by Nicole Deese
Sometime between Joshua tying a plastic bib around my neck and Emma singing “Jingle Bells” while using the shelled crab legs as her instrument of choice . . . I’d completely fallen in love with the lot of them. I’d laughed my oxygen supply out more than once, sucking wind so badly that my sides ached, especially after Joshua intentionally bumped my shoulder at the exact moment I finally got the perfect grip on the cracking tool. After such an unfair move, I shoved my entire pile of crab legs in front of him, declaring his punishment was to crack them all. He agreed without a fight, and his mother and Rebekah applauded my sass. “Good one, Lauren,” Elizabeth affirmed. “Don’t you let him get away with that.”
Stuffed to the point of not even wanting to discuss dessert, we concluded our evening with George reading us the first chapter of Luke. I could listen to his storytelling voice every day of the week and never tire of it. His baritone was as deep and distinguished as an Oscar-winning actor. Emma interrupted the passage multiple times, fluffing the ruffly skirt of her dress and asking questions like “Where did the wise men buy their gifts, Papa?” and “What kind of wood was the manger made out of—did it have splinters in it?” and “How could a star shine so brightly for all that time?” All the while, her baby brother slept soundly on his mother’s lap, instinctively sucking his fingers every few seconds. The scene burrowed deep into my subconscious.
Even now, hours after the last dish had been washed, dried, and stacked, and long after the fireplace had stopped crackling, I could still see them snuggled together, the image of mother and child. Why wouldn’t God just take my desire away already? If I was supposed to wait, supposed to press pause on my adoption plans, then why did I still feel like my lungs were being pummeled by an iron fist every time I saw a woman around my age with a child?
I changed into my pajamas, blue-and-white flannel pants and a matching Let It Snow thermal top—the only set I owned appropriate enough for staying with non-family members. Joshua was busy stoking the wood stove when I came out of the guest room. Firelight danced across the back of his snug shirt, shadowing his muscles and highlighting his tapered waist and strong legs. He prodded at the fire, reconfiguring the logs while his biceps flexed and tightened in sync with my growing attraction.
He latched the stove door closed before he pushed off the ground and saw me resting my hip against the sofa, watching him, like a pathetic Christmas Eve Stalker.
“Hey,” I said after an awkward pause.
His amused smile only increased my sudden onset of insecurity. “Nice pj’s. And it looks like you got your wish.”
I glanced down at my socked feet, unsure of his meaning.
“The snow. There’s over twelve inches outside now. Joel said he had to plow his driveway for the second time tonight just to get his car back inside the garage when they got home.”
My eyebrows shot up as I went to the living room’s darkened bay window. “Seriously? That’s insane! I can’t remember the last time we got this much snow in a single twenty-four-hour period.” I cupped my hands around my eyes, pressing my forehead to the glass to peer into the yard. A streetlight a few houses down cast a beam of light onto the quiet road.
“The porch light is on the right of the front door if you want to turn it on.”
“That’s okay, I don’t want the light to disturb your parents.”
“They’re on the opposite side of the house. Plus, my dad sleeps like the dead and my mom uses some kind of white-noise app she swears by. ‘Joshua, I’m telling you, this app even drowns out your father’s elk-call snore! Where has this been for the last thirty-four years?’”
I laughed at his spot-on impersonation of his mother and flicked the light on.
“Wow.” Amber light illuminated the snow-covered walkway and a generous portion of the Averys’ property. I leaned my head against the cool windowpane, losing myself in the tranquil beauty from my toasty place indoors. My gaze roved past the covered porch swing to the bushes near the back fence that now resembled fluffy white cotton balls. “Have you ever wondered about the magic of snow—I mean, how transformative it is to nature, how beautiful it makes everything look? I think I could stare at this scene for hours.”
After several beats of no response from Joshua, I’d begun to think he’d stepped out of the room without me knowing. I pushed away from the window, rotating to see if—but Joshua was standing right where I’d left him, his gaze fixed on me.
