Outside, he gave her a grin and said, “Have fun making tamales tonight.”
“Yeah,” she replied, regretting her earlier excuse. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Definitely.” He pressed a light kiss to her lips before walking toward the Santa booth.
Natalie flipped on her heels, ready to climb into her wonderful, dear horse trailer, seeing it with a whole new fondness. Who knew work days could be fun and unexpected and—
She stopped.
She’d walked from the barn, laughing, and holding his arm, kissing goodbye for the whole world to see without thinking twice about it, like it was a natural, everyday thing, as though everything could be simple and uncomplicated. But it wasn’t.
Or…maybe it was.
Hours later she was still pondering the kiss, absentmindedly touching her lips throughout the day, wondering how a small goodbye kiss could affect her more than anything else, more than even things they’d done earlier that had gone beyond kissing.
But that goodbye kiss—that had been something else. Something new. Something she’d never known she wanted.
After work, Natalie drove to her parents’ home in a dreamy daze, not remembering the trip at all. What had even played on the radio? Was it Christmas music? Non-stop commercials? She didn’t know.
She was jerked from her daydreams when she walked through the door, loud conversations, and laughter streaming from the kitchen, and almost ran into Mia. “M, what are you doing here?”
“Your mom invited me. She was so sweet to remember I wanted to learn how to make tamales with you guys. You didn’t get my text? Or was it really that busy at the tree farm today? You should have told me. I would have come out to help you. I hate thinking you can’t even get away for a break or anything.”
Natalie gave a nervous laugh, waving off her friend as she walked into the kitchen to greet the rest of her family. She tore off her winter outerwear feeling unbearably warm and hoping no one would notice any blushing coming from her direction. “Abuelita,” she said, kissing the top of her grandmother’s head. “Did you see the trailer for the new Chris Evans movie?”
Her grandmother set aside the corn husk she was spreading with masa and demanded Natalie pull out her phone and show her immediately. At first, showing the trailer with the rest of her family gathered around Abuelita’s chair was a fun innocent distraction. When a shot of Chris Evans whipping a wet T-shirt over his head appeared, the rest of the ladies tittered. “Ay, Dios mío, chicas!” Abuelita said while fanning herself. Except things took an unfortunate turn when part of the trailer was covered with an incoming text.
Mason:Hey, don’t want to interrupt tamale time but…
Mason:I forgot to ask if you were doing anything Thursday night.
This, of course, started a different type of tittering and the rest of the trailer was forgotten by everyone, except for Abuelita who kept Natalie’s phone clutched in her hands and swatted away anyone attempting to reclaim it.
“Oh. My. God. Natalie. Who the hell is Mason? Are you dating someone?” Carla asked, before putting the spotlight on Mia as if she didn’t trust Natalie’s replies. “Is she dating someone?”
Her friend turned a panicked gaze to Natalie. Her stammering didn’t help the situation one bit and neither did everyone talking at once trying to get answers.
“All right, stop. Stop!” she shouted into the chaos. “You guys are blowing this way out of proportion. It’s just a guy I work with. It’s a work thing.”
Even Mariana, her used-to-be-most-favorite sister, scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Then why is Mia making that face?”
Her gaze whipped to Mia who suddenly schooled her features. “No, I’m not. I wasn’t making a face. And, it’s true. Technically…they do work together at Poinsettia Paradise.”
Carla’s mouth dropped open and she swatted Mariana. “It’s that Christmas tree guy. See? I told you. Didn’t I tell you he was gawking at her?”
“No, you said he was looking at you,” Mariana replied.
“Yeah, probably because he thought I was her. We have some similarities as sisters. Except I might be a better match because he works with plants and I’m a floral artist so we probably have a lot in common.”
“Excuse me? He was looking at you?” Natalie put a hand to her hip, ready to send the guy a batch of poisoned tamales.
“In her dreams,” Mariana assured her. “No need to get jealous about it.”
“I amnotjealous.”
Carla laughed. “Yeah, your eyes just bug out like that naturally, like you’re about to She-Hulk and rip someone’s face off.”
“Can I please have my phone back?” Natalie asked. She had text messages to ignore. Besides, Abuelita had already watched the trailer twice at this point.
