Page 13 of Light Up My Life

Did he just look at my lips?

My body seemed to like that thought even if my brain needed to repeat the words several times. I looked at his lips. They were full and seemed soft, like he was well hydrated. Was I? I reached up and touched my bottom lip. He intently watched me. I had to stop myself from touching his lip. What was I thinking? What were we doing?

Nothing. We were doing nothing. And before that nothing turned into something, the pantry door opened with a loud bang, and I gasped. Fiona and Phillip, a friend of Ryan’s from school, stood shoulder to shoulder outside the door. Our heroes … right?

Chapter 5

I immediately leapt off the roll of paper towels, which caused it to tip and dump Ryan onto the floor.

“Sorry!” I said, too loudly and too guiltily. In a panic, I rushed out of the pantry, pushing past Fiona and Phillip.

“What was that?” Fiona asked, catching up with me as I kept walking, heading toward the backyard where I could hear Mrs. O’Leary’s voice ringing out over a sound system.

“We-we couldn’t get out. The door was st-stuck or something,” I stammered.

“The child lock on the outside was closed,” Fiona said. “It seemed loose. It probably bumped shut when the door closed.”

An accident then. An annoying accident. I glanced back at Ryan. He was talking to his friend and looking after me with a smirk. Yes, annoying.

I reached the French doors and slowed my walk, taking a step outside then edging around the chairs toward the back to keep the disruption to a minimum.

“On Christmas Eve, the last day of the competition, votes will count as double,” Mrs. O’Leary was saying.

“Who’s voting?” I whispered to Fiona, wondering if she’d heard any of the announcement or if she had missed everything too, thanks to my pantry debacle.

“The public,” she said. “There’ll be a QR code they can scan.”

We reached the back fence, and instead of continuing on to where my family sat, I turned to face the podium.

“Are there any questions?” Mrs. O’Leary asked.

I resisted the urge to raise my hand and have her repeat everything. My family would have to fill me in. I looked over at them now. Harris was sitting on the grass by Mom’s feet, his head in her lap as she played with his hair. Marcus was scrolling on his phone, and Momma’s attention was on Mrs. O’Leary.

Mr. Moreno raised his hand. “Do our decorations have to stay the same the entire time?”

He was thinking of those stupid live reindeer Ryan told me about. Now that I knew votes were doubled on Christmas Eve, I was sure that’s when he would bring them out. He wouldn’t have to house them all December after all.

“No!” Mrs. O’Leary said. “Feel free to make your decorations bigger and better every day. It will keep people coming back and boost our local businesses. Any other questions?”

She looked around at the crowd then clapped her hands once. “Okay, eat some more cookies, enjoy each other’s company, and merry Christmas!”

The audience applauded and stood to exit. I could no longer see my family among the mass of people, but I’d catch up with them out front.

“Mrs. O’Leary loves the lights even more than you do,” Fiona said as we made our way to the side gate.

“Nobody loves the lights more than I do,” I said with a serious face in her direction. “You’ll come over before you drive home, right?”

Fiona nodded. People around us were heading to cars while some were walking back to their houses. I spotted Marcus and Harris waiting together on the sidewalk. Then I saw my moms. And the Morenos. Not Ryan, just his parents.

The grown-ups were talking. No. They were fighting.

As I reached them, Mom was saying in a tense voice, “Our lights? Have you seen your house?”

“Not Christmas lights,” Mrs. Moreno said in her snooty way. “Your floodlight. Can you turn it off for the month of December? It takes away from our decorations.”

“It’s a motion sensor,” Mom snapped. “So if you don’t go into our yard, it won’t turn on.”

“It turns on when you guys walk by it and shines right in our window,” Mrs. Moreno snapped back.