Christmas Beau (Christmas Falls: Season 2)

Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

A couple of days later, Scott walked into his house after the fair closed for the evening, checking his notifications as he did so. He had a text from Elias—one of his longtime friends who now ran the pet shelter in town—asking him if he wanted to meet up for drinks soon, an email from a former colleague who wanted to pick his brain about legal stuff, another from Teddy’s school, and an automated message thanking him for his application for the role of admin assistant at the head office of a local construction company. The rest was all junk that he deleted without opening.

“Teddy?” he called, slipping out of his outerwear.

“Back here.”

Scott followed the sound of his voice down the hallway to the family room, where Teddy was on the couch, Fallon’s head in his lap. On the television, Netflix played an anime.

“Get your homework done?” Scott asked, dropping onto the couch next to his son.

“Yup.”

“Anything you need my help with?”

“Nah. I got stumped on some math stuff, but Uncle Sean helped me.”

Oh. Well. That was... good. Yay for Uncle Sean.

“Where is he, anyway?” Scott asked.

Teddy yawned. “Out with Yuri’s mom.”

“Cool.” Scott’s stomach rumbled. “Have you had din— Wait.” He straightened from his slouch. “Sean’s out with Anna?”

“Yeah. They’re going to trivia night at The White Elephant.”

The same event Scott had recently asked Hank to—jokingly. Sort of. But more importantly, trivia started at eight; it was only six-thirty.

Were Anna and Sean . . . on a date ?

After what had happened last time? Oh, hell no. Sean wasn’t breaking Anna’s heart again.

Scott flew off the couch, startling both Teddy and Fallon, and whipped his phone out to ask Hank if he wanted to join him for trivia night. He was halfway through crafting his text when he realized what he was doing.

Huffing, he flopped back onto the couch.

Firstly, Anna was an adult. If she wanted to take a chance on Sean again, that was her prerogative.

Secondly, it’d been a while since Scott had spent quality time with Teddy. He didn’t need to go rushing off to save Anna, who likely didn’t want to be saved. If she wanted his opinion, she would’ve asked.

Teddy was looking at him like he had a second head. “What’s wrong?”

Scott let out another huff. “Nothing. Have you eaten yet?”

Teddy nodded at the coffee table and the empty chip bowl resting on top of it.

“That’s not an appropriate dinner,” Scott told him.

“We’re out of leftovers.”

Stretching his arms over his head, Scott mentally inventoried the items in his fridge and pantry. “We can make fajitas. If you help me chop vegetables, we can be ready in twenty minutes.”

Working together, they had everything ready in no time. Scott turned off the television and synced his phone to the kitchen Bluetooth speaker, then hit Shuffle on his holiday playlist. “Little Drummer Boy” by Jennifer Nettles featuring Idina Menzel crooned through the house.

“I didn’t tell you,” Scott said as he polished off his third fajita, Fallon lounging at his feet beneath the table. “I sold your favorite quilt today.”

Teddy bit into his fourth fajita and chewed. “I don’t have a favorite qui—oh. You mean the creepy one with the Rugrats characters that I hate? Someone actually bought that?”

“And commissioned a second one if I can find more of that fabric.”

“ Why ?”

“Hey,” Scott chided gently. “Don’t judge.”

“I’m judging harshly.”

Valiantly swallowing a laugh, Scott rose to clear the table. “There are enough leftovers here for you for tomorrow.”

“Not enough for the two of us, though.”

“No, but I won’t be here. I’m, uh...” Sealing the lid to the sour cream container, he met Teddy’s gaze. “I have a date.”

Teddy’s expression didn’t change, but he chewed his last bite of fajita very slowly. “With Hank?”

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“You did seem real chummy sitting at his kitchen table when I left for Yuri’s.”

That . . . wasn’t an answer.

“Teddy.” Scott sat across from him. “If you’re not okay with me dating?—”

“It’s fine,” Teddy said quickly, but when Scott stared at him expectantly, he squirmed in his seat and added, “It’s just... ever since you’ve stopped working, it’s... I don’t know.” He shrugged and looked away. “You’ve been around more, and it’s been... nice.”

Scott’s heart broke and put itself back together within the span of a few seconds. “And you’re worried that me dating means I won’t have time to spend with you.”

Teddy shrugged again. “It’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb. Not at all.” Reaching across the table, Scott grasped Teddy’s wrist, and it was both delicate and strong beneath his hand. “Kiddo, you are, and always have been, my number one priority. Hank knows that already. It’s why he invited you to dinner earlier this week.”

“ He invited me? I thought you took me over there because there was nothing to eat here.”

“I took you over there because all three of us were invited: you, me, and Fallon.”

“Oh.” Teddy glanced down, but there was no hiding the smile playing around his lips. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “Cool. So it’s okay if I go on a date with Hank tomorrow?”

“I guess. I was going to go skating at the park with some friends anyway.”

“All right, then.” Scott gave Teddy’s wrist one last squeeze and rose, his head spinning from all of Teddy’s back and forth. First, he’d demanded why Hank didn’t want to date Scott— How come you’re not dating my dad? What’s wrong with him? —then he worried Scott was aromantic, then he got mad at Hank on Scott’s behalf, and now he was worried about Scott dating.

