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No one else was flooding into the gates aside from a few rush hour stragglers, jackets haphazardly thrown over scruffy business suits, maybe with a daughter around their shoulders, a wife pushing in with a stroller. Aside from them, all the people that would have come have long already arrived.

Was a little tough trying not to have my brain staple Harry’s face onto every single wrinkly middle-aged suit. Then there’s that little girl reaching for stars around her daddy’s shoulder—any takers on who came to mind for her?

I haven’t seen Hayley since leaving the stage. I know it’s conceited of me to think, but I had been expecting her to show up any moment now. If not to commend our efforts, then certainly to poke fun at me again as she had before. Do I take this as a bad sign, or can I chalk it up to us just simply missing each other?

Maybe. Hopefully.

Wherever she was though, I’m crossing my fingers that she ain’t alone.

Don’t think that’s what her Dad would have wanted for her tonight.

“Leaving already, are we?”

There was a figure I hadn’t noticed, a lone shadow lurking behind the last of the stragglers waving at him as they passed. I took one look, saw the outline of a wooden cane dipped into the mounting snow, and knew immediately what I was in for.

.....

“Such a shame, and just right before the grand event of the night,” He limped closer, lamenting, sounding a disappointment that almost felt real. “Truly, will you not be staying to see the fireworks go?”

“Not up close anyway,” I responded. “Figured we might find a better vantage point elsewhere.”

“A better vantage point?” He furrowed his brows, and his gaze looked a hundred times more the cold, extorting kind. “I didn’t believe such a thing was necessary.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Not normally.”

“Ah, I see…”

Indeed, he did. Complete understanding lessening his glare, as he briefly glanced over at Adalia, and then like a troll with a toll, he stood in front of us almost as if deliberately obstructing the exit, but when we moved past him, he didn’t show any resistance and simply let us go.

Until he didn’t.

“Actually, Adalia, wasn’t it?” He whirled around back at us, his cane thumping with a dull clack just as we had stepped onto the powdered concrete of the sidewalk. “If you would, could you kindly allow me to borrow your date for a moment?”

“What?” I blurted out.

“Why…?” Adalia then finished the question for me, blinking, assessing, her eyes before his, and for once seemingly drawing blanks at a guess. “Why… do you need… him…?”

“Just for a private chat alone. Oh, and I assure you I’ll keep it as brief as possible,” He added quickly, upon seeing me ready to pounce and object. “Simply indulge me this once, won’t you? I promise you’ll not regret it.”

Yeah, okay, sure, absolutely, I believe that. Why wouldn’t I believe that? He seems like a trustworthy guy, I’d probably trust him for some financial advice. I’m sure he has my best interest at heart and everything.

In all seriousness though, I haven’t the faintest idea what he could possibly want from either asking for me so out of the blue… and it’s not like the night was getting any younger, Adalia any livelier… then again, he did say it was only for a brief moment.

“Wait here for me,” I told Adalia, escorting her down to the bench of a bus stop right nearby. “Don’t go nowhere, understand? Just stay.”

That last request might seem redundant, but if I knew my sly, sneaky vampire girls, no doubt Adalia already had a brewing intention to try and eavesdrop. But if my suspicions had even an inkling of validity to them, then this didn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d like her to get her ears in either.

Not yet at least.

After getting her compliance with a nod, I went along with the mobster-man, following the deep narrow incisions that his cane was leaving in the snow all the way back into the bustle of the park, and it was once we were out of earshot and enclosed deep within ear-blasting commotion, that he came to a gradual halt.

From the sleek, fancy designs of his coat, I watched him retrieve something that shimmered and reflected the decorative lights around us in a broad sheen of white. It took for him to hold it out steady in front of me before I finally realized what it was.

“Your prize,” He declared, describing it in his own words and thrusting it into the empty palm of my hand. “A little belated, but congratulations to you both for winning first place.”

And despite its relatively small size, I felt my hand sag a little beneath its heft. What it was, what exactly I was given… I don’t really know my terms right, but the closest I could make of it was that it was basically a hairpin of some kind.

It was also the same kind I’d see always scattered haphazardly across Sammy’s bedroom every time I went in there, except this one was shaped and tinged to resemble a white ribbon, lustrous gems adorned its surface with a long narrow set of gray metal teeth protruding on one end.

Thus proving my suspicions true, after all. If he didn’t want me for something, then the next simplest answer was that he intended to give me something instead.

And boy, was it something, alright…

I let it twirl around my fingers a couple of swivels, admiring its genuine luster, the prismatic glints sparking at every angle, before I wrench my gaze away to focus back into the gloomy flatness within his.

“First place?” I raised him a dubious brow. “I thought Matthew and Kim were our beloved lovers of the year.”

“They got engaged, son,” He snorted. “Goodwill of the public requires that I must do what I did. Because in all aspects, besides technical, they really did win more than any of us tonight, did they not?”

“But you don’t agree?” I said, noticing the almost cynical tone of his voice.

“I pride myself on my fairness, on my equality no matter the differentiating variables,” He explained. “And according to what’s fair and equal, I believe the win, in scores and efforts alone, belongs solely to you and yours. If not for the proposal, I assure you, it’d have been you on that stage instead.”

“I see.”

“And that…” He lifted his cane, flicked the blunt end of it toward the dazzling jewel still twirling around in my hands. “...if following proper procedure, I was supposed to have given that to the winners while they were still up there.”

Again, hearing that same tone of his. I was smiling now. “But?”

“But,” He smiled back at me. “They can’t miss what was never theirs, can they?”

Look at that. Even on an occasion, with an attitude so wholesome and pure, the man’s unable to help himself to a little bit of trickery.

Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, as they say…

“I figured you might be inclined to surprise your date, subvert her expectations, which is why I asked for you alone,” He said, not done just yet letting all his intentions be known. “Poor girl seemed especially so glum when the winners were announced and all her efforts had seemingly gone to waste. She looked truly ready to doubt the sincerity of her own love.”

A shake of the head, and he lowered his cane back into the snow, forming fissures as he turned heel and promptly began to walk away.

“Hopefully with this, you’ll be able to show her that everything stands extremely to the contrary. I’m sure it’ll be quite the tender moment for you both.”

“Y’know, you’re almost too nice this whole time today, it’s scary,” I remarked, gripping the gift, our reward, tightly in my hands. “Is there a catch? I have never known you this pleasant.”

“Finally learning from your mistakes, are you? Good. Very good,” He glanced back, a beaming smile partly illuminated in the colors of merry festivities. “No catch. No strings. Just enjoy… you and her.”

And with that, he turned away again, disappearing more into the distance with every lumbering step, keeping true to his promise of keeping things brief, even his goodbyes, as brief as it was sweet.

“Merry Christmas.”