

“I know. I’m sorry. I hate asking you to do this, but listen…

this is it, okay? I feel like this meeting is going to be the confirmation I need to know that I am definitely doing this.

I promise I will tell her after. Just please do this for me?

” I ask, accompanied by some prayer hands for good measure.

“What am I even going to do with her?!” she asks, giving in.

“Thank you! Thank you! I don’t know,” I reply, already heading off in the other direction. “But food will always distract her!” I add.

Okay. I let out a long, relieved exhale. At least I’ve got that figured out.

Even though I can feel anxiety scratching at my chest over the fact that I will be meeting all my potential new classmates in two hours, I force my brain to lock it down as best I can. Right now I need to focus on the task at hand: finding these three gifts.

I schemed this gift exchange up while we got dressed this morning.

I thought it would be a good way for Cora to be able to buy May a meaningful gift without feeling weird about it.

I was feeling really confident then. I’ve always been the best gift giver in my family.

But as I walk by each of the storefronts, looking at all the trinkets and books and clothes, my head is just buzzing.

Alex. May. Cora. Three gifts in one hour. That leaves very little time for all the research I’d normally do before selecting something. Googling reviews and ratings for days before hitting “complete purchase.”

I just have to start somewhere. Cora seems like lower stakes than Alex, but I still know her extremely well, unlike May. So I’ll start with her gift.

I think about everything I could get her. Everything she might like.

Books? No. She has literally hundreds of books, most of them probably still on her Tbr. (Although, that’s not a very good reason not to get more books.)

Some kind of souvenir to remember her time in Barnwich? That could be so cute, but… I bet May will get her something like that. Something special to remember their weekend together here.

Clothes? A shirt? A hat?

I look down at my own outfit.

Mittens.

Cora left her mittens at the Cathedral of Learning last month when we were all working on our final essay for lit. It’s why I brought so many this weekend. It’s something that she could actually use. Perfect.

I pop into a cute clothing boutique and find a wicker basket in the back corner filled to the brim with hand-knit winter accessories. I dig through it until I unearth a red pair and a blue pair, laying them both out on top of the pile.

I slowly start to reach for the red pair, which seems more festive, but I still feel unsure.

“Cora would like the blue ones more,” a voice says from right over my shoulder, making me scream. I whip around and come face-to-face with…

“Alex!” I meet her green eyes and then look past her at the woman behind the cash register staring right at me, alarmed. “Sorry!” I tell her, then flick my gaze back to Alex, lightly shoving her toward the door. “Get out of here!”

She laughs. “All right, all right. I’m going!” She holds up her hands in mock defeat. “Wait, can I steal a sip of your water?” she asks, and I roll my eyes but oblige, digging my water bottle out from my bag.

I wait until she disappears out the door and around the corner before turning back to the basket and letting out a defeated sigh. I guess when I think about it, Cora does wear a lot more blue than she does red. Alex is right. Of course . I reach down and grab the blue pair.

As I step back out onto the snowy Barnwich streets, I decide I’ll do Alex next before I run into her again. It should be easy.

But as I walk around every store, I find that I run into the opposite problem with her. I can think of about a million things she would like, and I have to decide on only one.

A pair of wool socks.

The newest novel that just dropped from her favorite author.

An endless supply of Oreos…

Ooooh!

The second I walk back into the bookstore, I spot the perfect gift for her.

A planner for the new year. I pick up a leather hardback with the year embossed on the front cover. Simple. Sturdy. Very Alex.

“Are you following me?” a familiar voice calls from behind me, and I once again spin around, startled, whipping the planner behind my back.

“Again?!” I reply, incredulous.

“What?! I was here first! I saw you stumble in here from the back corner over there,” she says, gesturing to the opposite end of the store. Her eyes narrow. “You’re not getting me a planner, are you?”

“No? What planner?” I reply, but she sees right through me.

“Mollyyyy. I won’t use it,” she says, letting her shoulders droop and her arms hang down.

“Alex! You can write down everything you have going on. I’m telling you, it will change your life.

Work, school, everything. You can put it all in there.

We can have little planning nights where we watch Netflix and catch up on our calendars!

” I tell her, my voice practically cracking with excitement at the thought of my perfect date night.