Twelve-year-olds sure were a pile of chaotic feelings.

It was like Teddy both wanted Scott to date and also didn’t want him to date.

Scott understood that dichotomy. He wanted Teddy to grow up and experience everything life had to offer him, but at the same time, he wanted Teddy to stay young forever.

Life was full of contradictions, and feelings were just the start of them. Teddy would no doubt experience more of those contradictions as he got older and learned to deal with his emotions.

“Come on,” Scott said with one more squeeze to Teddy’s wrist. “Help me clean up.”

He bopped his hips to Dean Martin’s “Marshmallow World” as they put the leftovers away. Letting the fridge fall closed behind him, he took Teddy’s hands in his and danced him around the island as Dean sang about the world being a snowball, grinning when Teddy’s laughter echoed throughout the kitchen.

There was honestly no better sound in the world than his son’s laughter.

“Can we finish watching Arthur Christmas ?” Teddy asked when the song clicked over to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

“Why don’t you cue it up while I wipe down the table?”

They’d both fallen asleep midway through the movie after dinner at Scott’s parents’ place the other day. Scott had awoken on Monday morning to find Teddy still in bed next to him, which had brought him back years to when Teddy used to sleep in his bed after a nightmare. Of course, he’d quickly noticed that neither of them had set an alarm, and they’d risen in a hurry to get Teddy to school on time, so Scott hadn’t had a chance to bask in the sweet comfort of having Teddy so close.

“Hey, I got an email from your school today,” he said, remembering now that he had school on the brain. “Something about a permission slip for a field trip next month. Did you bring that home with you?”

“It’s in my backpack.” Teddy waved at it with the remote.

Scott opened it up to find absolute chaos, pens and papers thrown in willy-nilly as though Teddy had tossed them in instead of putting them in pencil cases and binders. Sighing, Scott took the whole mess out and began organizing it.

He found the permission slip tucked between a loose sheet of math homework and a letter from Teddy’s hockey coach. Looked like they were headed to the Peoria Riverfront Museum in January and?—

Wait.

A letter from his coach?

Scott dug that out from the pile.

“Are you coming?” Teddy asked, situated on the couch with Fallon at his side.

“Just a sec,” Scott muttered absently.

The letter was dated early November—a month ago—and invited Teddy to a week-long hockey camp in Chicago next summer organized by an affiliate of the city’s professional hockey team.

“Holy shit,” Scott whispered. Louder, he said, “What’s this letter from Coach Cooley?”

“Oh, it’s . . . it’s nothing.”

Scott gaped at him. “It’s not nothing. It’s an invitation to a prestigious hockey camp.”

“I don’t really want to go.”

Scott’s jaw couldn’t possibly drop any lower. “I’m sorry, you don’t want to go ? Why not? Have you suddenly decided you don’t like hockey?”

“What? No. Hockey’s awesome.”

“So you don’t want to go because . . . ?”

Teddy suddenly found a piece of fluff in Fallon’s fur mighty interesting. “I don’t know. It’s far away, and I won’t know anybody.”

Not buying those excuses for a second, Scott sat on the coffee table and faced him. “What’s the real reason you don’t want to go?”

Teddy opened his mouth, possibly to make another excuse, but then his shoulders slumped. “It’s really expensive.”

Scott flipped the page over, where there were other details he’d previously overlooked. Location, date, sample schedule...

And cost.

Which was helpfully circled in red pen with the due date listed underneath. Deposit due by December 31 with the balance paid by March 31.

Scott winced at the cost. Jesus. Obviously an overnight camp like this led by current and former players and coaches would be expensive, but this was five steps past expensive for a youth hockey camp.

“See?” Teddy flung his arms wide. “It’s probably as much as a mortgage payment, and I’d rather have a house to live in.”

That was an incredibly mature response.

But Teddy was still a kid.

Scott swallowed the lump in his throat and debated where to start. With the fact that mortgage payments weren’t Teddy’s responsibility? Or that the cost of this camp was approximately three times the size of Scott’s monthly mortgage payments? Or that Scott would never allow Teddy to go without a roof over his head? Or that Teddy didn’t need to worry about money—that was Scott’s job?

He went with none of those options. “If you want to go to this camp, we’ll figure out a way to make it happen. Okay?”

“It’s whatever,” Teddy grumbled, which wasn’t a no.

His heart breaking again, Scott squeezed his knee. “I understand why you didn’t tell me about this, but Teddy—this is an amazing opportunity.” He didn’t have to force the enthusiasm—this was an amazing opportunity. “It’s not every twelve-year-old who gets invited to this sort of thing. Did anyone else on your team get invited?”

Teddy blushed and picked at Fallon’s fur. “Just Liam.”

“See? That’s awesome. All your hard work with Mik Gilmore paid off, huh? You deserve to go to this, Teddy. Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll figure it out.”

Teddy bit his lip, but it didn’t hide his hopeful smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

Excitement and anxiety swirled in Scott’s gut. The excitement won out, and he dragged Teddy into a hug. “You got invited to an exclusive hockey camp!”

“Daaaaaad. I can’t breathe.”

Scott kissed his head and let him go.

But as they finally hit Play on the movie, Scott removed his phone from his pocket and got serious about applying for jobs.