He put on his most convincing smile. “I think we need a couple of ground rules. First, no sabotage.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She popped another cookie into her mouth.
“C’mon.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Second,” he continued, “the other person has to be present when the bucket list item is checked off. If it’s an activity, then we have to both be part of it.” He’d take any opportunity to spend time with her. “If it’s an item, then we have to show it to the other person.”
“I’ll agree to that.”
He eyed her closely. “We’re really going to do this? Spend the Christmas season together?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Why not?”
That was exactly the question he’d been silently asking for years: why not?
Chapter Three
“He’s dedicating his whole Christmas season to this bet of yours?” Celeste’s friend and coworker, Lucy, had been asking her about the Holiday Bucket List all day. “He is totally into you, Celeste.”
Lucy was more than fifteen years younger than Celeste, which somehow made her both more authoritative on these things and less. She leaned on Celeste’s desk. “He likes your kids. He’s a nice guy. And I’ve seen him, Celeste. He’s hot— for an old guy.”
Celeste tapped her pencil on the desktop. “How do I do this bucket list challenge without giving him the wrong idea?”
“The wrong idea? You mean that you like him?”
“Right. I don’t want to ruin our friendship by making him think I feel more for him than I do.” It had, in fact, been a worry of hers for a couple of years, ever since he started looking at her in the way he did.
“He’s not blind,” Lucy said. “He can probably tell that you like him.”
“I don’t.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Sure, you don’t.”
This was getting out of hand. “I didn’t bring this up to have you analyze my feelings. I need to know the name of that secondhand shop where you get your vintage clothes.”
“Second Time Around. It’s on 22nd,” Lucy said. “Do you really think your bucket list outfits are going to be in a vintage shop?”
Celeste sighed loudly. “I’m getting old.”
Her cell chimed, signaling the arrival of a text. She grabbed it and checked.Mike.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Lucy asked.
“How did you—”
“You only smile like that when he calls or texts or comes by.” She rolled her eyes again— Lucy was an unapologetic eye-roller— and shook her head. “But, of course, you don’tlikehim.”
She ignored Lucy and read the text.
Mike: 1, Celeste: 0
What did that mean? Her phone chimed again. A picture text this time. The moment it came up on screen, she laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it.
“What?” Lucy asked.
Celeste showed her the photo: Mike holding up a long, black trench coat. “I don’t know how he found them already.”
