Page 12 of A Curvy Wonderland (A Curvy Girl Christmas #3)

12

ELDAN

M y hands were sweating inside my gloves as we drove back up the hill to Emerald Acres. It was one thing to hang out with Holly when Lucy and Tatum were around, another completely to be with her by myself.

Maybe inviting her over had been a bad idea. Maybe being with her and wearing the Santa suit and everything was just brainwashing me into some Christmas-magic thinking of a romantic relationship like the kind in the Hallmark Christmas movies Mom constantly played on the television this time of year.

But I couldn't exactly turn back now. Not with her sitting next to me and flicking through the channels on the radio until she found a station playing her favorite Christmas song, “Holly Jolly Christmas.”

“It has my name in it,” she said gleefully.

I had to chuckle. I wasn't much of a laugher. I didn't like comedy shows, preferring to watch and read things that made me think. But with Holly, it seemed easier and easier all the time.

She smiled over at me and sang along, completely out of key and not caring at all. She was still better than Michael Bublé.

I wish I had that kind of abandon, the ability to fully enjoy myself regardless of who was around.

Some of her bravado must have worn off on me, though, because I’d followed through on my plan of asking her to spend time with me, alone.

I parked in front of the café and let her inside. It wouldn't be opening up for another hour or two, so we had the place completely to ourselves. I turned on the percolator for hot cocoa and then said, “I'll go get all the wrapping stuff from the house.”

She nodded, already looking through the hot cocoa packets on display. There were so many options from mint to peanut butter and more.

I walked across the way and into my house where all the lights were off. Even Bob wasn’t home. He was probably off with Mom and Dad while they prepared for another busy day of Christmas tree sales.

So I got the wrapping supplies from the craft room and a big tote bag of presents, bringing them back to the café.

When I walked through the door, Holly had somehow found some to-go cups behind the counter and had already poured for each of us a cup of cocoa, whipped cream on top.

“How did you do that so fast?” I asked as I set down the supplies and presents.

She smiled bashfully. “I hope it's okay I went behind the counter.”

I took a step forward and collected my cocoa from her. A tentative sip led to a deeper drink, savoring the warm chocolatey liquid. “It definitely is. This is delicious.”

She looked at me, giggling.

“What?” I asked.

“You have some…” She stepped a little closer, reaching out her hand. “Can I?”

Part of me wanted to say no, but I held still, and her hand flicked softly over my upper lip. The touch was like a crackling fire, sparking more than I expected. She wiped it off, and then brought it to her lips, tasting the whipped cream.

My lips parted as I watched her, mesmerized.

Then she looked down, almost embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn't have a napkin.”

“Let's start wrapping,” I said, trying to make sense of everything I was feeling. I passed her a roll of wrapping paper and a set of scissors, and then got myself another roll. After a few seconds, I realized she wasn’t moving. She was staring at the wrapping supplies.

“I recognize that paper,” she whispered.

I followed her gaze down to the metallic red paper. My cheeks were starting to feel hot.

She looked up at me. “So the Santa suit wasn't just for show…”

I looked down at the table. “I thought some gifts from Santa might help Tatum and Lucy enjoy their time a little more… Please don't tell them,” I added. I want it to be special for them.”

She smiled at me, eyes shining with a light all her own.

“What?”

“And his heart grew three sizes…”

Now my cheeks were on fire. I stared at the table.

“Look at you, ya big softy,” she teased.

I shook my head at her. “More wrapping, less talking.”

She rolled her eyes. As we got to work, I explained the label system I had, so we could keep track of all the gifts and ensure they were delivered to the right place. With nothing left to explain, I focused on wrapping, but after a few minutes I didn't hear her paper moving anymore, and noticed she was watching me.

“How do you wrap presents like that?” she asked. “That’s so cool how you can tuck the card inside.”

“Oh... I looked it up on YouTube.”

She tossed her head back and laughed one of her happy laughs, the kind that made me feel all light inside. “Of course you would have to look up how to wrap a Christmas present.”

“Hey, you're the one asking Scrooge how to wrap something.”

