I propped my elbow up against the back of the sofa and leaned my head against my hand. “I don’t know. It’s never that easy, is it? I’ve never been really good at taking risks.”
Bo held up his cookie as if to toast me. “I don’t know, Maddy. Some risks are worth taking.”
“All this confidence after only eating a few sugar cookies?”
Bo smiled. “I also ate the bread you made with dinner. And it’s possible I’ve already eaten a half-dozen of the little ones . . . with the fruit stuff in the middle and the powdered sugar? Also really delicious.”
My eyes widened and I smacked him on the chest. “You cheater! I was saving those for tomorrow.”
He caught my hand as soon as it made contact, holding it with his own. “It’s possible I tried the others too, but I promise I only had one of each.”
I could hardly focus on his words, as distracted as I was by the feel of his hand against mine and the sparks of electricity that raced up my arm. His skin was warm, his palms calloused. With surprising confidence, I took his hand, spreading it out palm up, and traced my fingers over the calloused spots that marked his grip.
“I can tell you work hard,” I said, looking up to meet his eye.
He tugged his hand back and glanced away. “That . . .” He shook his head. “Alicia used to always complain about my hands.”
I wrinkled my brow. “Why? That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe. She didn’t seem to think so.”
“Then you definitely made the right call in breaking up with her,” I said. “I like a man who works with his hands.”
Our eyes met, and a twinge of embarrassment pulsed through me. Had my words sounded too bold? Too suggestive? The expression on his face told me I didn’t need to worry. His eyes were full of warmth and . . . something else. Desire, maybe?
His eyes dropped to my lips, and he leaned forward, just enough to show me he was interested.
My heart rate tripled. I wanted this. But was I ready? What if it made things weird? We were trapped in the same house for at least a few more days. If we kissed and it was terrible, what would we do then? Awkwardly avoid each other?
I stood up, knocking a pillow off the couch and nearly upending my hot chocolate. “I should go to bed,” I said quickly. I swallowed. “It’s um . . . getting late.”
He leaned back into the cushions, a look of resignation passing over his face. “Oh. Right.” He nodded. “I guess so.”
He stood and walked toward the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight off the counter. “Here. Take this upstairs. If the power goes out, you might need it.”
I crossed to where he stood. My fingers brushed against his as I reached for the flashlight. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, his hand lingering for a moment before he let go.
I took the light and headed toward the stairs, but his voice stopped me.
“Maddy?”
I turned around, my pulse pounding in my chest, and looked up to meet his gaze.
He stood with his hands pushed into his pockets. His face was a collage of unasked questions, his expression so transparent, he didn’t have to ask them for me to know what they were. Why do you keep running away? Am I crazy? Are you feeling this too?
But he didn’t ask me anything. Maybe the expression on my face was clear enough to tell him I wasn’t ready to give him any answers.
“Goodnight,” he finally said.
My shoulders sagged with relief, and I released the breath I’d been holding. “Goodnight.”
Bo wasn’t the only one feeling something, but there was no way we were on the same page. Worst-case scenario, he was looking for something casual—something to pass the time while we were stranded together, knowing full well when the snow melted, he would go back to his life and I would go back to mine. A little better, he was feeling the first stirrings of interest, curiosity about where things might go if we kept getting to know each other. But I’d flown past those feelings in the seventh grade and blasted headlong into full-blown love. I’d gone to every one of his football games. Asked him about his favorite books so I could read them. Watched whatever television shows he mentioned just to get to know him. After twenty-four hours in his company, it was clear he’d only gotten better as an adult, making it all too obvious that resurrecting my old feelings wouldn’t take an ounce of effort.
But he’d also broken my heart.
Even though the rejection wasn’t intentional, I had worked long and hard to get over him. I couldn’t just put it all behind me.
But I also couldn’t tell him how I felt.
The struggle left me feeling confused and agitated and completely ridiculous.
If Jenna were here, she’d tell me to just let go and take a risk, for once. To stop acting like my only job was to be the designated driver.
A surge of courage rose up in my chest. Truly, what was the worst that could happen?
I paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned around, but the kitchen had gone dark. While I’d been stewing in my own uncertainty, Bo had gone into his room.
I sighed. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll have courage,” I said as I climbed the stairs. Maybe.
Chapter Five
As predicted, the weather on Christmas Eve only got worse. It warmed up midday just enough for the snow to start melting, but then the temperatures plummeted again, freezing the melting snow into a thick sheet of ice. The roads were mostly impassable, and the airlines had canceled all their flights into and out of Charleston.
