Page 9 of Coming for Her Grumpy Boss (Coming For Christmas #3)
chapter
nine
Ford
We make it as far as the kitchen before Mia stops dead, my T-shirt hanging off one shoulder like a crime of opportunity. She turns a slow circle, taking in the clean counters, the bowl of clementines, the undecorated picture windows looking out over the black lake.
“Where did you hide Christmas?” she asks, “and do I need a warrant?”
“It exists,” I say, handing her a glass of water and nabbing two peppermint cocoa packets from the pantry. “It’s in storage.”
“In storage,” she repeats, scandalized. “Like a hostile takeover of joy.”
“I was waiting for the right co-conspirator.” I set the kettle on. “Congratulations. You’ve been promoted.”
She squints at me, but the corner of her mouth betrays her. “This better not be code for a wreath made of spreadsheets.”
“Only Q4 evergreen.” I jerk my chin toward the hallway. “Come on.”
The hall closet is industrial-level organized: labeled bins stacked like Tetris—LIGHTS (WARM), ORNAMENTS (FRAGILE), GARLAND (NO GLITTER UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH), TREE TOPPERS (CONTROVERSIAL). Mia reads the labels and laughs, bright and delighted.
“‘Controversial’?” she says, tapping the last bin.
“Star versus angel is a blood sport in some families.”
“And yours?”
“Ruthless compromise.” I pull the bins down. “We rotate.”
Back in the great room, the tree I had delivered yesterday stands in the corner like a bare promise—fresh pine, good shape, no lights yet. Mia stops, presses a palm to her chest. “Okay, he can be taught.”
“I don’t do artificial,” I say. “Smell matters.” Then I pause. “Unless the scent triggers a migraine. Shit, I didn’t think of that.”
“Hey, it’s all good. Pine is not a problem for me. Promise.” She leans in and inhales. “You’re forgiven for your war crimes against décor.”
I pull her to me and kiss the top of her head. “I still should have asked.”
“It’s not your job to manage my headaches,” she says. “Though admittedly, you do a better job at that than I do.”
The kettle clicks off in the kitchen. “Cocoa first or lights first?”
“Lights. Then, cocoa as a reward.”
“Incorrect,” I deadpan, already pouring water over cocoa powder. “Cocoa fuels infrastructure.”
She accepts the mug, eyes warm over the steam. “Infrastructure. You’re going to try to put the lights on in perfect Fibonacci spacing, aren’t you?”
“Only if you’d like the optimal twinkle.”
We queue up a playlist—she picks vintage crooners and exactly one pop banger that I pretend not to know—and start with the lights.
I hand her the first strand and circle the base of the tree.
She tries to follow my precise pattern for three branches before abandoning me and freestyle wrapping her side with cheerful loops.
“Anarchy,” I say, amused despite myself.
“Festive zeal,” she counters. “Consider it… asymmetrical balance.”
I step in behind her to rescue a dark pocket, and she elbows me lightly. “I can do it.”
“I know,” I say, steadying the strand as she reaches. My hand instinctively finds her waist. “Just keeping it architecturally sound.”
She glances over her shoulder, eyes catching mine, and for one suspended beat, the house is a snow globe. Everything feels picture-perfect.
Then she grins, wicked and sweet, and deliberately loops the lights around my forearm.
“Trapped,” I observe.
“Seasonal capture.” She flicks the plug—warm light spills across her face, across the room. “Oh,” she says softly. “That’s?—”
“Good,” I finish for her, because it is. The tree glows like it means it.
We tackle ornaments next. I open the FRAGILE bin, find the individual cubbies with tissue-wrapped ornaments.
There are classic glass balls in deep greens and smoked golds, a handful of pewter brewhouse charms a vendor sent me, a tiny silver treble clef I pretend not to care about, and—Mia’s hand darts in—one lopsided macaroni star spray-painted an enthusiastic gold.
She looks from the star to me like she’s been handed state secrets. “You made this.”
“I was five. My fine motor skills weren’t… fully functional.”
Her smile is sweet, wistful. “It’s perfect.” She moves to hang it front-and-center.
