His open affection warming her to the bone, she kissed his bristly jaw and tried to marshal her sleepy thoughts. “I’ve always been bad about picking up on those sorts of things. And after my divorce, I think my confidence in my own appeal took a hit. I concentrated on my studies and my friends and stopped looking for romance, and I never really started again, even after I got over things.”
Two or three years into their marriage, her ex-husband had become her roommate more than her lover. And by the end, she might as well have been a light fixture in their shared home: useful for illuminating his path but rarely noticed directly. A fundamentally static object, without needs and desires of its own.
Such as the need to find more meaningful work and apply to a doctoral program, or the desire to be seen and appreciated for more than her basic utility.
Unwilling to devote so much of their money to a risky career path or have so much of her attention diverted from tasks directly benefiting him, he’d laid down an ultimatum: grad school or their marriage. But the real choice had been between her doubts about her own value and her hope for a better future.
She’d gone with hope—and had now been rewarded for that decision more than she’d even dared to dream.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his hand pausing between her shoulder blades.
“Please don’t be. I’m glad I was single when we met.” More than glad. Ecstatic, now that she knew he returned her feelings. “Generally, I only pay attention to men as colleagues and friends rather than potential dates. You were the one exception, William. From the very beginning, I always wanted you to be mine.”
“Ditto.” He kissed the top of her head. “I was planning to tell you exactly that at the end of our last shift, on New Year’s Day. Claudia kept insisting tonight was the night, though, and pushing boxes of condoms on me whenever you were in another room.”
At that news, her eyelids no longer felt quite so heavy.
She pushed up onto an elbow. “You have an entire box of condoms?”
“As a matter of fact ...” He reached off to the side and proffered a blue box. “I do.”
Coincidentally enough,hisvoice sounded much less drowsy too.
Her newly alert brain sorted through the possibilities. “It’s a shame we can’t use the seats. They’re really cushy.”
“The windows may be tinted, but sadly, they’re notthattinted.” Lips pressed together in disappointment, he shook his head. “If someone peeked in at just the wrong moment, they’d see us besmirching Mrs. Claus’s pristine reputation.”
“Pristine Mrs. Claus has a giant phallus atop her sleigh,” she pointed out.
When William’s grin crinkled the corners of his eyes, she fell for him all over again.
“Hey, the woman knows what she wants,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “I respect that.”
“In that case ...” With a tug on his arm, she rolled his willing body on top of hers. “Why don’t you respect me again, Professor Dern?”
“Anything for an esteemed colleague, Professor Teems.”
Late the next evening, the Mincemobile pulled up to Claudia’s family home. Nina and William returned all the empty food containers with their heartfelt thanks and—at Mrs. Ko’s invitation—took hasty, much-needed showers before waving goodbye again.
Claudia’s narrow-eyed scrutiny never wavered from her coworkers.
The three of them climbed back aboard their mobile workplace. And once Claudia stored her suitcase safely in the back, Nina and William gladly waved her into the driver’s seat, since they were both awake and alert due only to continual ingestion of enormous vats of coffee from Sheetz.
Claudia arched a single dark brow. “You never let me drive.”
“It’s been ...” William coughed a little. “It’s been a busy twenty-four hours.”
“I’ll bet,” Claudia said.
After a very pleasurable night of very little sleep, Nina and William had awoken to the sound of someone tapping on a window. He’d hastily dressed and stumbled out front to answer questions and give out pie-shaped magnets, and by the time she’d joined him, traffic was finally starting to move again. They’d made it to the parade just intime, good little elves that they were, then aired out and scrubbed down the vehicle’s interior with disinfectant before exchanging Christmas gifts—books, obviously—and driving back to Newport News in the afternoon sun.
The snow was already melting away to nothing, because ... Virginia.
Without further argument, Claudia got behind the wheel and started the engine. Patting away a huge yawn, Nina sat next to her instead of William. Because they were on the clock, and she was trying to be a professional about all this.
Well,nowshe was, anyway.
Sooner rather than later, of course, she’d tell her best friend everything—er,almosteverything—that had happened. For now, though, she could be discreet.
