Free The Beary Best Holiday Party Ever by B.G. Thomas Page A

nearly as tall. That’s how he found Harvey and Gary.
    “ Outside !” he practically shouted.
    Then he turned and marched out, daring them not to follow.
    They did.
    “What’s up, man?” asked Harvey.
    “Yeah, Ron,” said Gary. “What’s the problem?”
    Ron spun on Jon. “ Tell them !”
    Jon sighed and slumped his big bare shoulders. “I kind of accidentally told him that we fixed the vote.”
    Gary winced and Harvey groaned.
    “How could you!” Now Ron was shouting. “How could you? The club depends on you. The members trust you! How could you fix the vote?”
    “We didn’t see any harm in it,” Gary said. “And he liked you so much. We just wanted to give you a shot. You were so lonely—”
    “Screw me being lonely! It doesn’t matter. Who out there was supposed to be vice president? Was he someone who wanted to be on the board as badly as me?”
    The board looked at him in total surprise.
    Which surprised Ron.
    “What?”
    “ Oooooohhhh ,” Jon drawled. “You don’t get it, Ron! Don’t you see? You were sup—”
    “Hush,” said Gary.
    But it was too late.
    “—posed to be vice president.”
    Ron’s mouth fell open. “What?”
    “Jon, don’t ,” Harvey said.
    “Don’t what?” Ron cried.
    “Paddy won president,” Jon continued on, oblivious. “You were going to be vice president. And Paddy accidentally walked in on us and heard the tally, and he begged us to make you president instead.”
    The sky fell.
    “What?” Ron whispered. He looked at Harvey. At Gary.
    Then Harvey said, “Yeah, buddy. I’m sorry. It’s true. He won. And he said if we made him president, he would resign.”
    “He did?”
    All three of them nodded.
    And now Ron was feeling like the biggest ass on the planet. Here he had been furious when he thought Paddy had fixed the vote to get on the board, and instead what he’d done was fix it so he wasn’t their leader. That Ron was instead.
    God! He’d been so wrong about Paddy….
    Just like he’d thought all these months and months that Paddy had called him a fatass when instead he’d complimented him.
    What kind of man am I?
    “He said you would be a better leader,” Harvey said. “And, Ron? He was right. You’ve been an incredible leader.”
    “Then I have to resign…,” Ron said, tears now running down his cheeks.
    “No, you don’t,” said Jon. “Gary is right. Look at what we’ve done. Look at what we’re going to do. We are going to have the best damned Christmas—”
    “Holiday,” Gary corrected.
    “—party ever! And it’s all due to you!”
    “Doesn’t matter. It’s not right. I have to resign. Or at least we have to make Paddy the president.”
    “But I don’t want to be president.”
    They all turned as one, and there was Paddy.
    “All I wanted was to be on the board with you. I’ve been crazy about you from the moment I opened my apartment door and saw you standing there in the hall. I wanted a chance to serve with you. I knew then maybe I could make up for whatever I’d done wrong and get you to like me.”
    Ron looked at him in shock.
    “I don’t want to be president. You need to be president. I could never have done all you’ve done. This club is your baby. I just want to help you raise it. Please, Ron. Tell me you’ll stay….”

DECEMBER
     
    R ON STAYED .
    Paddy had pleaded for him to stay, practically getting down on his knees (he did that later). The other board members voiced their opinions almost as vociferously. Paddy threatened to resign, even leave the club. And hell! What was Ron to do? If Paddy did that, it could have meant that Cueball wouldn’t play, and the party might go down the drain…. Ron couldn’t very well do that.
    And as it turned out, it wasn’t like Paddy had won by that many votes. Not even a half dozen (which, despite the fact that no one had even heard of Paddy a year ago, still did Ron’s ego some good).
    The board apologized. More than once. They’d lied, after all. To the