He waved a few fingers. “No, I think I get the gist.” He released a relieved breath. “Okay. It just so happens I’m on winter break from teaching these next two weeks.”
“You are? Oh, because your Christmas is coming up.”
He nodded. “Saturday.”
“You don’t have a tree.” She looked around the tiny apartment.
“I don’t usually observe the holiday.”
She stopped to scrutinize him. “You don’t celebrate Christmas, but you stayed in Paragon to help me throw a Christmas party?”
He nodded once. “I was interested.”
“In Paragon?”
He lifted the corner of his mouth. “And you.” God, he loved it when she blushed. He pulled out a cookie sheet and showed her how to space out the blobs of dough.
She did so, sipping her wine between rows. “I can’t believe I went to the North Pole and found the one human who didn’t celebrate Christmas.”
He snorted. “There’s more than one.” A rogue thought entered his mind, and as much as he wanted to push it aside, he found he couldn’t. There was one place he could take her where she could experience a real Christmas. He owed her that. He cleared his throat. “Actually, I think I mentioned to you that my mother has requested I come home for Christmas this year. She, uh, left several messages this week. There’s some big announcement. She wants all of us to be there.”
“Oh… Are you going to go?” She didn’t look at him. Just like Charlotte. She was leaving room for him to go alone. Hell no. That wasn’t what he had in mind.
“Why don’t you come with me? My mom throws a traditional Christmas every year. You can see firsthand what it’s like, I can find out what this big announcement is, and you can… meet them.”
She stopped spooning cookie dough. “You want me to meet them?”
He sighed. “No, not really. I’m actually worried you might think less of me once you see what my family is like, but I don’t want to go alone. I need you, to be honest.”
Her brow furrowed. “Then you have me. And I won’t judge you by what they’re like. Not any more than you judged me for my father’s behavior.”
“Fair enough.” The timer went off, but he couldn’t find the potholders.
“I got it.” She pulled out the pan with her bare hands.
He shook his head. And to think he hadn’t believed in magic.
“I’ve never been so full in my life,” she said, leaning against his shoulder with her legs pulled under her. They’d gorged themselves on chicken, then followed up with chocolate chip cookies that they’d both enjoyed far more than the ones they’d attempted in Paragon. She’d eaten four by the time he’d finished one. “Earth food is phenomenal.”
“It can be. Some of it is shit. I wouldn’t eat sushi from a gas station.”
“No gas station sushi. Got it. Considering I don’t know what either of those things are, I think I’m safe.”
He kissed the side of her head and clicked the remote. “Movie time.”
“What’s this play called?”
“Elf. I think you’ll like it. It’s about an elf who travels from the North Pole to New York on a quest to find his real father.”
“He doesn’t know who his father is? How sad.”
He grinned as the story started to unfold, and soon Charlotte was laughing hard enough to shake the couch. He barely followed what was happening on-screen. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Since the moment she’d walked in the door, all he could think about was having sex with her again, but for some weird reason, he didn’t want to act on that impulse tonight. After examining the strange, dichotomous thoughts, he came to the conclusion that he wanted her to know he liked her for more than that. He wanted her to feel safe with him. To feel at home.
Fuck, he had it bad for this girl.
“Is everything okay?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Why?”