“Yes,” he said, his voice a heart-stopping rumble. “I know the feeling well.”
I waited for him to say more, to add another sentence that might complete his thought. Something about nature or winter or anything other than his unending stare, because . . . because he didn’t say things like that to me anymore. He hadn’t since the day I told him about Noah. It’d been weeks of careful conversations, careful touches, careful moments alone together.
But he didn’t disqualify anything, he simply allowed his words to steam up the windows of my heart even more. Careful Joshua had been challenging enough to be around, but if he continued to look at me like this . . .
He broke the spell, lifting a delicate glass container with snowflakes etched into the sides of the crystal that I hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding. “Can I interest you in my grandmother’s baklava?”
A soft laugh tumbled from my lips. “Baklava? This couldn’t be the same baklava you’ve mentioned once or twice or, I don’t know, four thousand times since Thanksgiving, is it?”
“The one and only. Consider this the holy grail of all baklavas.” He smiled in a way that made me wonder for the hundredth time why he hadn’t walked down the aisle with a lucky bride ten years ago. It was interesting that out of all the family stories and co-worker stories and business stories he’d shared with me during our nightly phone calls, he’d never once offered any information about his past romantic endeavors. But to be fair, I’d also never asked.
“If you’re nice, I’ll share this forbidden fruit with you. But if my mom asks . . . you never saw this, deal?” He detached a blue sticky note from the foil on top and wadded it up in his hand.
“Wait, let me see that.”
He shook his head.
Aghast that he would crumple a note from sweet Elizabeth Avery, I strode toward him. “What did that say? Let me read it.”
“Why?” He held his clenched fist above his head, making me jump on my tippy toes. I still couldn’t reach it. I’d never felt so short before Joshua entered my life.
“Seriously, how old are you?” I asked between failed swipes.
He pretended to yawn, obviously enjoying my moment of struggle immensely. “Thirty-two going on eleven.”
I jabbed my finger into his ribs, and immediately he crumpled. I ripped the paper from his grasp and unfurled it quickly, reading it out loud as I speed-walked around the sofa before falling onto the corner seat of the couch: “‘Joshua, I didn’t bother trying to hide Grandma’s special stash this year, BUT THIS IS FOR OUR CHRISTMAS PLATTER. DO NOT EAT IT OR YOU WILL GET COAL. Mom.’”
I gaped at him as he plopped down beside me, planting his feet on the coffee table without a care. I swatted at his leg. “You’re stealing your grandma’s baklava from your mom’s Christmas platter? Joshua, that’s horrible!”
“My mother’s Christmas platter has plenty on it already. Don’t worry.” He opened the lid, selected a honey-glazed triangle, and chomped down on it. “She doesn’t really mean it anyway.”
I referred back to the all-cap letters on the note. “Her note seems pretty straightforward to me—”
And then he shoved a triangle into my mouth. Whoa. The combination of crispy, gooey, nutty, and delectable was downright otherworldly. I might have moaned before I cupped a hand under my chin to catch the walnut crumbles trying to escape.
“This is . . .” But I couldn’t finish because I was too busy chewing. Experiencing. Joshua was absolutely right. This baklava had Holy Grail status.
“Is it worth getting coal in my
stocking for?”
I nodded and pulled my legs up underneath me, grateful our nightly phone call routine had taken the form of a face-to-face conversation tonight.
As I adjusted to get comfortable, my leg brushed his.
“Right there’s good. Thanks.” He set the baklava container on my knee.
“So first I’m an accomplice, and now I’m a table?”
He caught my eye and our smiles matched.
While he finished off a bite, I took advantage of his full mouth and asked a question I’d never dared to ask before. Maybe because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer, or maybe because I knew whatever answer he gave wouldn’t change my circumstances.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sounds like you just did.”
I nudged his leg with mine again. “Have you ever been in a serious relationship?”
