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

“We thought he was a scavenger hunt clue,” I explained.


“He was wearing a reindeer sweater,” Jarek elaborated.


Dr. Fortescue laughed. “There were Christmas ornaments in our neighbor’s tree of animals wearing fake antlers and Rudolph noses,” he said. “You guys didn’t find those?”


“So you carried Popcorn around all night?”


“Well, you can’t say you didn’t get in the spirit.”


“Oh, we’ve got spirit,” I promised, accepting his invitation to come inside and “egg some nog.”


Chapter 14