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“I've got everything in the garage.” He tugs off his jacket, hanging it in the closet before he kicks off his boots. “Come.”
My entire body jolts as I follow him from the front door, down the hall leading to his garage access. Inside, I’m stunned speechless as I take in the totes, and totes, and totes labeledChristmas. This is surprising because Nick doesn't seem like the kind of man who likes Christmas. And these totes say someone definitely likes Christmas.
“Are these yours?” I expect him to say they belong to the little elf that lives in the mountain forest over admitting that they are his.
“Yep.” He takes the first tote from the tall stack and pulls off the lid. Inside, I see garland, more garland, and more garland. There's so much garland in so many different colors, I can't help the way my jaw drops. I'm stunned it doesn't hit the floor.
“That's a lot of garland.”
“Yep.”
All right, the man doesn’t like to talk about his Christmas decorations. Noted.
But this is weird. Because when I met him, he’d been anti-tree. Anti-decorations. Anti-Holiday.
Now to see he wasn’t always this way—I have questions.
Questions, like so many others I have about this man, I swallow down.
His back muscles flex under the thin material of his dark shirt as he reaches up for another tote. He peeks inside, and I see lights. Strings, and strings, and strings of lights.
“That’s a lot of lights.”
“It’s a big house.” He closes the lid of the tote.
“You decorate the outside of your house?”
“Used to.”
He turns away from me and the billion other questions I have as he tugs another tote from the stack. He repeats this gesture, lifting the lid to look inside. I see tree ornaments, mantle ornaments, a big wreath, and Christmas specific platters and dishware.
It’s the dishware that has my hands finding my hips as I accuse, “You told me you didn’t like Christmas. You lied.”
“I didn’t lie.”
My hand falls dramatically from my hip to sweep over the totes. “What's all this then?”
“This is my mother.” His eyes land and fix on mine. “The same meddling woman that brought you to me.”
Well.
Nick continues, “As soon as I built this house, she dropped all this shit here.”
“But you’ve used it.”
“I've used it,” he admits. “Just not in the last three years.”
I have to bite my tongue to keep from demanding answers to all the questions I have about this mysterious man. Because although I don’t know what happened three years ago exactly, I know that whatever happened gave the man the scars he now wears. The scars that have isolated him and hurt him. The scars that, three years ago, changed his life so dramatically, so terribly, he didn’t have the desire to decorate for Christmas—the desire to search for joy in the Holiday.
So, I say nothing as I bend and lift the tote of garland, lugging it into the house. Claus has moved from behind the chair, and he's now sitting on the chair. He looks semi relaxed, but I know by the wide set of his green eyes that he doesn’t trust the totes being dropped in the living room, even though he also wants to inspect them. His curiosity is inherent, and I know come time to unwind the garland, his little self will be sniffing curiously all over the Christmas goods.
Nick sets two totes next to my one, and I give him a harrumph, as I huff it back to the garage for another tote with Nick on my heel. With everything inside, I start going through the totes as Nick gets the tree stand ready. Then I stand back and watch, sipping my tea, as the hulk of a man carries the hulk of a tree into the living room. He gets the stump into the stand, screws it in place, and stands back to shoot me a look.
“That’s a Christmas tree, baby.” I take him in, my eyes moving the length of him as he stands proudly beside his tree. Then he goes and ruins it when he says, “I did my part. The sparkly shit is on you.”
I blink, roll my eyes and set my empty cup to the counter. “How romantic.”
He raises a brow, but the look on his face is amused. “You want romance?”
