An Advent Calendar - 16. Door#16 - A Thousand Kisses

A Thousand Kisses

Four-fifteen! Shit! If I didn’t hurry, Coach Holden would have me doing extra laps, push-ups, and whatever else he could think of to make his point; he really, really hated it if we were late. Running down, taking two steps at a time, I rushed into the flower shop in search of my brother. “Nicky!” I needed to borrow the delivery van if I wanted to make it on time. “Nick?” Looking around frantically, I only found Kim, my brother’s student worker, who was arranging some carnations and dahlias. She pointed at the backroom, making some the-house-is-on-fire gesture with her hand. Then I heard his voice. Nick was on the phone.

“What do you mean, you won’t take it back? Are you fucking kidding me?” He seemed to be pissed. He wouldn’t use the f-word otherwise. “Well, that’ll help me a lot! Thank you so very fucking much!” Two times.

Cringing, I mouthed, “What’s going on?” Kim made some cryptic hand gestures then, that I didn’t understand, so I decided to see for myself.

“Nicky?” I entered the backroom, and my jaw hit the floor. “OH. MY. GOD!” The usually tidy workbenches, as well as almost all the free space, were jammed full with crates. Wherever I looked, I saw mistletoe. “What’s up with all the kiss-inducers? A super-secret Christmas-Cupid joint venture you forgot to tell me about?”

Nicky shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Shut up!”

I tried to hide my smile by turning around my axis. “Well, it really is a lot of mistletoe, that’s for sure.”

“Ha.” He plucked off one of the white berries and flicked it at me. “My supplier just kindly told me they had some kind of computer troubles and screwed up the order. Duh!”

I picked the slimy thing off my chest and flicked it right back at him. “Just tell them to take it back.”

He threw his hands up. “What do you think I just did? They don’t have the capacity right now, not until Friday. And they’d rather not take it all back.” He kicked one of the offending crates. “This comes from being too lazy to get out of bed before four. One time I give those delivery guys the keys. One time, and of course something goes wrong and I find myself drowned in mistletoe.” I snorted and the crate got another vicious kick. “And then they actually suggested I should just do special offers. As if that was my main problem!” Kick! “I explained to them, extensively, that I have no way to store this many crates. It’s taking up too much space. I can’t work like this.” Shove! “And if we lugged most of them outside, that wouldn’t help either. The backyard is too small, even when I park the van on the street, which I wouldn’t do anyway after what happened last time I did that.”

Yeah, no! Not after some idiots had sprayed slurs all over the van’s paint job and destroyed the tires.

“Oh shit, that reminds me. Can I borrow the van? I’m late for training. Coach Holden will have my head if I’m late again.” When he hesitated, I said, “I’ll make sure to park it beside Coach’s Ford. No one will go near that with a spray can.”

Nicky grinned. “Okay.” He fished around in his pants pockets, then threw the keys at me. “Here. Make sure to park it right beside his truck.”

Seeing him between all that mistletoe, an idea formed in my head. “Don’t do anything until I’m back. I might have the perfect solution to get rid of your surplus of snog twig.”

“Snog twig? Really?” Then he seemed to get what I’d just said. “Solution? What solution?”

“Later!”

“Tell me!”

“Later!”

I made it in the nick of time, and only got one of those famous Coach Holden glares, thank God. Nicky was always telling me how Coach had the blackest eyes, able to see everything. I couldn’t agree more. Intimidating as hell.

After training, we all sat on the floor of the gym, waiting for Coach Holden to come out of his office and discuss the team’s Christmas charity project. When he finally stood in front of us with this special gleam shining in his eyes, we knew we wouldn’t like whatever he was going to say.

“Last month I asked for your ideas about this year’s fundraiser.” He made sure to make eye contact with every one of us before he continued, “No one came forward yet with any ideas, beyond the usual selling punch and getting drunk on said punch, or throwing a party, serving punch, and getting drunk.” When all he got as a response was snorting and cheering, Coach smirked, which was never a good sign. “I thought so.” The smirk turned devious. “My sister’s organization is doing a Christmas cookie marathon this year. I volunteered the team.”

I raised my hand. “Sir?”

He turned his gaze on me. “Benson.”

“I do have an idea.”

“Oh?”

“My brother has a flower shop—”

He interrupted me. “Through Flowers, I know.”

Before I could recover from Coach knowing Nicky’s shop, Taylor of course, had to open his big mouth. “I thought it was The Fairy’s Flowers!” He made some limp-wristed gesture with his hand, before he continued in a high-pitched voice, “How may I be of service today, sir?”

Clark, one of his cronies, elbowed him in the side. “Or Faggy’s Flower Shop.”

They were still rolling on the floor laughing, when Coach Holden’s sharp voice tore into them. “Taylor! Clark! Thirty laps, and after each round, twenty pushups!”