She shakes her head. “You and I are so different, Molly Parker.” But then she takes a step closer and kisses my disappointed face. “You are so cute. I love you so much. But please put it back. We can still have your cute little planning night, just… without the expensive planner.”

Now it’s my turn to let my shoulders drop. “How did you know?” I ask.

“Because I know you better than I know myself,” she replies. “And also I can see you holding it behind your back in the reflection.” She laughs as I look behind me to see us mirrored in the shop window.

“See you around, Parker,” she adds, walking out the door and leaving me in the dust back at square one.

Okay. New plan. I turn around, scanning the store until— there! I find a present that Alex will actually like, not just be forced to use.

A stainless steel, leak-proof water bottle. Not only is she constantly stealing “just a sip” of mine, but I’m pretty sure she’s constantly dehydrated. That girl will have eight snacks a day but has never had the standard eight cups of water a day in her life.

While I’m checking out, I glance through the window at a really cute vintage candy shop across the street, and just like that I remember that May selected the sour gummies out of Alex’s snack bag on the ride up here.

So next I head over to get her a variety bag of sour candy. As I’m scooping sour worms into my bag, a giant pink bubble appears in my peripheral version. Before it even pops, I know exactly who it is, and this time I’m not even surprised.

“How is it that I’ve seen you three times now and haven’t run into Cora or May once?” I ask through a smile.

“Luck? Good fortune? Destiny ?” she suggests, blinking cutely. She eyes my bag of gummy worms. “For May?”

I nod, holding the bag open. “Give me a scoop of those cherry bombs,” I tell her, and she obliges.

“What’d you get me? A file folder? Sticky notes? A matching label maker to yours?” she jokes, dumping a small scoop into my bag.

“Please. A label maker of such quality costs way more than twenty bucks. How’d you even get done so fast?” I ask, eyeing the bags hanging from her arm.

“I’m efficient,” she replies, moving them away from me. “Here, get her some of these. Your mom swears by them,” she says, already digging the scooper into the mini sour gummy bears.

“You two spend way too much time together,” I tell her.

“Me and Beth? I guess.” She drops the scooper back into the holder. “Oh, by the way, she wanted me to tell you that Noah is a size ten? What’s that all about?”

“I want to get Noah a new pair of Crocs for Christmas this year, but I didn’t know what size his are. She was supposed to sneakily check while she was visiting this weekend,” I reply.

“Oh my God, Molly, why are you encouraging his footwear choices?” she asks, twisting her face up in disgust.

I shake my head with a smile and bump my shoulder into her.

Alex has always hated that he wears them, even if it’s just around his apartment, and she has made us all well aware of it.

“Did I ever tell you that when I was growing up, my mom would actually give Noah and me twenty dollars to buy gifts for each other? We always bought the dumbest stuff. It was a total waste of money, but my mom loved it, so she did it year after year anyway.”

“That is so Beth. When I was younger, if my mom remembered it was Christmas, she would give me ten bucks to get her a six-pack from the gas station and let me spend the rest on whatever I wanted. Mountain Dew and gumballs, babyyyy.”

She’s laughing, but I can hear the little bit of sadness that still sits underneath it. My whole face droops toward the floor, and I instantly drop the candy bag onto a shelf to wrap my arms around her as tightly as I can. “That hurts my heart,” I say, burying my face in her chest.

“It’s okay, babe. It was a long time ago.

” She drops her hand down and rubs a circle over my back.

“Also, it was a Mountain Dew Code Red, so what else could a gal ask for really?” She chuckles lighter this time.

The topic of her mom is much easier to joke about now that things have been stable for more than three years.

“I hope we can give our kids Christmases like you had growing up,” Alex says.

“Yeah, with presents piled higher than the tree,” I reply, my eyes practically sparkling at the memory of seeing it on Christmas morning.

“I meant with family , Molly. Happy and together,” she replies, meeting my eyes.

“I hope so too,” I say. And I do. But while every feature of my face is smiling back at her, my insides are riddled with guilt, because I can’t bring myself to tell her about the plans I have of my own. The ones that might greatly affect not just my future but hers, too.

Two kids swing the door open, letting in a cold breeze that shakes me out of my thoughts. “Meet me outside after you check out. There’s something I want to show you,” she says, then kisses my cheek and heads for the door.