Page 30 of Love Letters to Christmas

Who got my confession stuck in customs?

Brian

I’m excited.

“Food?” I ask, tapping my pen against my lip.

Amelia, not entirely the most nervous creature in the world at all , chimes, “C-check!”

I put a tick in the box on my list. “Decorations?” My eyes scan the lobby of Whirlwind Branding, which I have kitted out in all manner of Christmas.

Several trees dot the extravagant marble tiles.

Fake snow fills every corner. Wreaths and garlands burden our one and only Aubree Waltz original painting titled Shark .

Behind the reception desk and burdened by the weight of Christmas cheer, the massive megalodon painting peers.

Amelia takes in the same scene, gaze lingering on the photo set up I’ve put together beneath Shark with an assortment of holiday props. “Very decorative.”

I tick the box. “Music?”

She trots toward a DJ booth I’ve erected and turns on the selection of Christmas music I’ve provided. Cheerful tunes swell. “Playing!”

Perfect. So, so perfect.

I tick the box and click my pen closed. “Well then. I suppose all we have left to do is get changed and wait for our guests to either drag themselves away from their overtime upstairs or get back from their wee jaunts home.”

Amelia twists her fingers together in front of her skirt. “Y-yes. Right. Changing time.” She smooths her hands down her dress, which—in due Amelia Christmas fashion—already displays elegance just short of a gown. Smile shaky, she says, “I’ll just…go do that then. See you at the ball.”

For some odd reason, my heart skips a beat.

“Yeah. See you.” I can’t pull my attention off her until she disappears into the elevator to get the hanging bag she put in the mailroom this morning.

Once she’s out of sight, I shake my head, pull myself together, and get my own outfit from the back seat of my car.

The oven that is my vehicle in July toasted my candy cane suit enough to combat the chill of an office lobby that I have set just a few degrees below might be winter outside . I change in the main men’s bathroom located off the lobby and emerge to find several familiar faces.

Which means—as I feared—my rotten coworkers largely ignored the masquerade aspect of this shindig.

Rude of them.

I delineated my expectations of the dress code so clearly in an email.

And, yes , I know they can’t read, but still…I really, so dearly, could have sworn I made it obvious, what with how I bolded, underlined, and italicized the word masquerade and all.

Lousy, illiterate—

“That is…” Frank’s voice drifts below the music, and I stop my inner monologue to turn and find the world’s best graphic artist with a snack plate full of cheese. She completes her assessment of my outfit. “A choice.”

Under my half smiling, half crying drama mask, I raise a brow. “Aren’t you lactose intolerant?”

She pops a cube of sharp cheddar in her mouth, chewing around it to speak. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Right.

Crossing my arms, I tilt my head toward the smiling half of my mask. “I did put out a very decadent and well-labeled vegan selection of gourmet cheese.” They cost Liam a fortune. Hopefully leftovers survive to wind up in his fridge.

Frank blinks, slowly, practically feline, and eats a cube of colby. “Brian.” She blinks once more. “Never say those words to me again.”

Heh… Noted.

Relaxing, Frank fixes her eyes across the room and murmurs, “Whoa. That stands out…”

I twist on my heel to discover what that is and…

My heart thumps.

Tucked against the wall by the elevator, Amelia clasps a hand to her chest. Frightened eyes gaze from beyond the slits of an elaborate mask covered in seals and drops of red-and-white wax. Peacock Christmas greens shift shades in her skirt, every sequin shining, every feather floating.

She is ethereal. Fantasy.

My hand lifts to her last letter, which I’ve tucked beside my heart in my breast pocket, and I find it quite near impossible to breathe.

“I should’ve worn my best suit,” Frank says, causing more problems for a future Frank as she tears through the cheese on her plate. “Poor thing.”

Poor, enchanting, lovely, beautiful thing…

Wetting my lips, I make sure I still know how to speak. “She’s…stunning.”

“Go to her before she has a panic attack, maybe?” Frank suggests.

Straightening my clothes, I nod and force my legs to work. They drag me across the room, growing heavier as my heartbeat accelerates.

This is it.

She’ll tell me about the love letters. We’ll leave this party as a couple. I’ll ask her if she maybe wants to marry me in the car or something. She’ll turn completely red…and then she’ll match her mask and be red and green for Christmas in July.

Dark lashes flutter as brown eyes take me in. “Brian…” she whispers.

I brace, ready, eager, awaiting. All I can think to say is, “You look beautiful.”

The tension in her shoulders falls, for barely an instant, then it’s back. She scans the others in the room. “I think…I’m overdressed.”

“You’re not.” I offer her my hand. “They’re underdressed. I ought to dock them all down to the naughty list for failing to follow simple party dress code.”

Beneath her half-face mask, a small smile appears as she lets her hand meet mine. “What is the prize for being on the nice list?”

“Mostly? Not being on the naughty list.”

“What…happens to the people on the naughty list?”

I chuckle and hook a finger beneath her chin. “Don’t worry. You won’t personally find out.” Lacing our fingers, I ask, “Shall we free anyone who’s only here for the prize…or do you have anything you’d like to tell me first?”

Her fingers flinch in my grasp, then she returns my squeeze and stammers, “I-I can hardly stand the anticipation.”

Right-o. No confessions yet. No problem. Perhaps it’s a little too loud and crowded and embarrassing for her to be among the spare two—us—who know how to read. Minority anxiety experiences are understandable. I’ll thin the crowd for us first.

