“Excuse me?” Pru launched forward to put her face between them. “What are you talking about?”
Yiayia gave an exasperated sigh. “It’s Christmas Eve, Prudence. There have to be some secrets.”
“From me?”
Gramma Finnie tsked. “You just concern yourself with racking up points today.”
“Racking them up alone,” she murmured, remembering her plight.
“Well, this is a Christmas thing,” Yiayia told her. “Don’t you want a surprise under the tree?”
“Yeah, and maybe he’ll be cute and ask me to the Winter Formal I’m working my butt off to win for the school.” She dropped back in her seat with a huff.
“You could partner up with someone who doesn’t have a team yet,” Gramma Finnie suggested. “And that could be your first Random Act of Christmas Kindness, lass.”
“I don’t get RACK points for that.”
Gramma looked over her bifocals at Pru. “Then perhaps you’re missing the point of Christmas kindness,” she reminded her gently.
“Sorry.” Pru held up a hand, acknowledging the admonishment. “Everyone has a partner, Gramma. I made sure of that.”
“What about him?” Yiayia pointed to a kid on the sidewalk in front of town hall. “Maybe that boy needs a partner, other than that horse he’s with.”
Pru snorted at the comment and the absurd suggestion. “That’s a greyhound, Yiayia, and that’s no boy. That’s the new kid from California. He’s not on the list today, so no worries that he’ll be looking for a partner. I doubt very much Lucas Darling is on his way to the RACK IT UP kickoff in the square.”
Not to mention that he was the very last person on earth Pru would want as a partner. Unless she longed to spend the day with a broody, moody loner who hadn’t said two words to anyone at school since he’d arrived as a transfer student a few weeks ago in the middle of the semester.
“He’s a good-looking fella,” Gramma Finnie commented as Yiayia slowed the car at the Ambrose Avenue intersection in the heart of town, a few feet from where Lucas and his dog stood. “If you like a man who’s Gregory Peck meets Tony Curtis with a little James Dean on the side.”
Pru almost choked on candy cane-flavored saliva. “Jimmy Dean? Like the sausage?”
Yiayia barked a laugh, and Gramma Finnie just shook her head. “Makes you feel old, doesn’t it, Agnes?”
“Speak for yourself, Finola,” Yiayia replied, never one to admit her age under any circumstances.
But Pru ignored the grannie banter for a moment to study Lucas and the chocolate and white greyhound who pranced next to him. She might not know who Peck or Dean or…whoever was, but she got what Gramma Finnie was saying.
The talk, dark, smoldering bad boy was universal and ageless in his appeal, a high school cliché no matter what year the class graduated. And Lucas Darling owned the part right down to the leather jacket with some just-a-little-too-long black hair over the collar. All those types looked hot in jeans and somehow carried off a jawline that could slice something. They never smiled, they never made eye contact, and when they liked a girl…well, she wasn’t the girl who organized volunteer projects so the winning school could have a dance with a professional DJ.
And the fact that he had that super cool dog? Just made him more mysterious and attractive.
Nope, a guy like that wouldn’t be caught dead in a tux at the Winter Formal.
“Rumors swirl around him like storm clouds,” Pru told them. “Some kids say he’s from a big Hollywood family who disowned him. Or that he did something so bad his only choice was Bitter Bark or juvie, so he had to move here and live with his aunt. Oh, there’s also the one that he’s the secret love child of an aging rock star. Take your pick, ladies. There’s no shortage of folklore surrounding Bitter Bark’s newest and most enigmatic arrival.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear about a person,” Yiayia said as she turned into the parking lot behind the bookstore, the lot only locals knew about. “Rumors aren’t always true.”
Gramma shrugged. “There’s a kernel of truth in every lie,” she said.
“Gramma Finnie,” Pru said on a surprised laugh. “Not like you to take the less-than-positive side.”
“I’m just sayin’, lass. Some people are fundamentally not good.”
Before Pru could respond, stunned into momentary silence by the out-of-character comment, Yiayia threw the car into park and sliced Gramma with a dark look.
“Finola Kilcannon, you just stop it now. You don’t know anything about him. You are basing this on hearsay and gossip, and I am sick of it.”
Pru inched back at the passion in her voice. “Wow, Yiayia. You really believe in that boy.” The old Greek grandmother had softened from the sarcastic fault-finder she’d been when she first moved to town, but this switch between the two best grannie friends was downright shocking.
The two ladies stared at each other, silent, while Gala lifted her little tan head and growled, sensing the tension.
“I am telling you, he’s no good,” Gramma Finnie ground out.
“I’m telling you I think he deserves a chance.”
Pru’s frown deepened. “And I’m telling you he’s in my English lit class, if you want my opinion.”
Finally, they turned. “We’re not talkin’ about your friend, lass,” Gramma said.
“But you’re a smart cookie, and you’d figure that out in a minute.”
She opted not to correct the your friend part, too fascinated by the conversation. “Then who are you fighting about?”
“We’re not fighting,” they said in perfect unison.
“Well, you’re not agreeing. Want to let me be the referee here?”
Gramma Finnie crossed her arms and looked forward, her crinkly little jaw tight as she battled whatever it was she wanted to say. Yiayia let out a sigh, her much-less-crinkled—thanks to Botox—expression looking far too serious for Christmas Eve.
“There’s a man,” Yiayia finally said. “I have been texting him ever since we met on Single ‘n’ Silver.”
Pru blinked, this news almost too much to comprehend. “You’ve been on a dating site?”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked,” Yiayia fired back. “I’m old, not dead.”
“No, but…wow.” Her fingers literally itched to grab her phone and share this news with the massive Kilcannon-Mahoney-Santorini clan, especially her mother. “So, what’s the problem with him?”
“There is no problem,” Yiayia said. “He’s a perfectly nice eighty-year-old man with grown children and grandchildren, and he happens to be playing Santa at the Vestal Village Mall today, and we’re going to…” She swallowed. “Check him out in person before I agree to have lunch with him.”
Pru drew back. “You two are going to creep on some dude dressed as Santa at the mall?” She pressed her hand to her chest, disappointment stabbing at her. “Without me?”
That made them both laugh a little and broke the tension.
“What don’t you like about him, Gramma Finnie?” Pru asked.