Both groaned. “Coach…it was just a joke…”

“I won’t tolerate any hate language.” Coach glared at them. “If I ever hear anything like that again, you’re off the team.”

“What!?” Taylor sprang to his feet.

“Forty laps.”

Clark took Taylor’s arm and pulled him away. “Come on, T., let’s get this over with. I don’t want to stay all night doing laps because you can’t shut your mouth.”

But Coach wasn’t done yet. “And FYI, even if we end up doing whatever Benson may suggest, you two are still going to bake cookies, and I personally will choose your aprons.” He fixed his eyes on them. “If you don’t show up, you’re off the team. The only excuse I’ll accept is premature death.”

While those two jogged off, Coach Holden looked at me expectantly. “Benson?”

I cleared my throat. “Nicky’s supplier screwed up the mistletoe order, and now he has way more of the stuff than he needs. It’s taking up all his workspace. I thought we could take them off his hands, make mistletoe balls, and hang them all over town.” I had barely finished the sentence, when the rest of the team cheered and yelled ‘Yes!’ Anything that was not baking cookies and wearing silly aprons, obviously.

Coach lifted his hands to silence us. “It’s a nice idea, Benson, but we would need to link it to a charity.”

That was when I heard Clark and Taylor huffing and puffing through their pushups. “Hearth House?” I turned to the others and explained, “Hearth House is a new organization devoted to homeless youth, with a special focus on LGBTQ teens.”

My suggestion brought the broadest smile I had ever seen on Coach’s face. “Perfect.” He then reminded us to clear this with the town council before we started hanging mistletoe everywhere, and think about ways to promote it. The latter was easier than we first thought. After our center, Andrew, called his aunt, who conveniently was the mayor, the idea kind of took on a life of its own. Mayor Martinez was so thrilled about this, she brought us into contact with her marketing team. Together, we developed an entire strategy, which included handing out flyers to inform people about our goal: A Thousand Kisses—A Thousand donations for Hearth House. The local paper took photos of me hanging a mistletoe ball on a branch over a park bench and then interviewed couples kissing under it.

It was as if the entire town had gone crazy over a new game, and almost everyone became addicted to it. Maps popped up on the internet, marking every spot a mistletoe ball had been spotted. People placed many kinds of bets: Who found the most mistletoe balls, who kissed how many different boys/girl, who kissed their boy/girl how many times and so on. People took photos and exchanged them on Pinterest and Twitter. #Santa&Cupid. Soon shop owners asked for mistletoe balls to promote their businesses, promising large donations. In the end, the project was a huge success.

***

And then there was our team’s Christmas party. First, we got to watch Taylor and Clark baking cookies on YouTube. Coach’s sister had taken a video of the baking marathon to promote their cookie stand at the Christmas fair. As Coach had promised, Taylor wore an apron saying Kiss the cook, but don’t touch the buns. Clark’s apron was just pink with frilly white trimmings. He actually took it in stride, while Taylor was constantly scowling.

But the best of all—I got to kiss Kelly under the mistletoe in the kitchen. Two times, actually. Thank you, Andrew, for having the right idea and saving some mistletoe for the party.

Afterwards, I offered to drive Kelly home, and she said yes. Yay! So, while I was putting her many bags and trays in the back of the van—she brought some of the most awesome pies for us—fretting of what we would talk about when we were alone in the car—yes I actually meant to say talk—Coach appeared suddenly beside me.

“Are you going to drive Kelly home?”

Duh! “Yes, Coach.”

“Very good, Benson. With all those bags and stuff, you will help her carry them inside, right?”

Double duh! “Of course.”

“Good, good. Um…Do you think your brother is home right now?”

Huh? “I guess so, yes.” I was thinking about if I’d get a goodnight kiss from Kelly, and what this meant for her and me, and if I should ask her that or leave it for later, so when I finally turned around to ask Coach why he wanted to know if my brother was home—did I screw up somehow?—he was already gone.

Kelly and I sat in the car in front of her house and talked until her father came out and asked why we weren’t coming in. I helped carry her stuff as promised to Coach, and then she came out with me to the van and I got my goodnight kiss. I officially have a girlfriend now. Best year ever!

So, when I entered the shop through the backdoor, I was well past the time I had to be home. There was still light in Nicky’s office, and I could hear him mumbling and groaning as he always does when he has to do the books. He really hates that, and I was sorry for him, but it also meant my brother hadn’t noticed how late I was. I went upstairs as quietly as possible.

I was getting ready for bed when I noticed I still had the keys for the van. Knowing Nicky would kill me if he couldn’t find the keys in the morning, I snuck back down, through the dark shop, circling vases and flower pots with the intent to secretly put the keys back on the nail by the door in the backroom. As it happened, the door to Nicky’s office stood open when I passed it. I looked inside, anxious he would see me, and I almost swallowed my tongue. Coach was kissing my brother while holding a slightly rumpled mistletoe ball over their head. Damn! Best year ever, indeed!