“Listen, if I’m going to sit on a man’s lap, it’s not going to be to tell him what I want for Christmas, okay?” I say, hoping my overtly sexual joke stuns him into backing off. However, his blush isn’t all that bashful. His reddened cheeks pair splendidly with a smile and a laugh that are more wicked than I imagined he could muster. Is he picturing me…
No, he couldn’t be.
“Nice one,” he says, attempting a fist bump that I pretend I don’t see. “But dirty jokes aren’t going to get you out of explaining yourself, you Grinch.”
“I’m not a Grinch!” I cry, but then I physically wince at the sight of an entire Christmas-themed aisle, and I’m a walking contradiction.
There are cheap polyester tree skirts with bears on them, and photo-frame ornaments with mistletoe hot-glued to the clay. How can this establishment possibly devote its already limited shelf space to seasonally specifictrinketsnobody needs?
“You can run, but you can’t hide, dude,” he says. “Even the Grinch learns to love the holidays by the end. We’re going to get the Christmas spirit into you one way or another.”
There’s a double entendre there I’m poised to point out, but currently I’m too busy brushing off his accusations to enjoy the saucy innuendo.
“Christmas isn’t really a big thing in my apartment. It’s just me and my parents. We gave up the Santa charade pretty young. We celebrate in our own way. I craft a complete design aesthetic for our communal rooms and have space architects come and fulfill the vision. We get two trees, one small for the dining room, and one full-sized for the family room, both trekked in from a renowned farm in Pennsylvania. They’ve done the Rockefeller Center tree before.” Hector whistles, but I can’t tell if it’s an impressed whistle or a contemptuous one. “I give my parents gifts they pretend I didn’t use their money to buy. They shower me with presents I pretend their personal assistants didn’t pick out and wrap for them. Santa doesn’t really have a place in that equation.”
“Equation? It’s magic, not math.” He snorts.
“It’s bullshit is what it is. Now, are we done here? Did you get what you needed?”
I notice he’s got his hands hidden behind his back in an awkward manner, like he’s about to master a card trick. Why does this guy give me so many amateur magician vibes? I swear he’s probably got a beginner’s kit tucked away in a closet somewhere in his childhood home.
Admittedly, he would look less than horrendous in a cape…
As if he’s shouted “Alakazam,” he produces a box of extra-strength Breathe Right nasal strips.
I’m taken aback, almost touched. He wouldn’t get them when he was with his ex, but he’s getting them for me? “I thought you said you didn’t even know if those worked.”
I mean, I shouldn’t complain. Anything to avoid another sleepless night beneath the all-cylinders-firing lawn mower, but this is far too thoughtful to be fair. He shouldn’t get to surprise me like this. When I’m off-balance, I let my guard down. I can’t let my guard down right now.
“I still don’t know if they work, dude, which is why I got”—out pops a six-pack of antimicrobial earplugs—“these.”
My cold, microscopic heart warms at the sight of tiny pieces of silicone. How sad. My pulse quickens too. Damn my body for confusing his kindness for interest. And while I’m at it, damn my mind for wanting his interest in the first place!
I’m not here to meet someone, especially not someone who’s my forced roommate and now planning partner. I’m here to lie low while Island Gate gets taken care of. Then, I can slink back into my old life.
But if that’s the case, why does this handsome boy staring at me make me sweat so much?
He wears an infuriating sideways smirk, obviously taking my speechlessness as a good sign. My pits are puddles, probably ruining the delicate fabric of my studded crewneck.
I swear my perspiration isn’t my fault. It has to be Hector’s. He’s got the kind of mouth Andy Warhol would’ve recorded putting on ChapStick or eating yogurt or kissing.
Kissing.Oh my God. That’s something I need to stop thinking about in his presence. Except it’s been so long since I’ve had a proper kiss. The kind of kiss that stops you in your tracks.
Since my breakup, I’ve stuck to hurried, only half-sober kisses in dark rooms at clubs. Where no one can see my neediness. No one can comment on my choices. There’s nothing romantic or satisfying about those scratchy, grimy couches and the taste of cheap whiskey on some stranger’s tongue.
“With these, we don’t have any more restless nights,” Hector says, shaking the boxes. Only, my mind runs rampant with erotic images of a different kind ofrestless night…
At the register, Hector pulls out the change left over from the fifty I rudely flipped him and uses it to pay for his items. Something in my chest hitches.
I need to keep him close—close enough to coast through the gala, yet far enough away so as not to catch feelings.
Because catching feelings would be far worse than being caught out wearing last season’s shoes.
Trends in fashion come and go, but feelings? Those fuckers are forever.
***
“Do I look stupid with this on my face?” Hector asks sometime before bed.
