“Don’t tell me you forgot the Christmas drive is coming up? I thought I’d come early and clean up the snow a bit. Don’t want anyone falling.” I pointed at the icy sidewalk to prove my intentions.
Rafe harrumphed and jabbed a finger toward the lights.
“Hand me those and mind your own damned business. What I do isn’t your problem.”
“Nope.” I coughed to cover another laugh.
Boy, Noelle had gotten to him.
Nothing else made sense for the complete one-eighty in Rafe’s decision not to decorate to stringing lights by himself.
I dug into the snow and grabbed the lights, holding them up to him. “But if we’re doing this, we need a tree.”
Rafe bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “I fucking know that.”
He hung the lights on the nail and climbed off the ladder. “And since you’re here, you’re going to help me get the damned thing.”
My chest shook with repressed laughter.
I couldn’t help it.
Seeing Rafe like this was the funniest thing I’d seen in years.
Our calm and collected leader was losing his shit while trying to make a good impression with Noelle.
I didn’t blame him.
Hell, I’d told Noelle my deepest, darkest secret and the subtext of feeling like I’d never measure up after knowing her less than a week.
“I’ll get the keys.” I jogged into the clubhouse and grabbed the keys to the community pickup we’d bought last year.
The hunter green monstrosity chugged oil and threatened to backfire every time it rolled to a stop, but it got the job done.
Rafe met me at the truck and climbed in without a word.
Okay, then.
The trip to town ended up being completely silent except for the truck’s groans and clanks.
The radio didn’t work, so we couldn’t even use that as a buffer.
Rafe sat with one fisted hand resting on the windowsill and the other in his lap.
I eyed him from the side a couple of times, but his expression never changed from the closed-off, don’t-fuck-with-me look he often used when confronting our rivals.
I’d hinged his change in decision on Noelle, but what if it was something else?
Colt tried for years to convince Rafe to decorate for Christmas and he always refused.
Was he going insane after years of running the club?
It had happened before.
The stop at the tree shop took less than fifteen minutes.
Rafe walked halfway down the lot, pointed at a tree, and paid the man his asking price without even trying to haggle.
The guy eyed us suspiciously but relaxed a bit when I helped him toss the tree in the back of the truck.
