Noah and Angel were childhood sweethearts and teenage lovers. With youth comes unrealistic ideas sometimes, and also bad choices. But just about the time they reach manhood, Noah’s demons pull them apart.<br><br>Seven years later, he gets a second chance when Angel returns to town. Hoping everything can be different, Noah sets out to remind him how wonderful their past was by secretly sending him thirteen gifts commemorating their happiest times, one on each day beginning December 11.<br><br>By Christmas Eve, Noah hasn’t heard a word back, and wonders if Angel even recognized the meaning of the offerings. When Angel does get in touch, he only remembers the bad things that drove them apart. Can Noah remind him how good they had it, too?

The Presents and the Past

I turned my big steering wheel to pull away from the curb.


I looked in the side mirror, the one at my elbow, and then the one to my right. It was Angel.


I opened the door and jumped down out of my truck.


“I was just…I wanted to…I don’t know what to say.”


“Don’t say anything.” I made a giant heart in the snow with my foot, and then pulled him into it. I wrapped my arms around him to bring him even closer, so we could kiss beneath the big glittery red bells on the light post. The Ramoses lived right next to the church in town. A bustling holiday crowd cheered as they exited the building, and a choir of children heading home from an early service started to sing “Joy to the World.”


“None of that happened,” I told Troy, as he bustled himself, trying to wait on a couple dozen Holiday Brothers’ customers all by himself. “But what a story it would have made.”


Chapter 35