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If she had one nearby, she might be tempted to throw an ornament at him. “What?” she hissed.
His grin spread, and he shook his head. “You don’t even know when you’re being hit on, do you?”
Totally not expecting him to say something like that, Paige blinked, dumbfounded. “Huh?” Had he just confessed he was hitting on her?
Her heart lurched erratically in her chest.
She opened her mouth but had no idea how to respond.
“I’ve got tinsel,” Kevin said, returning to her and sounding breathless as if he’d run the entire way. He looked so eager to please she gaped at him a moment before realization hit. “I swear tinsel can make anything look better,” he added as he playfully tossed a strand onto her hair.
Oh. Ohhhh…
Holy guacamole, Kevin had been hitting on her this entire time. And no, she hadn’t realized it. Geesh, it hadn’t even occurred her that he’d been appreciating the view when she’d bent over to straighten the tree skirt.
She flashed a quick, censorious look Logan’s way, but he suddenly seemed overly involved in his menial task.
“Here you go.” Kevin offered her a handful.
With a weak smile, she accepted the sparkly silver tinsel and sparingly began to spread it over the tree.
“How’re we doing getting the lights unwound?” Samantha asked, approaching Logan to assist him. When he pulled a pentagon from the tangle of green wires, she gasped. “Oh, you found the star. Great.” Taking it from him, she smiled fondly. “My husband and I always made a ritual out of putting the star on last.” Then she laughed as if amused with herself. “As I’m sure most people do.”
When her smile fell, Paige paused in her tinsel draping to watch the leader of their group look momentarily lost, no doubt mourning the love of her life.
She wanted to give Sam a hug, but the woman pulled herself back under control too quickly. She cleared her throat, forcing cheerfulness. “Does your family do that too, Logan?”
Logan began to shake his head but paused. “No, but uh…every year, my family would wait until Christmas Eve before we went to the Christmas tree farm and picked out our tree. I always thought of it as Christmas Tree Night instead of Christmas Eve. I remember anticipating Christmas Tree Night almost as much as Christmas morning. Both my parents would be home. My brothers and I would crowd into the back seat, always arguing over who had to sit in the middle.” A wistful smile crossed his face.
“What made your family stop them?” Sam asked softly.
He jerked his face up, looking guilty. “What? Oh, no. They haven’t…they haven’t stopped.”
Sam wrinkled her brow. She looked as confused by his statement as Paige felt. Paige watched his expression go shuttered as Samantha pressed, “But they’re not the same anymore?”
He offered her a tight smile. “No, you’re right. They’re still…it’s still the best night of the year.”
As the leader of the group lifted an untangled line of lights and carried it off, Paige continued to study Logan’s face. Something was very off about what he’d just said, but she couldn’t figure out what.
As if sensing her stare, he looked up. Not bothering to mask his emotion, he stared at her, and she could see from his face how much he hurt inside. He appeared so vulnerable, she actually stepped toward him.
But Kevin turned to her, asking if she needed more tinsel.
“What?” She blinked and looked at her tree-decorating partner. “Oh. No. No, I think I’m good over here. Should we put the lights on next?”
He agreed, and having heard them, Logan lifted an unraveled strand to help them wrap the tree.
They’d just finished when Jamie called Logan away, needing someone tall to climb a ladder and hang ornaments from the ceiling tiles.
Paige managed to deflect Kevin’s attempts at flirting for the rest of the meeting. After her dud date with Reggie, going out with another guy didn’t seem so exciting anymore. She’d decided she wanted to really feel it before she accepted another date from anyone. And though she liked Kevin enough, the zing of chemistry didn’t ricochet through her system like a hyper bouncy ball whenever she saw him. Not the way it did with—
Realizing who she was thinking about, her gaze zapped to the tall figure standing on a ladder stretching his arms over his head to hang a tiny angel.
Oh, this wasn’t good.
Releasing her hate was one thing. But actually liking him—as in, liking liking him—was something totally different. Something disastrous. Like spitting on Trace’s grave.
She needed to nip this in the bud right now.
