Page 22 of Christmas By The Book

I helped him get the tree back to his car, and we had to bind it to the top with the help of the guy who ran the store. The cold nipped at my fingers, but the scent of pine and the feel of the spines made it impossible to care. I knew my grandmother would be tutting about me bringing something that big into the house that we wouldn’t even be able to keep, but maybe it was time to start some new Christmas traditions.

Some traditions with him and I.

We arrived back home, and I steered him through the front door with the tree. Mia was practically leaping around when we got in, so curious as to what was going on and where this giant thing had come from.

“Okay, okay, just prop it up there,” I told him, gesturing to the spot close to the living room window, right next to my reading chair. The thought of being curled up on there, book in hand, hot chocolate in the other, was enough to bring a smile to my face already.

He stepped back, planting his hands on his hips and catching his breath as he looked up at the tree.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. A few flakes of snow from outside were still clinging to the pine needles, and it looked like something out of a storybook.

“It’s a good start,” he agreed.

I frowned. “A good start?”

“It needs decorating,” he replied. “You have anything we could use to spice it up a little?”

“Oh, I have some decorations upstairs!” I exclaimed. “Let me just grab them.”

I brought down a box of decorations that I had had since I was a kid. There were little ornaments I had made when I had been in kindergarten, stars with chipped paint that had been in there for the better part of two decades now, along with some tinsel and fairy lights.

But it seemed to be enough for him, and he set to work draping tinsel around the top of the tree, wrapping it from the tip right down to the branches at the bottom. Mia wound in and out of our legs as we worked, curious at the new addition to the house.

And I couldn’t stop myself staring at him as he worked. The light of the tinsel caught the silver streaks in his eyes, and I could have sworn that he himself was lit from within, too. There was something about the smile on his face, the way he carried himself, that softened something in me. For all I had been so, so certain that it was all going to go so wrong for me, there was something about being here, with him, in this moment, that made me believe that maybe, just maybe, there was a way through all of this.

“Okay, let me put the star on the top,” he suggested. “I saw what happened the last time you did it.”

“Hey, not cool!” I protested, laughing, but I didn’t stop him. I watched as he planted the star on top of the tree, leaving it gleaming there at the very tip, nestled in a bunch of pine needles.

As he stepped down again, he caught my eye. I supposed he must have seen the look on my face, because, almost at once, he seemed to sense that there was something different about me.

“What is it?” he murmured, as he gazed at me.

I could hardly think straight as I looked back at him. I didn’t know what to say, what to do—hat to even think right now. I could almost have forgotten about everything happening outside of these four walls, all of the stress and tension that was piling up on me thanks to Wharton and the store and everything else. No, when he looked at me like that, none of it mattered. None of it could come close to mattering.

“I’m just... really glad you’re here,” I confessed softly. “I don’t know what I’d be doing without you. It feels like... like you’re the Christmas spirit I’ve been waiting for.”

Damn, had I really said that out loud? I couldn’t believe those words had just crossed my lips.

I glanced away from him, shaking my head. “Sorry, I don’t know—”

“Hey.”

He stopped me in my tracks, catching my face in his hand and guiding it around to meet his gaze. I stared into his eyes, my heart thrumming in my chest. Damn, he was so gorgeous, it was almost too much being this close to him.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he assured me. He brushed his thumb across my cheek, and it left a streak of tingles on my skin where he had touched me.

I tilted my head into his hand. I didn’t want this moment to end. I wished the weight of the world wasn’t weighing down on me quite as heavily as it was right now. I wished there was some way out of this, some way for me to escape the pressure outside this house.

“Do the book fair with me, Jorja.”

“What?” I replied.

“Do the book fair,” he replied, letting his hand drop from my face to indicate how serious he was. “I know the blizzard is supposed to be coming in, but the weather people aren’t always right. And besides, who knows? You might get a few people coming out, looking for somewhere cozy to spend the day. You should try, at least. Before you give up on this for good.”

Taking a deep breath, I found myself nodding before I could stop myself. I didn’t know if this was going to work, but when he was looking at me like that, I knew I couldn’t say no.

He made me feel as though I was capable of things I could never have imagined. And perhaps, just perhaps, he was actually right.