Jingle Boy Read Online Free Page A

I pulled out the big guns. I threw in the puffed-out bottom lip, the sorrowful puppy-dog eyes. I’m only human.
    She took a deep breath. I had her.
    “Do you even have the money to pay for this?” she asked.
    Okay, so maybe
she
had
me.
    “No . . . ,” I admitted. “But I will!”
    “So how do you expect to pay for it now?” she asked warily.
    I grinned the hopeful grin of penniless kids everywhere. “I was thinking . . . maybe . . . you could put it on your credit card and I could pay you back?”
    Holly scoffed unsupportively and my mom blinked. But it wasn’t like this was unheard of. I would never have gotten my dirt bike if she hadn’t charged it and then waited for me to mow a summer’s worth of lawns to pay her back. Which I
had,
by the way. My credit rating was golden!
    “All right,” she said finally, taking the necklace from Holly. She shook her head as she walked to the register. “But sweetie, I really hope you’ve thought about this. You’ve just met this girl. Are you sure she’s worth it?”
    “Come on, Mrs. Nick,” Holly said. “You’ve met Sarah, right? I bet she’s never in her life gone out with socks that didn’t exactly match the color of her top. She deserves the love of a good man.”
    My mother, clearly confused, shook her head and laughed. “All right,” she said. Then all I heard was the glorious sound of the register buttons beeping away. My mother swiped her Visa through the register and the transaction was complete. The necklace was mine!
    “You so owe me, Nicholas,” Holly said, turning around and leaning her elbows back on the counter. “You owe me big.”
    I smiled my agreement, but I was no longer listening. I was too busy imagining the look of elated adoration that would come over Sarah’s face the moment she opened her one-of-a-kind gift. She’d wear it to the Holiday Ball. And whenever anyone asked her where she’d gotten it, she’d sigh and say, wistfully staring off, “A Christmas gift, from my boyfriend, Paul. He’s not only the most handsome, talented, intelligent guy in school, but he’s the best kisser in the world, he knows
American Pie
by heart, and he rides a skateboard like nobody’s business. How did a girl like me get so lucky?”
    This really was going to be the best Christmas ever. My chin was held high and I clutched my Fortunoff bag, feeling like the sugar daddy I was. Okay, it’s tough to be a sugar daddy without a car, but I
had
just laid out serious cash to buy jewels for my woman, so that was something. I was Affleck to her J.Lo. Bobby to her Whitney. Billy Bob to her Angelina.
    Okay, never mind.
    “God, you are such a geek,” Holly said, grinning at me. “You’d think you just became the first male to give birth or something.”
    “Hey, give me a moment to bask in my glory, all right?”
    “Fine, fine,” Holly said. “Can we just get out of here already?”
    As we approached the center of the mall, the crowd grew thicker, the decibel level louder. We were getting closer to the North Pole. Or the North Pole as re-created by the creative director of Paramus Park. Santa’s red velvet chair was set up in front of a little “snow”-covered hut and surrounded by velvet roping. The music was louder here, but it was almost drowned out by the wails of frightened children. I never understood why some kids were afraid of Santa. According to family lore, I’d taken my first step the second I’d seen him up there waiting for me.
    And now I was going to
be
Santa.
    “We have to go check this guy out,” I said, making my way around the fenced-off fake snow area.
    “Please tell me you are not going to go sit on Santa’s lap.”
    “Give me a little credit,” I shot back. “I just want to see if they got an actual old guy instead of some zit-infected fifteen-year-old. Whoever it is will be showing me the ropes next week.”
    “I can’t believe you’re going to be Santa,” Holly said as she followed me. “It’s like hero worship