“I’m okay,” I say, tucking them between my legs.
He takes a sip of his drink, then sets the cap on the dashboard and gently pulls my hands free, wrapping them between his. There’s no center console, and I haven’t put my seat belt on yet, so he tugs me a little closer.
“You don’t have to do that, Alex,” I say, my stomach fluttering.
“I can’t have you getting frostbite,” he says, his voice low and rough.
The timbre of his voice sends a thrill through my spine, and suddenly the car feels smaller. He’s too close and yet not close enough. I’m terrified I might do something stupid, like kiss him.
“Thanks, I’m okay.” I ease my hands free and slide over to my side. “We should get back. We still need to go pick up the stockings.”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice still husky. “Agreed.”
We’re quiet the entire way home. The air between us feels charged, like the space is holding its breath. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but I’m telling myself to be careful. Unrequited lust is one thing. Acting on it is another. And if I cross that line—if I let myself want what I shouldn’t—there’s no way I’ll be able to stay.
And I really want to stay.
When we get back, I walk through the back door first and find Valerie and Mallory in the kitchen, waiting for us.
“Did you get a tree?” Mallory asks excitedly.
“We did,” Alex says as he walks in behind me, the tree over his shoulder.
“We put everything in your room,” Valerie says.
My first thought is thank goodness we made the bed and hid the pillows in the closet. My second is to ask her what she means by “everything”, but Alex is already heading upstairs. When we reach the room, I see several cardboard boxes stacked in front of the dresser, each labeled “Christmas ornaments” in thick black marker. There’s also a Christmas tree stand waiting beside them.
Alex makes quick work of getting the tree in the stand. He grabs several strings of lights and starts to weave them into the tree, but I convince him to turn the lights on first so we can get a better idea about coverage.
“Sounds like you’ve done this a time or two,” Alex says.
“I decorate all the trees at Beans to Go,” I say, then tell him how the owner has given me money to add more trees and decorations every year and how I stretch the money by searching thrift stores and yard sales.
Once we get the lights strung, we open the ornament boxes. They’ve been picked over, and I suspect these are the leftovers from the downstairs tree, but I’m not complaining. Alex picks up ornaments and asks me where to hang them. When I tell him to hang them anywhere, he teases me, saying, “Are you kidding? That’s like Picasso telling a middle-school football player to dab some paint on his masterpiece.”
I grab an embroidered lumbar pillow that says To All A Goodnight in one of the boxes and throw it at him, laughing as I say, “That’s what you get for making fun of me.”
It smacks him on the side of the head, and he freezes. For a terrifying moment, I’m worried I’ve gone too far, but then he turns to me, a grin spreading across his face. “Looks like someone’s really dying for a snowball fight.”
He picks up the pillow and tosses it back to me, but he’s thrown it like we’re playing catch, and I easily catch it.
“Knock, knock,” Mallory says from the open doorway as she raps on the doorjamb. “You two look like you’re up to no good.”
I turn to her, beaming. “Just decorating our tree.”
“I hope you checked it for squirrels,” she says, looking it over.
“We checked,” Alex says. “Twice.”
“Well then, you may have started a new tradition.” She smiles her approval. “We all might put trees in our rooms.”
“Not this year,” Alex says. “This year it’s just for Finley.”
“Don’t be silly,” I say with a frown. “Other people can have trees in their rooms if they want.”
Mallory walks away, then turns back at the door. “Oh! I almost forgot. Mom made some beef and barley soup for lunch along with some corn muffins. Hey, Finley, we’re going to do more baking this afternoon if you want to help. She wants to get it all done before Grant and Eloise show up around dinnertime.”
“You’re doing more baking?” I ask in surprise. “She said y’all got everything done yesterday.”
