This made him laugh, a delightful burry chuckle, and maybe it was wrong of me to want to go closer and just, you know, touch him. He was tall and broad shouldered, with nice hands and a nice laugh. His eyes, as he looked at me, were deep blue. Gah. The kind that made me want to drown in them.
But the spell was broken when he got up and pulled off his coat, which he hung neatly in the small closet.
“Let me put on some dry clothes and we’ll go.”
Putting on some dry clothes also involved him taking, of all things, a quick shower. By the time he came out I had changed out my socks and put my boots back on, that was it, I was ready to eat my own arm.
I would have eaten any part of him, as well, because he shaved, and he smelled like a dream, and he was wearing blue jeans that sort of hugged him everywhere. Alas, the city shoes on his feet did not go and did not suit the outfit.
“Maybe they’ve got some boots they can sell you,” I said instead of everything else I wanted to say. Or do.
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, as if my worry wasn’t important.
We put on our coats and trucked out into the snow, which was still coming down, but more softly now, a whisper of white that danced in front of the limited parking lot lights. It wasn’t far to the main lodge, so we walked, and while my hands werecold, I knew I was a great deal warmer than he was, with his thin shoes and city coat.
We marched into the bar and found ourselves a small, circular bar table along the wall. The warmth of the fire in the main reception area just about reached us, which was good because every time someone opened the front door, which wasn’t often, we got a blast of cold air.
I talked Mr. I-Don’t-Drink into beers and nachos, and while we waited, I leaned back. The low lighting in the bar let me look at him as he gazed around the room. The bar was small and cozy, the chatter low, the bottles of gin and wine sparkling in the shelves behind the bar.
“So what went down with the ship?” I asked, just making conversation, maybe to distract him from the fact that I was staring at his manly jawline and admiring his skin, the way a bit of his throat peeped out from his crisp white button-down shirt.
“Ship?” he asked, focusing his attention on me. Which I found felt very nice. I mean, we weren’t on a date, but it sure could maybe feel like we were.
“Your car, when it went into the lake. You mentioned all the presents were lost except for the ones you shipped from Amazon.”
“You’ve got a good memory,” he said, nodding at the waitress as she brought our beers and a basket of nachos.
“That’s not all I’ve got that’s good,” I said.
I swear, hand to heaven, I hadn’t meant to say that, at least not out loud. But it was said now, so I gave him my best saucy wink, and if he wanted to follow up on any of what I might be offering, I would not say no.
“Excuse me?” he asked, like he had no idea what I was talking about.
I’m thinking he did know, because as he lifted his mug of beer and stared into it, I could just about see him turning overand over the idea of the two of us taking a roll in the hay. I also saw the second he shook the idea away. Then he took a long slug of beer, and I watched him lick his lips as he swallowed.
“So,” he said, a little flushed from the beer. “I had great presents for everybody, mittens and coats, a certificate for steak of the month, all the usual.” He shrugged and maybe he realized that his usual wasn’t my usual. “The only thing I saved was the silver spoon for Baby Ginny that I had in my suitcase.”
A silver spoon. Didn’t surprise me because of course a new baby from a rich family would get a silver spoon.
One year, when I was five or six or maybe seven (my kid hood is such a blur), I got a new pair of black socks. I cried because I was only little and all my other friends were getting new bikes and karate lessons and Game Boys.
For a moment, I went still, the memory futzing out before I could even grab hold of it. Who gave me those socks? Mom or Dad? Or some unmarried aunt stuck with a kid for the holidays?
All of these ideas always seemed to overlap and I never could figure out what was real and what came from a TV commercial. But moments like that one always reminded me that I hated Christmas.
CHAPTER 4
Iwas ready to be all grumpy about it, to hand out some sass, stir things up the way I liked to do. One time at Christmas, Jonah and I had been so drunk, we went to nice neighborhoods, tromping along carefully shoveled sidewalks to pick fights with inflatable Santas and reindeers until the plastic shapes burst a hole and the electric pumps forced air into air.
The cops had come, as they always did, but we skedaddled to a back alley where I’d parked Olive and roared out of that fine neighborhood before they could catch us.
Now, though, I didn’t imagine Alex would appreciate hearing about anything so boisterous and alcohol-induced, so I kept my big mouth shut about the Santas we’d decked, and the black socks from when I was a kid that I wore for years, until they finally wore out, being a bunch of holes.
I always wear a lot of black, sure, but my socks are always any other color, white, gray, candy cane striped. Rainbow, even, if I was in a jocular mood.
“She’s all right now, though,” I said, remembering some of my manners.
“Yes,” he said, taking a swallow of beer, as if relieved that this was so. “This is my first chance to see her. Lottie was told to rest a lot and there were just complications so I’ve only seen pictures of Baby Ginny—” He paused to look at me, his face flushed from the warmth of the bar (or at least until someone opened the door) and the effects of the beer. “I also broke up with my boyfriend a few months back—he cheated on me—so my head wasn’t on straight. I was a mess.”
