“Oh, no, no, no,” Kit’s dad said, waving his hand like there was something stuck to his fingers. “None of that. You’re as good as family, so I'd be honored if you called me Teddy, like everyone else does. I hope I’m not presuming too much familiarity calling you Andy?”
“It’s the only name I’ve got, sir,” I said, defaulting to politeness in the face of gut-wrenching terror.
I wasn’t cut out for this. I was about as elegant and refined as one of the dead pigeons one of the local stray cats kept leaving in my balcony plants.
Kit’s dad raised an eyebrow.
“Teddy,” I corrected, desperate to make a good impression for Kit’s sake. My head was still spinning from all of this, the lights of the Christmas tree blurring in my peripheral vision. “Sorry.”
“Absolutely no need to apologize,” Teddy said. “This must all be a little overwhelming for you.”
That felt like the understatement of the year.
I nodded, biting my lip. The last thing I wanted was to make Kit look bad, but I was on the verge of passing out. It was all somuch.
“I’ll call for tea,” Teddy said. “Kit, do take your lovely boyfriend through to the front parlor and settle him by the fire. Andy, please try to feel like family. You really are as good as, after all. Kit never stops talking about you. I feel as though you and I are old friends already.”
The tips of Kit’s ears went pink as he put a hand on my arm to lead me through to what I assumed was the front parlor, which made me wonder how many parlors there were. Two? Three?More?
I was still holding the bell in my hand, so I shoved it in my pocket and promised myself I’d sneak it back onto the tree when I had a chance.
“Ah, mistletoe,” Kit’s dad called out as we got to the doors of the parlor.
I looked up at the sprig of green leaves and white berries tied together with a length of red ribbon above my head.
Above mine andKit’sheads.
I looked at Kit, figuring this was what I’d signed up for. Mistletoe kisses and snuggling up together in front of the fire and generallypretending to be a couple.
Kit looked up as well, then back down at me, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips.
I reached out to curl my fingers around his, finding them trembling.
I was glad he was nervous. Not because I wanted him to suffer, but because I was nervous, too. We’d never kissed before. Not even in the drunken experiment way I’d done with other roommates in the past.
My butterflies had butterflies as I waited, looking up at him, the mistletoe still dangling in my peripheral vision.
I closed my eyes and barely stifled a gasp as he leaned in, lips parted in anticipation, stomach twisting with fear and excitement, heart hammering against my ribcage.
I’d wanted to kiss Kit since the first hello.
When his lips brushed against my cheek, excitement turned to disappointment so bitter it made my stomach turn.
Maybe I’d misjudged what Kit meant bymaintaining the fictionthat we were boyfriends.
“Sorry,” he murmured, so close to my ear that his lips almost brushed against it, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “He’s gone now.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I followed Kit into the bright, light parlor, all huge windows and cream furnishings, with another huge Christmas tree by the windows decorated in the same colors as the rest of the room.
Why didn’t he want to kiss me?
You’ve been saying for years that he doesn’t really have a crush on you, and now you know you’re right.
“You never stop talking about me?” I asked, still dazed, as Kit pulled a plush brocade armchair up to the fire and bundled me into it, draping a nearby wool throw over my lap.
“I do spend rather a lot of time with you,” Kit defended. “It’s only natural you’d come up regularly, isn’t it? Surely you talk to people about me.”
Well. When he put itthatway.
