Christmas in Distress

Andi Andrews, 25, only has one semester of community college classes left along with one more Christmas season to get through in her retail job – all this while being a single mom to Roxy, her nearly one year old baby. She gets partnered up with Asher Jamison, 28, in their Sociology elective class – a class not relevant to either of their degrees. She finds herself doing most of the work while Asher never bothers to show up to class. They can't stand one another and couldn't be more different. She's a “glass half full” type of gal and he's a “the glass is broken” type of guy. She loves Christmas, he hates everything about this ti me of year and pretty much hates everything else. But after some pleading, Andi's able to convince him to meet with her to study during her rare free time. Andi, as if she wasn't busy enough takes over the planning that Mrs. Mackay (her 87 year old babysitter and friend) was doing for a Foster Child Benefit Christmas party. Asher, terrified of babies, even offered to babysit one evening when Andi was in a pinch. He cleans out the old back room of the family hardware store where he used to run around in diapers himself. He finds her notes and to-do list for the foster party and got busy building Cornhole game boards and toys for the foster kids. He loves working with his hands - hates the business side of running the family hardware store. Being forced to step out of their comfort zones to work on their project on the topic of ironically the Sociology of Comfort Zones, stretches them past what they thought was comfortable and into a day together playing in the snow with the baby and a passionate kiss that comes so naturally and comfortably. It soon becomes undeniable that they should be together. Until a petrified Andi reminds herself that she had sworn off dating. Things get more complicated when Mrs. Mackay's grandson, Nathaniel, comes to stay with his grandmother after she's released from the hospital. Asher thinks that Andi is dating Nathaniel and also avoids Andi like the plague. It doesn't work – their lives have become too entangled (Andi is even friends with Asher's mom). Andi loses her job and in her newly found spare time, she helps Asher bring the hardware store's books and inventory up to date (he didn't even use a computer for any of it – yikes). He offers Andi the internship she needs to graduate. Another perk to the job: she can bring her baby to work – no more worrying about daycare! When Andi and Asher present their final project, Asher shows off the painted visuals that he had created to profess how he feels about Andi. This time, instead of running away, Andi lays a big wet kiss on him in front of the entire class. They are all in and a perfect example of how the sweet spot is outside of the comfort zone.