Pulling my reluctant future bride across the lobby, I make my way to the DJ station and grab my Will-issued walkie-talkie. “Come in, Mr. Vann. Over.”

Will’s voice crackles through the line, “Go for Brian. Over.”

I grin. “Copy. Are you ready? Over.”

A nervous laugh. “Copy. As ready as I’ll ever be. Over.”

“Excellent. Making the announcement now. Over and out.” Putting my walkie-talkie back, I grab a microphone and adjust the music volume so I’ll be heard easily within the room.

“Attention, party people! I know some of you are only waiting to learn what’s come of the nice and naughty lists, so allow me to provide the metaphorical cake at this birthday so you’re welcome to move freely about the cabin in the aftermath. ”

Some of my coworkers blink and glance at one another.

I continue, ignoring their obvious confusion, “I’d like to extend a blanket congratulations to everyone who has participated in all our Christmas in July fun.

Thrillingly, only one person couldn’t quite drag themselves up off the naughty list.” I sweep my hand toward the glass front windows.

“If all my nice list homie buddies would direct their attention to the parking lot, you’ll see your reward—and that poor unfortunate soul’s punishment. ”

Gasps and a maniacal chuckle—from Frank, possibly—rise.

Smirking beneath my mask, I say, “For those in the crowd who can’t get a good look, William Ivan Delimar Vann is sitting upon the platform of a lit dunk tank with a dark background. The poor man just could not be convinced to work. Alas. Alack.”

Ruby’s slow-rising smile catches in the corner of my eye.

“Please enjoy your reward and the amenities provided at this, our Christmas in July party. Our absent boss and I would like to thank you for participating in the fun this month and extend a warm expression of gratitude. We, deeply, appreciate each and every one of you and what you do for the Whirlwind Branding team. Merry Christmas.” I turn my mic off and resume the music’s volume as many from the finance floor charge through the crowd to reach their boss outside.

Amelia, beside me, says, “I thought the prizes would have something to do with the letters to Santa we collected.”

I laugh. “Oh, absolutely not. That was for mail’s sake. I have about negative faith that people were reasonable with their requests, and, anyway, I’m not Santa. All the letters, except yours, will be going straight to Liam once he gets back.”

“E-except for mine?” Amelia whispers.

“I’m keeping yours. I’ll be your Santa and fulfill whatever requests it contains. It’s a small price to pay in order for the right to keep your seal.”

“You mean…you haven’t opened it yet?”

“Nope. I’ve savored it, waiting for Christmas Day.”

“What if I asked for a million dollars?” she says.

I hum. “Then I suppose I’ll have to ask Liam for a raise.” Distantly, beyond the glass, where the sun hangs low in the July sky, Will’s yell as he plunges into the dunk tank weasels its way into the symphony of Christmas music around us. My brows rise. “Did…Ruby just punch the target?”

“I suppose she couldn’t exactly aim?”

“I specifically rented the tank with the brightest lit target and set up a black tarp behind everything in hope she might be able to.”

Amelia steps a fraction closer to me. “I suppose she wasn’t a fan of the odds.”

“And here I thought she enjoyed statistics.” I look down at Amelia’s silken hair, still tightly wound in a bun at the base of her neck.

Everything in me wants to free it so it can cascade around her shoulders and kiss the shades of her gown, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about which pins to pull.

As though feeling the weight of my gaze, Amelia straightens, looks up, and locks eyes with me. Heat warms her cheeks beneath the Christmas collection of shades she’s used to decorate her mask.

“This,” I say, touching a fingertip to the gold-colored design of a white baby’s breath seal, “is stunning. How long did it take you to make?”

Her breath catches. “I’ve been working on it since the fifteenth.”

The fifteenth. When she left to not-so-discreetly check her post box.

With a good number of people milling about near the dunk tank outside, heading home, or on the other side of the room by the refreshments, it’s almost private for us over here, by the music.

So I search, desperately, for a seal that matches any she’s sent me as my secret admirer, so I might recognize it and coax things along.

I can’t find a single one.

“Do you…” she begins, slipping her hand out of mine to point, “…want to get a picture together?”

Closing my fingers to ward off the chill of abandonment, I glance toward the quiet receptionist’s desk.

She whispers, “We don’t have t—”

“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely.” Forcing myself to wait on her lead, I refrain from taking her hand again.

Like a lost puppy, I trail after her toward the racks of props I set up.

Perhaps confession is an end-of-night sort of thing?

The sun is, after all, still casting rays across the sky, beaming orange shades into the lobby.

Confessions must be strictly for beneath the street lamps and Christmas lights.

It hurts to swallow when Amelia puts a reindeer headband on and smiles at me, adorable.

With the way my heart’s pounding, I’m sure my face is crimson beneath this mask, so I’m glad it can’t give me away.

“What are you going to pose with?” she asks while I set up my phone in the stand on the desk and make sure the timer is on.

Removing the last love letter she sent me from my breast pocket, I say, “This.”

Her sharp intake of breath makes my heart skip a beat. I wait. A moment. Another. No confession. Still sunlight. No problem. I can be patient.

Probably.

I press the button on my phone and move to the staged area beneath Shark . Scooping Amelia closer, I touch the letter to her lips and look past her wax mask, into her eyes. “Mail and A-mail-ia,” I murmur. “My two favorite things.”

When my phone camera flashes, I’m kissing the seal.

And when the sun sets…nothing happens.