“Fair,” I replied.

I got out a new present and walked her step by step on how to do it. Then she got her own gift and tried to follow the steps, but she kept folding the paper in the wrong direction.

“Here, let me show you,” I said. I got up from my chair, walking to stand beside her, and guided her hands on the paper.

I swore I heard her breath catch when we touched.

I thought I might be relieved that I wasn’t alone in my reaction to feeling her skin under my fingertips. But instead, it made my breath more shallow, our connection sizzling even more than before.

Somehow, we finished wrapping the present, and she held it up. “This is gorgeous,” she said. “Thank you for the help.”

I nodded, only because I didn't trust myself to speak.

We worked silently for all of three minutes until Holly said, “Now that we're wrapping presents, we're going to be here for a while...”

I looked up at her, but she was focusing down on the careful way she was folding the wrapping paper. “Do you have time to tell me why you hate Christmas?” she asked tentatively.

I’d known that if we spent much more time together, this question would come up, and I'd worked my answer over a million times in my head, trying to find the perfect way to explain it without making her sad, making things awkward between us. I took a slow breath.

She whispered, “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”

Something about the gentle way she said it made me feel safer around her, like I wasn't just a puzzle she was working out, she was genuinely interested and cared about me.

When you had a background like mine, you could tell there were some people who just wanted the drama, and some people who really cared.

So my voice was quiet when I answered, “I was adopted when I was six years old.”

She looked over at me, the present she was wrapping completely forgotten. “You were? You and your mom look so much alike.”

“My mom is my biological aunt,” I replied.

Holly nodded slowly.

“Things weren’t always bad with my birth mom. A lot of my memories with her are good, but then things changed. Back then, I didn’t understand why, but now I know it’s because she started taking drugs with one of her boyfriends.”

The story used to make me so sad when I told it, thinking about me as a little boy, just wanting my mom and not knowing what was going on, what had changed. But now I had more perspective and had gone to therapy to help me understand that my mom's addiction wasn't about me at all.

So I continued, “The last year I had with my birth mom, my aunt and uncle—my parents now—brought me a bunch of presents for Christmas. They were so pretty under the tree. I still remember the wrapping paper, Spiderman in a Santa hat… and I was so excited to go to sleep and wake up on Christmas morning to open them. But when I got up the next morning, all the presents were gone. My birth mom told me that they were stolen in the middle of the night, but now I know she probably sold them for drugs.”

Holly reached out and touched my shoulder, and just that small gesture of kindness made a lump form in my throat.

I swallowed it down, surprised at how much I needed to share this with someone. The only people I’d ever really talked to about it were my mom, dad, and therapist. I didn't even share it much with my friends at school.

“A few months later, my mom left me with my aunt and uncle and never came back to pick me up,” I continued. “So now, Christmas isn’t a holiday to celebrate… it’s a reminder of what I lost.”

Holly nodded like she understood, or at least like she cared. “I feel bad for trying to shove all this merry Christmas stuff on you,” she admitted.

I shook my head. “It was nice to see Christmas through your eyes.”

She smiled. Then she got back to work wrapping the presents, and I appreciated that she gave me some time to myself to sort through what I had shared, to recover from being so vulnerable. But a couple hours later, the door to the café opened.

Margot, one of the employees had come to open the shop up. “Hey,” she said to us. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“No worries,” Holly said sweetly. Then she glanced back at me. “I should probably go.”

“I'll walk you out,” I said. Then I told Margot I’d be back to clean up our wrapping station.

Holly and I walked out of the café, and when we were standing there, stalling on going home, she looked up above the door and saw something. “Mistletoe,” she said.

My lips twitched.

“That wasn't there before,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Who put that there?”

“Santa,” I said.

With a small smile on her lips, she leaned close.

I could see her thick eyelashes, the subtle freckles across her cheeks. She was even more beautiful this close.

I reached out, tentatively cupping her cheek, her skin warm under my hand, and then I closed my eyes.

Our lips brushed softly, tentatively.

It lasted seconds, but it was the best thing “Santa” ever got me.