Page 4 of Christmas Agreement (Majestic Falls: Christmas Spice #3)

Rugar

Ending up a virgin old maid who dies alone in a shack in the woods and gets eaten by her cats.

Virgin kept repeating over and over in my head.

Despite the death threat to the guys on campus, somehow, I hadn’t guessed Katie’s status.

I couldn’t say it upset me. I wanted her, experience or not, but now mine mine min e repeated in my head.

I couldn’t help that, at all. I wanted Katie.

The only question was how to convince her to take a chance with me—a chance of more than a couple fake dates.

“Just two,” I told the hostess, linking my fingers through Katie’s. She startled and looked down at our hands, but didn’t pull away. A tingle seemed to steal up my arm, awareness a living thing within me. Fuck, I wanted to hold her hand wherever we went, whenever we were together.

“Katie,” I started.

She shot me a warning glance. “If you don’t forget the last five minutes…”

Not a chance in hell of that. I just pressed my lips together and let her believe I’d drop the matter forever. Again…not a chance in hell.

Because it was fairly early-ish for a Saturday, we were seated right away. We followed the hostess through the restaurant. I held Katie’s chair for her while the server placed the menus in front of each place setting.

The table was right near the front windows, but there wasn’t much to see. Lake Main Street was just waking up, and Pine Glen, where Anna’s was located, would take even longer for traffic to pick up, even though it was one of Majestic Falls’ primary streets.

“Looks like Clarence wants pancakes, too,” Katie said suddenly, just as we’d opened our menus.

“What?”

“Look.” She nodded behind me, and I turned just in time to see a huge rack of moose antlers disappearing around the corner of the building. As I leaned sideways for a better look, I could see the animal’s massive body as it walked away.

“Wow, he’s huge,” she breathed. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve never actually seen him before today. Not that I remember. My dad says we saw moose when I was younger, but I’m sure that wasn’t Clarence.”

“I haven’t seen him either.” Not even when I looked for him. That wasn’t a topic I planned to discuss.

The waitress was back to take our orders and pour coffees before we could further discuss the wildlife.

As planned, I requested French toast and added eggs and bacon while Katie got the chipotle bowl that featured lots of veggies, sausage and eggs.

Not surprising. I knew she was adventurous and also preferred veggies over most other kinds of foods.

Truly, it surprised me that she wasn’t vegetarian.

That was just one of the million little things I knew about her. Hell, I’d been secretly majoring in Katie for years.

“So about this sorority party?” I started after the waitress left us. “When is it? The hockey team’s thing is on the seventeenth. You know…because a Wednesday night is so convenient.”

Katie chuckled. “Ours is on Tuesday. Equally convenient.”

I nodded, thinking I really wanted to go out with her before then. Now that the seal had been broken and I had an opening, I was going for this full on.

“So what are you doing on the Monday?” I grinned, keeping my tone light. There was no lightness about it, though. I was completely invested in her reply.

The corners of Katie’s lips lifted, and she shrugged. “Working in the morning. Other than that, I don’t know since we’re officially on semester break next week. I might have burrow in and watch some Hallmark movies or something. Maybe, decorate my apartment a little.”

I straightened, my eyes widening. “You haven’t decorated your apartment, yet?”

Despite my scandalized tone, I hadn’t decorated my place, either.

“My roommate and I have been busy. She wasn’t too into it, anyway, since she’ll be out of town. She actually arranged to go home a week early. She left for California yesterday and won’t be back until the day before school starts again in January.”

“Want me to come over? I can wrestle in a tree, make hot chocolate, hang your mistletoe…?”

She rolled her eyes. “There’s no mistletoe. But yes. I’d like that.” She paused, making a face. “Are you dragging along my brother?”

God, no. Did she want me to?

“Only if you want me to.”

“Mmm…let me think about it. No. No, I definitely don’t want that. He’ll turn a half hour of decorating into a three-hour comedy routine.”

Good answer.

“Should we go get a tree after breakfast?” I offered. “The lot over on Henderson Mill Road still had some the last time I passed there.”

“Are you sure? I thought you just wanted to meet so you could get info from me. You know, about Kyle’s Christmas present.”

Really? She didn’t get that this was about her? I really needed to step up my game—though the sad truth was, it was possible I had no game off the ice.

I shook my head. “I already have all my shopping done. Breakfast is all about us. I wanted to spend time with you.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened, and she seemed surprised, but then she smiled and looked down at the table. Even so, I still saw the blush coloring her cheeks.

“That’s okay with you?” I prodded.

Her teeth sank into her lip, and she lifted her gaze again.

She nodded. “I’m surprised. But I’m okay with that.

Very okay. And, yes to the tree. Help with it, anyway.

I have a small artificial one from my parents and a bunch of their hand-me-down ornaments, as well as all of the ones I had growing up.

I don’t need to buy anything from the tree lot. ”

Our food came then, and we settled in, talking about how the end of the semester had gone for each of us and how we thought we’d fair in our classes.

“Hopefully all the guys have passing grades. The end of the year tournaments start after Christmas. There are several right through January and February.”

“I’m planning to go to the Ice Invitational in February. My parents have tickets because we won’t have many more times to see Kyle play.”

I raised a brow at her. “You mean there won’t be many more times while he’s a collegiate-level player?”

“Well, yeah. I mean…after that he’ll…what? Use his business degree to get a job in accounting or something?”

Almost without me realizing, my head shook while I stared at her. How did she not know?

“Kyle and I have been scouted for pros. We’re planning to sign. Charleston Lynx wants us both.”

“Ch…Charlston?” she stuttered. “That’s…far.”

Too far away from her, but I planned to figure that out before Kyle and I left for summer training camp.

“I can’t believe he hasn’t said anything,” I told her. “Nothing is final, of course. We still have to sign. But it’s really a question of when we go, not if we go.”

Her jaw dropped. Then she snapped it shut, her eyes clouding slightly before she looked back to her plate, pushing at a potato with her fork.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s… That’s… You talking about the two of you going pro just brings it home. You and Kyle are going away. Leaving Majestic Falls. And…” She lifted a shoulder. “I’ll be here. I always figured you’d go, but neither of you have talked about it, so I guess I never really thought much about it.”

Crap, I should have waited with that info. I didn’t want her to pull away before I make her mine, before she knew I wouldn’t never desert her. Still, the last thing I wanted was to be less than truthful with her. My future job was a bridge we could cross later.

“I have no intention of leaving you behind. You might be here for awhile, until you’re ready,” I offered ambiguously, not spelling out all my intentions. “But I’ll always be back. Both Kyle and I will. This is home. And when you’re ready, you can come to Charleston.”

“More coffee,” a voice interjected. My startled gaze shifted to the waitress. I’d been so focused on Katie, I hadn’t seen the woman approach. I declined another refill, and Katie shook her head, too. My girl seemed lost in her thoughts, and it worried me.

“Ready to get your apartment full of holiday spirit?” I asked, once I’d paid our bill. I slid to my feet and held out my hand. Katie placed her small fingers in mine, and I pulled her up.

“Let’s do this,” she said. “And maybe, we should talk about the dates next week, too.”

She did air quotes around dates with one hand, and I didn’t like it. But that was the state of things. For now

“Yeah, we’ll do that, too.”

By Wednesday night, she’d know I wasn’t faking anything.