Bo and I passed the day eating cookies and playing board games while a marathon of Christmas movies played in the background. Something had definitely shifted between us. There was an awareness that hadn’t been there the day before, but Bo was cautious, treating me a little like cut glass in danger of tumbling to concrete beneath his feet.
I couldn’t blame him. Twice he’d made a move, and both times I’d fled from his touch. I kept waiting for an opportunity to say something, to explain, but how was I supposed to start the conversation? Hey, so remember high school? I was in love with you back then. And maybe I still am. Want another cookie?
A part of me wondered what would happen if I just forgot about my stupid feelings and let go, for once. Decided to be perfectly fine with a noncommittal make-out. It was Christmas, after all. I deserved to have a little fun. But that would never be my style, no matter how much I pretended I wanted it to be.
Just after dinner, and a game of chess in which Bo destroyed me without a shred of mercy, I stood from the couch and stretched my arms over my head. “I’m heading to the bathroom. You want anything from the kitchen? I can grab it on my way back through.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Bo said. “I think I’ve had two dozen cookies already today. I really should be done for the night.”
“Understood.” I crossed behind the sofa, heading toward the half bath at the base of the stairs.
“Except,” Bo said, his voice stopping me before I’d made it too far, “maybe just one more peppermint snickerdoodle?”
I chuckled. “And hot chocolate?” The man ate more than me and Jenna combined, though he was, admittedly, a much larger human.
“If you’re offering,” he said with a grin.
I had just cut the heat on the stove where the hot chocolate had warmed to a low simmer when the lights overhead flickered once, twice, then went out completely. The house seemed to shudder then still, the background hum of appliances and central heat cutting out and blanketing the kitchen in total silence. And darkness.
Faint light flickered through the back windows, reflecting off the snow, but it wasn’t enough to navigate my way through the kitchen. Bo had collected flashlights and candles the day before, but if I remembered correctly, he’d carried everything into the den, since that’s where we’d spent most of our day.
“Bo?” I called out, making my way around the island. The family room was just off the kitchen. I didn’t have to go far.
I did, howe
ver, have to step down into the family room. One would think, with how many years I’d lived in the house, that I would remember the step, but without light to see by, I completely forgot it was there and lost my footing, tumbling into—
“Oof,” I said, as I collided with Bo. Strong arms came around me as we fell backward together, over the arm of the sofa and onto the cushions. Bo ended up on his back, his arms still around my waist, while I lay on top of him, my hands pressed up against his chest.
“I was coming to find you,” Bo said, his voice close to my ear. “Are you okay?”
I was more than okay. Being in Bo’s arms was . . . I didn’t have words to describe it. His solid chest felt amazing under my hands, but there was also something else—something beyond the physical chemistry that flared between us. Holding onto Bo felt right in a way few things ever had. Plus, he smelled like pine trees. And cookies. I leaned my forehead against his chest. “I was doing the same thing. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
His arms tightened around me. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get you into my arms all day. Had I known it would only take the power going out, I’d have cut the breaker a long time ago.”
Well, that was bold. And thrilling. And amazing. And thrilling.
My lack of verbal response must have given Bo the wrong impression. He shifted, loosening his grip like he wanted to get up. “Sorry. I did it again, didn’t I?”
“No!” I said hurriedly. “Don’t move. I . . . I like it here.” Never mind the fact that my shins were still propped across the arm of the couch from the fall, keeping my body slightly elevated at an awkward angle. I’d just admitted to Bo that I wanted to be in his arms. I wasn’t moving until I absolutely had to.
There was a smile in his voice as he spoke. “Are you actually comfortable?”
“Not even a little bit,” I said softly. “But I don’t really care.”
His chest vibrated with light laughter, and he shifted, rolling me sideways and sitting up so that I landed on the cushion beside him in a seated position. Had he not kept his hold on me, I likely would have tumbled to the floor.
A faint blue light glowed to life—Bo’s cell phone. He turned on the flashlight feature, scanning it across the room. The box of candles and flashlights he’d gathered sat on the floor next to the table. “Here,” he said, handing me his phone. “Hold this for me?”
I held up the phone while he lit a few candles, setting them up across the coffee table. “I’ll get us a fire going,” Bo said. We didn’t have much wood, so we’d opted to save what we did have just in case the power really did go out. That had been smart thinking on Bo’s part. “Without the heat on, it’ll start to feel chilly in here pretty quick.”
I nodded, watching silently as Bo lit the already-laid fire and stoked it to life.
“I’ll grab the hot chocolate,” I said. “It’s warm, at least.”
A few minutes later, we were back on the couch, though we’d shifted it across the room so it was closer to the fireplace. With the glow of the fire, we almost didn’t need the candles.
Bo motioned with his head toward the bookshelf. “I did some reading while you were making hot chocolate,” he said, his eyebrows going up.
