Handsome!
The stag and Stacy spoke at the same time, with the stag glowing pridefully and Stacy glowing with a blush. “Sorry, that was a little…true,” she said after a helpless heartbeat. “You look gorgeous. Even with the silly antlers. Youaregorgeous.”
See?the stag crowed.She thinks we’re gorgeous with the antlers!
That wasn’t exactly—or even close to—what Stacy had said, but Keith was trying hard to ignore the stag so he could have actual real live conversation with the woman at his side, rather than the animal in his head. “You’re gorgeous too. I don’t actually understand why I’m not at the end of a long line of men trying to convince you to give them the time of day.”
“Oh, well, I—” Stacy broke off as Keith’s stomach growled so loudly that even the stall owner blinked at him. “I…had better get you a snack before dinner, I think. Wow.”
“There’s an explanation for this…”
“Is it that you’re six three and work out?”
Keith paused. That wasn’tactuallythe explanation, but it also wasn’t wrong, except for, “Six two.”
“Oh, my bad, from down here the difference is hard to tell.” Stacy rolled her eyes, which made Keith laugh.
“You’re notthatlittle.”
“I’m five four,” she said grumpily. “Last year Noah Brannigan asked if I was one of the Christmas elves.”
“I think five four is exactly the right height.” Keith was certain he could lift her effortlessly, and once he’d done that, he could do all kinds of wonderful things with her. He bet she would be soft and willing and also just a little bit bossy, demanding exactly what she wanted from him. He already knew what her hands felt like in his hair. Imagining them gripping it for different reasons sent a shiver of desire down his spine, and he suddenly couldn’t decide if he was hungrier or hornier.
Hungrier, his stag whispered tragically.Our horns are gone.
Keith laughed out loud, which was the wrong thing to do when he’d just reassured Stacy that she was an excellent height. Her eyebrows drew down, more confused than offended, and Keith groaned. “I swear I can explain myself. Maybe over an elephant ear?”
“A what?”
Keith gasped. “You’ve never had an elephant ear?”
“I hope not!” Stacy was obviously only half kidding. “What is it?”
“A big sheet of fried dough with honey or cinnamon and sugar.”
“Oh, kind of like funnel cake?” She nodded. “Now I gotcha. But I can’t eat a bunch of fried dough and then dinner. I’ll try a bite of yours, though, since you’re apparently starving.” She put her earmuffs on, which made her even cuter than she’d been before, and they wound their way through the noisy, beautifully-lit market in search of the elephant ears booth. “I can’t believe how many people there are at this thing. The market in general, I mean, not just in line for the elephant ears.”
There were a lot of them, too, to be fair. Keith’s stomach growled again, and the woman in front of them looked at him with amusement. Not enough amusement to let him go ahead of her, but that was okay. “Haven’t you ever come to the market before? Or is this your first year in Virtue?”
“I moved here about four years ago, but no, I don’t really do Christmas and holiday stuff, so I haven’t ever come to it before, no.”
“Right, you said that. Any particular reason, or is that getting too personal?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere along the line I just stopped liking this time of year. It’s dark, it’s cold, everybody’s busy and frequently bitchy, and they all want their hair to be perfect for the holidays. It just makes me want to go to Bermuda until January.” Stacy shrugged.
“I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t been there either. It just sounds better than upstate New York in December.”
Keith laughed. “Yeah, I can’t argue with that. So is Christmas grinch your thing instead, then?”
She gave him a startled look. “It is, yeah. I hunch around being cranky and waiting for it to all be over. Except I have to pretend to be cheerful, because my job is, ah, what do they call it these days? ‘Public-facing.’ It’s just exhausting. Oh, those smell really good.” They’d reached the ordering counter, with the scent of cinnamon and oil swimming out over the line. “Maybe I’ll have two bites of yours.”
“You can nibble as much as you like.”
Her eyebrows arched and Keith felt himself blushing. “That was dumb.”
“‘Nibbling’ and ‘biting’ have whole different overtones,” she said, amused. “Are you thinking of things that involve nibbling?”
