Was it okay to buy a gift for someone and put a stipulation on it? Like… say, no burning it in my house?
Yeah, that would have been an asshole thing to do, considering he was kind of stuck.
“Look! It’s a little elf,” he said, turning to me with a face full of excitement. He held up the ornament, and the thing was not cute. Not even a little. But I could appreciate that someone had taken the time to make it… and clearly, Danny thought it was somethin’. “And they also have a miniature cabin that looks like yours.”
Now,thatdid look like mine. Not that it was a hard thing to do, since my cabin wasn’t anything special.
“It’s even got smoke coming out of the chimney.” It seemed like that alone made him giddy.
“That it does,” I replied, sounding like I didn’t care. It wasn’t that, I just didn’t have a damn clue what to say. “You should, um, get them.”
“What’s the point? I didn’t bring a tree with me,” he said, a tinge of sadness in his tone as he turned around and hung the ornaments back on the display.
“You could take ’em with you. Use them later. Maybe the cabin could always remind you of this year.”
Did I want that? Did I want Danny walking away with a stupid decoration that he’d hang on trees year after year? Treesthat I had nothing to do with. Trees that weren’t in my cabin, all while he celebrated holidays that weren’t with me?
Fuck, what was that?
I shouldn’t care.
I didn’t know him. I shouldn’t care about it. None of it should matter.
His smile was tight as he looked at me. With a shrug, he moved on to something else.
And what did I do? Snatched those two fuckin’ ornaments right up and paid for them behind his back, too. An idea popped in my head that went along with the fuckin’ ornaments. And as I gave in to it, I was starting to wonder if I was going crazy.
I never in a million years would have thought I’d entertain such a damn idea, let alone be one hundred percent sure I was gonna go through with it.
I was practically crawling out of my skin as he looked around, taking everything in for far too long. When he finally shuffled up to the register to pay for his candle, I was about ready to grab his hand and drag him out of there. Not because I was done shoppin’, though I kinda was, but because I was ready to move on to the next thing.
Which, believe it or not, had nothing to do with getting him back home so I could finally know what it was like to kiss him. Might have been high hopes, but he’d been teasing it something fierce, and I had a feeling that he wouldn’t leave me hanging for too long.
“Thanks,” he said after he climbed into the cab of my truck and got himself buckled in.
“Don’t mention it,” I said.
“This town is cute,” he said. “Have you lived here long?”
“All my life,” I told him, and that was about as far as I wanted to go down memory lane. But I knew in my gut that wouldn’t satisfy Danny.
“Really?” While he didn’t press, it was obvious he was leaving it open for me to tell more.
I sighed heavily.
“Yeah. My dad had a rundown house on the outskirts… theotheroutskirts.”
“The other outskirts?”
“Straight on the other side of town is the part that people like to forget about. Which, yeah, included my dad, me, and my siblings. Also, anyone associated with my dad.” I took one hand off the wheel and tugged at my beard. I wasn’t good with talking about things. “Dad was a piece of shit. Left me to take care of everything. If he wasn’t bringing home some floozie and knocking her up, he was out gambling his money away. Since I was the oldest—”
“You were left to take care of your siblings,” he rushed to finish for me.
I hated the sympathy in his voice. I was about to tell him I didn’t need that shit when his hand landed on my thigh.
That… well, I didn’t hate. He turned his attention out the window and just let me be for a minute.
This was my chance. I had to ask him something back. Not only was it the nice thing to do, but it would also take the heat off of me for a minute. I might not have known much about him, but one thing I had figured out by now was that if I got him talking, he’d more than likely continue on his own.
