If Chad is reticent to drop in on Dr. Fortescue's big annual holiday bash without a date, imagine his horror when he arrives to discover the party revolves around a city-wide scavenger hunt with a two-to-a-team policy stricter than Noah’s. Worse, his efforts to pair up with his hunky doctor crush are thwarted, and he winds up being assigned the doofus with an elbow in the punch bowl as a partner.<br><br>It turns out scavenger hunts are hard -- were they really supposed to dognap the doctor's neighbor's dachshund and carry it around the mall all night? But running around with Jarek is easy. And kinda fun.<br><br>Even with help from an unsuspecting celebrity and Santa’s sexiest elf, it’s starting to look like a participation trophy might be the best they can hope for prize-wise, but Chad starts to wonder if losing alongside Jarek might not be its own kind of win.

Chad vs. the Holiday Hoopla

I knew his car as soon as we reached the corner; I’da put money on it being his, anyway. Berthed between a top-of-the-line SUV with three back seats and a Tesla so new it still had the price tag in the window, a burgundy mid-80s Buick roughly the size of the house I grew up in was the only car on the block worth less than two years of my salary. It was kinda dirty and had body damage here and there, but, still cruising around town at thirty-five, was obviously some kind of reliable; it was pretty much the car version of Jarek’s sweater. And his glasses. And his home-cut hair. He clearly valued function ahead of form; like way ahead.


But function it did. Once we were settled on the vast vinyl of the front bench seat, with his co-worker’s neighbor’s dog eager for adventure between us, he back-and-forthed his way out of the parking spot and we sailed away down the street toward the mall.


Chapter 7