He stilled, swallowed, and then met my eyes with humor-filled surprise. “Well, that’s quite a big leap from baklava.”
I shrugged. “You’ve just never talked about it.”
“I could say the same thing about you.”
“There’s nothing to tell for me, really.” I released a self-deprecating laugh. “A lot of first dates that rarely made it past date number five for some reason or another. A few of them were blind dates, but most were setups from well-meaning people who just wanted to see me happily married before I entered my thirties.” I shrugged. “Obviously, I stopped dating altogether after I submitted my application to Small Wonders. . . .” I threw the emergency brake on that runaway thought before it could travel any further. “Anyway, that’s the skinny on my sordid relationship past. Now you get to tell me about yours.”
“Isn’t there something way more interesting we should be talking about on Christmas Eve than past relationships?”
I cozied deeper into the cushion. “Absolutely not.”
The fire crackled and popped, as if it, too, was eager for Joshua’s response.
He released a long exhale, then threaded his fingers behind his head, settling in as if this were a pay-by-the-hour therapy session. “I met Chrissy at a party for Brick Builders. She was one of the sponsors and . . .” He thought for a moment. “We seemed to have a lot in common. She was a self-starter, too, and had launched a commission-based business that was becoming quite successful. She traveled a lot, so our first year together was mostly long-distance.”
The words first year stood out, plucking a chord of jealousy that hummed inside me long after he started talking again. “The second year was . . . well, I was starting to think more seriously about us.” His eyes flickered back to the container of baklava, as if needing a neutral place to land. “We put off a lot of important conversations due to the demands of our growing clienteles and business opportunities, and neither of us wanted to sacrifice the little face-to-face time we did have on potential disagreements.” He chuckled lightly. “That should have been my first clue. Honestly, our relationship didn’t make sense to anyone else in our lives, but we just kept saying that if it worked for us, then that was all that mattered.”
“So, what happened?” I asked softly, sensing pain underneath his quiet reply.
“In Hollywood our breakup would fall under the category of irreconcilable differences. Because when we finally did have those big talks, the ones we’d put off for nearly two years, we couldn’t agree on something pretty important.”
It felt like an invasion of privacy to poke at the disagreement he referred to, but Joshua quenched my curiosity on his next breath.
“It was simple, really. Chrissy couldn’t imagine being a parent, and I couldn’t imagine not being one.”
“Oh . . .” I hadn’t been expecting that. Not even close.
His eyes returned to mine. “Yeah. There’s not really a happy medium to be found in that one.”
“No,” I said under my breath. “There’s really not.”
Several beats of silence passed before a sudden fist of irony punched through my heart. Joshua’s last relationship had failed because she didn’t want kids. And ours hadn’t had a chance to begin because I did.
“I’m sorry.” An apology I’d spoken for more reasons than I could name.
“That was four years ago,” he went on smoothly, oblivious to the unjust conclusions I’d just drawn about his romantic life. It wasn’t fair. None of it. “And I’ve honestly been so busy with work these last few years that I haven’t really slowed down long enough to think that way again until . . .”
And this time, this time I didn’t wish for him to disqualify his unfinished thought. I didn’t want him to switch gears or fill in the blank with anything but me. And whatever was happening between us.
“Until . . . ?” I barely breathed.
“Until you.”
The admission cut the final thread between holding on to what was and embracing what could be. I didn’t give him time to second-guess our proximity, or the fact that I was making the first move. I slid my palm over the dime-size dimple in his cheek, my fingers parting through the waves of hair just above his ear as I eased myself closer, so close that I could see the individual cords in his neck tense and his thick eyelashes double-blink before they slammed closed.
“Lauren.” He spoke my name as if those six inconsequential letters could have formed a paragraph all on their own. But I heard the unspoken desire in them just as clearly, just as profoundly as the heartbeat pounding against my eardrums.