“Back-left,” I say automatically. “The lighting is kinder to… artisanals.”
She faces me squarely. “Front. Center. I’m staging a union action.”
I surrender, because she’s right and because she looks so absurdly pleased I’d buy a second tree to watch her do it again. “Front center,” I say. “But we’re bracing.”
“Architecturally sound,” she echoes, and we both pretend we’re only talking about a star made of pasta.
She finds the treble clef next and holds it up, eyebrows lifted toward my ink. “Explain.”
“My mother taught piano,” I say, hooking a simple glass ball while I look anywhere but her face. “I took lessons until the teacher threatened to quit. I was better at counting than feeling.”
“Numbers have feelings,” she says thoughtfully, and hangs the clef at eye level. “They just hide them.”
“That’s projection.”
“Obviously.”
We work in comfortable silence for a while, punctuated by her commentary—“This one looks like it belongs in a Dickens novel,” “This one is aggressively jingle-bell,”—and my faux-serious coaching—“Even distribution, Morales,” “You are violating the candy-cane zoning ordinance.”
“I do not accept your cane tyranny,” she says, and hooks three in a row where I will absolutely move two as soon as she turns away.
Her body shifts, and I reach for the canes, then catch myself and leave them as is.
She watches me not do it and pretends not to see, which somehow feels like the most intimate thing we’ve done all night.
By the time we reach the last bin, the room smells like pine and cocoa and the faint ghost of her shampoo. I open TREE TOPPERS (CONTROVERSIAL) and reveal an angel with a slightly crooked halo and a simple metal star.
She gives me a look that says she knows exactly which one I expect her to choose, and then chooses the opposite. “Angel,” she declares. “And before you argue, look—she’s a little off-center. Like me.”
“Incorrect,” I say, but I’m already lifting her. “Ready?”
She sets her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t drop me.”
“Never,” I say it without thinking, and we both feel it.
I raise her easily; she braces a knee against the lower branches, careful as a cat, and perches the angel on the top spike. The lights catch the gilt of the crooked halo. Mia wobbles just enough that I grip her tighter, palms warm on her thighs.
“Gingerbread,” she teases breathlessly.
“Abusing the safe word,” I mutter, lowering her slowly. “HR calling.”
“HR can send an email,” she says, close now, the angel glowing over her shoulder, the tree throwing soft light across her mouth.
I kiss her. Not the earlier brand of frantic; something quieter and somehow louder. When we part, she presses her forehead to mine and whispers, “This is dangerously domestic.”
“Efficient,” I counter. “Two birds, one tree.”
She laughs, shakes her head, and tugs my hand toward the couch.
We sink into the cushions, legs tangled, cocoa back within reach.
She tucks her toes under my thigh like it’s something she does every night.
That slight movement does something to me.
As if my own internal infrastructure is rearranging itself.
“What’s the story with the garland ban?” she asks, nodding toward the NO GLITTER label.
“It’s really more about the stringy bits than the actual glitter. We had a cat when I was growing up. Damn thing loved to eat strings and ribbons and anything that resembled the two. One Christmas led to an emergency surgery, and we had a family vow that year.”
“And the kitty?”
“Still living, which in and of itself is a miracle. He’s like nineteen now, I think.”
“Good rule, then.”
“It would seem.”
“I can see you with cats.”
“Multiple?”
“Well, whatever your preference. But you have cat energy. That false aloofness, that dissolves into demands for belly rubs,” she says.
“I have never once demanded you rub my belly.”
“There’s still time,” she says with a grin.
“Okay, I shared a Christmas memory, give me one of yours.”
Her eyes move to look at the Christmas tree, and she starts to giggle.
“I was seven and Esme was five. One of our aunts brought us this stuffed singing reindeer. That thing was terrifying. It made Esme cry. So I hid it in a closet, but the damn batteries wouldn’t die.
That thing would randomly shriek ‘Jingle Bells’ at all hours.
It was annoying, but by the second day, even Esme was laughing. ”
“That… explains so much about you,” I say.