“I was just pointing out you’ve kind of… crushed your mug a little,” Pierce said, gesturing down to the table in front of her.
Gasping, Celeste looked down in horror at the mess that had once been her mug.Did I do that?!
She supposed she must have – while she was watching Pierce’s hands, she’d clearly had some kind of brain fade and gripped so tightly to the wall of her mug that she’d squashed it into some kind of horrible wobbly shape that no one would have been able to drink out of, no matter how hard they tried.
She stared at it in dismay. How had this happened? Had shereallybeen so distracted by Pierce’s hands that she hadn’t even noticed what she’d been doing?!
“Oh my goodness,” Celeste murmured in despair, shaking her head. She hadn’t thought her mug was so bad before, but it was definitely a complete disaster now! “I – I don’t know what happened here. How am I supposed to fix this?”
“It’s not so bad,” Pierce said, scooting over to her side. “Look – we just need to smooth this section out a little.” He reached over, his fingers stroking down the crumpled section of the mug’s side. “I mean, I don’t want to dotoomuch – you’ve seen what happens when I try to make these things – but I think if you can just sort this out, you’ll be back in business.”
Celeste swallowed heavily. Despite how his own mug had turned out, Pierce was doing a surprisingly good job of fixing up the section of hers where she’d ruined it.
“No, I think I get it now,” she said, lifting her own hands. “It’s just smoothing. I can at least try to get it back into shape.”
“You’ll get there – and if not, well, it’s certainly a very unique piece. More of an abstract sculpture than a mug.”
Celeste laughed, lifting her head to smile at him – and suddenly, it came to her just how close Pierce was standing by her side. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, feel the warmth of his breath against her ear. Unable to help herself, Celeste ran her tongue over her lips as she pulled her gaze slowly up over his chest – even covered by theridiculousreindeer sweater it was still obvious his body had lost none of its youthful leanness or hard muscle – over his throat, his pulse visibly beating against the skin, until finally she met his eyes, the beautiful gray-blue eyes she remembered gazing into so many times, before everything had gone so wrong –
“Celeste,” Pierce murmured, his voice soft and hoarse, breaking into the reverie she’d drifted into. “Celeste, I –”
When she looked into his eyes, she found them clouded, as if hazed over with – with –
Is it desire?Celeste found herself wondering as she gazed, dumbstruck, at Pierce, feeling she couldn’t have torn her eyes away from him even if she’d wanted to.
But… no, of course it isn’t,she chided herself. Why would he be looking at her that way? She didn’t flatter herself that she’druined his lifeor anything like that, but the fact remained that she’d broken things off with him with barely a word of explanation, and he couldn’t possibly feel for her what he’d used to all those years ago, even if it was long ago enough now for him to be able to be friendly with her.
But even as she told herself this, even as she struggled against her own desire, Celeste couldn’t help but wonder… what if…
What if I just leaned up a little now… I could almost kiss him if I just –
“Oh, whyhelloyou two! How are we getting on with our Christmas mugs?”
Mrs. Shelby’s voice was like a bucket of cold water being thrown directly into Celeste’s face – cold water, and also, perhaps, a lot of very hard, very pointy shards of ice too. She jumped back from Pierce, her whole body shaking, eyes wide, her mouth dropping open and words crowding her tongue, as if she was a teenager who’d just been caught red-handed –I wasn’t – I didn’t – nothing was happening!!!
“I – oh, um, I –” she eventually managed to stutter out,knowingshe was only incriminating herself further as Mrs. Shelby’s eyes narrowed and her eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline.
“Celeste was just helping me sort out a few problems with mine,” Pierce said smoothly after a moment or two, obviously having recovered himself a little faster than Celeste had – though she thought she could still detect thesmallestshake in his voice.
Probably from relief,she thought wretchedly.Since Mrs. Shelby showed up and saved him from having to awkwardly tell me to stop trying to shove my tongue down his throat.
Celeste could feel herself flush with heat at the thought, though she couldn’t tell if it was more from the thought of kissing Pierce or from mortification at the fact she’d just tried to foist her attentions on someone who clearly wasn’t interested.
“Oh – Isee!” Mrs. Shelby trilled, brightening a little. “Well, show me what you’ve got, then. I’m sure they’ll be simplymarvelous!
Marvelouswas… not quite the word Celeste would have used to describe their work, and after actually seeing it, she was pretty certain it wasn’t the word Mrs. Shelby would use either.
Mrs. Shelby pursed her lips as she gazed upon the two misshapen lumps of clay that resembled mugs only in the broadest possible sense, clearly trying to come up with something diplomatic to say.
“Well… of course they will look quite different after they’ve beenglazed,” she finally came up with after a somewhat long, awkward silence. “And… well, they certainly have a sort ofnoveltyvalue.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve never really done any pottery before,” Celeste apologized – though really, she wasn’t sure what exactly Mrs. Shelby expected. It wasn’t like she’d volunteered herself for this!
“Same here,” Pierce said, offering Mrs. Shelby a slightly sheepish smile. “But maybe someone will like them as a bit of a gag gift?”
“Well, let’s hope so,” Mrs. Shelby muttered, before she seemed to remember herself and fixed them both with a bright smile. “In any case, it’s the thought that counts! I’m suresomeonewill be able to give these a good home.”
“Well, I’m glad we could help you out while you were in trouble,” Celeste said, hoping she sounded sincere – shewashappy she’d been able to help someone in need, but really, she’d had just about enough of humiliating herself in front of an audience for now, either with her dreadful pottery skillsorher unrequired desire. Maybe it would be for the best if she just went back to the lighthouse and stayed far away from Pierce no matter what Gordon had said, since it was obvious she couldn’t trust herself around him. Sure, she’d had a lucky escape this time, but next time she wouldn’t have Mrs. Shelby bursting in to rescue her! “But if you don’t need us anymore, I think I might just –”