We both wanted this—a next step, a new beginning, a new kind of us. We’d grown weary of existing in the space between co-workers and more. Friends and more. Hope and more.
I didn’t speak as my wandering fingers skimmed his ear, his jaw, his temporarily stilled mouth. And then I let my lips do the skimming. I touched my mouth to his and one tentative kiss led to two. Two to three. And three to—
“Lauren.” Firm hands bracketed the sides of my face, forcing me to stop my exploration of his mouth and take in his pleading, desperate eyes instead. “Tell me what this is.”
Only I didn’t want to supply answers about our future. I only wanted this moment right now. I only wanted him.
But the intensity of his gaze made the price of admission clear: If we did this, if we stepped onto this moving conveyor belt, there would be no reverse, no U-turns back to a destination marked Friendship Only.
“What do you want?” I whispered a breath from his lips.
The wince that vibrated his throat made my own ache with need. “You know what I want. But this isn’t about me.”
“So make it about you. What do you want, Joshua?” A foreign kind of recklessness crashed through the walls of my subconscious, demanding I ignore the convicting knock somewhere in the depths of my being.
“You,” he said. “I want you, Lauren.”
Hot and sure, his lips found mine again. Fire danced across my mouth, spreading into my bloodstream and igniting all the lonely and forgotten places. Every past memory marked by neglect and abandonment scrambled to the sidelines, forced to make room for the one thing I’d desired above all else—love. The kind that cheered. The kind that stayed. The kind that fought and protected and endured.
And yet even as his mouth moved in time with mine and his fingers pushed through my hair to cradle the back of my head, a cloud of doubt descended over my heart.
This isn’t right.
I shoved the uninvited thought away, pressing into Joshua and losing myself all the more in his kiss. I wasn’t willing to surrender a single inch of the emotional territory I’d just given to him tonight. Because being with Joshua felt right and good. He was everything stable, safe, secure. With him there were no agonizing waits or pointless heartaches. He was real, tangible, and right here in my arms.
Something weighted slipped from my knee and clattered to the hardwood at our feet, breaking the spell of our kiss and pulling us apart. With dazed expressions, we located the source of the interruption at the same time.
“Uh-oh . . .”
It took Joshua a few seconds more to articulate a coherent thought as we stared at his grandmother’s scattered baklava on the living room floor.
He swiped a rough hand down his face. “Guess this confirms what I’ll be getting in my stocking tomorrow.” A sly smile sneaked onto his mouth. “But I’ll take coal every year if it means kissing you again.”
chapter
twenty-six
And kiss again we did—all through Christmas Day and into the week following. Joshua had made up an excuse to see me at least once a day, knowing my holiday vacation time would soon be coming to an end. We’d eaten at new-to-us restaurants, enjoyed a few favorite childhood movies together, and worked on a one-thousand-piece jelly bean puzzle—which remained unfinished due to Joshua’s boycott over not having an actual bowl of jelly beans to eat while we slaved away.
This morning we’d taken our furry friends to an indoor dog park to play. And by the way Skye whined whenever it was time to say good-bye to her favorite pooch pal, it was obvious she’d grown just as attached to Brach as I’d grown to Joshua in these last few weeks. I smiled at the heap of multicolored fur snuggled together in my living room, Skye’s nose and Brach’s giant paws hanging off the sides of the doggie bed.
My gaze drifted over to Joshua again, the way it had a dozen-plus times this afternoon. His feet were propped on the edge of my coffee table, his fingers typing furiously on the keys of his laptop while a slight crease crinkled his brow. He’d been like this for the past two hours, working on a digital storyboard for his upcoming presentation at Brian’s hospital after the New Year.
I was also supposed to be working—going over my lesson plans for next week and readying my mind to be back in my classroom, but as usual, Joshua proved a distraction I couldn’t resist. He bit the corner of his lip in concentration, my favorite of all his nerdy expressions.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re secretly mocking me right now?” he asked without breaking cadence in whatever nerd code he was typing.