I glanced toward the shelf. I couldn’t imagine what he could mean. The shelf was full of picture albums and old yearbooks, but no books.
“You were cute your senior year,” he said.
I groaned. “Oh my word. Please tell me you didn’t.”
“Why did some guy sign your high school yearbook to Muddy? Was that a nickname or something?”
I stilled. Of all the things for him to notice. I shrugged dismissively. “It wasn’t a big deal. Just a stupid nickname. A joke.”
Jake Morgan was the only person who had hung onto the horrible nickname from my sophomore year. If not for him immortalizing it in my yearbook, the story might have finally died the death it deserved.
“If it wasn’t a big deal, then tell me,” Bo said cheekily. “I think this is a story I need to hear.”
I shook my head. “It really isn’t. I promise.”
“You’re only making my interest grow, Mads. Come on. It was high school. How bad can it be?”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I said. “High school was easy for you. You were popular, smart. Everyone’s favorite. For the rest of us mere mortals, high school was awkward and embarrassing and full of ridiculous nicknames.”
“I had plenty of awkward moments in high school,” Bo argued. “And I wasn’t smart. My grades were barely good enough to keep me on the football team. Come on. If I tell you one of my embarrassing high school memories, will you tell me how you got that nickname?”
The truth was, I probably should tell him. It was the perfect opening to explain why I’d been so skittish around him. And if we were going to do this—whatever this was—it would be easier for me if he knew the whole story. But there was no way to tell it without Bo looking like a jerk. Even though he hadn’t hurt me on purpose, what had happened that night at the Christmas concert my sophomore year had hurt. And the pain and embarrassment had lingered for months.
I closed my eyes and took a long, slow breath. “Fine. But if I tell you,” I finally said, “you have to promise you won’t make a big deal out of it. It was a long time ago. And I got over it a long time ago, too.”
He narrowed his eyes but nodded. “Now you have me worried.”
“You go first,” I said.
Bo leaned back into the couch, stretching his arm across the back, close enough that with only a little effort, I could lean into his embrace. It was tempting, but I needed to keep my wits about me.
“Okay. Sophomore year, I had a pair of jeans that I wore all summer long working out at the Clemson extension farm. They were broken in and comfortable, but Mom had to wash them every time I wore them because they got so dirty, which just means they wore out really fast. But I didn’t care. I wore them anyway. And when school started, I kept wearing them. Until Mrs. Lemon’s history class, when she asked me to get some maps off of the bottom bookshelf. When I squatted to grab them, my pants split straight up the middle. I was wearing bright blue boxers with bananas on them, a fact the entire class enjoyed and laughed about. Mrs. Lemon called me bananas for weeks.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh out loud. I thought I knew just about everything there was to know about high school Bo, but this story had somehow evaded me. “That’s a really good story.”
“It’s okay if you laugh. I’m over it.” He grinned playfully. “Mostly.” He rubbed his hands together. “Okay. Your turn.”
I turned sideways on the couch, tucking my legs up under me. “Okay. But remember. No making a big deal out of it. You promised.”
He nodded, motioning for me to go on.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. When I was a sophomore in high school, I got the lead in the school Christmas pageant. I was the snow princess, and I had a solo at the end, singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I got it into my head that it would be a great opportunity for this boy I liked”—I glanced at Bo, wondering how quickly he’d make the connection—“to finally notice me. Because even though I’d liked him for a very long time, so long that I was pretty sure I even loved him, he’d never really seen me, you know? Not the way I wanted him to.”
“That seems hard to believe,” Bo said.
Ha. If he only knew.
I pushed forward, ignoring his comment. “Our families were friends, and we went to the same school, so it was possible they might have been going to the pageant anyway. But I wanted to make sure. So I made a special invitation that listed me as a soloist, added a line that said the whole family was invited, and then I gave it to his mom. I was too much of a chicken to do anything more than that, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped he’d show.” I shot Bo another look, positive he at least suspected he’d been the guy, but his face was totally relaxed.
“The night of the pageant, I was backstage, al
l dressed up. I had on this enormous white dress and a sparkly crown, with this elaborate red and green Christmas sash across the front.” I closed my eyes for a brief second as the memory filled my mind. At the time, I’d never felt quite so beautiful.
“I’m guessing something didn’t go right with the performance?”
I offered him a small smile and lifted a shoulder. “I was nervous. But not about singing. I was nervous because, in my head, I’d built up the possibility of this boy coming, of him seeing me and realizing that the girl he’d walked past in the hallway a million times was actually the girl he’d always been looking for. If he could only hear me sing, see me all dressed up, everything would change. He would finally see me.”
I took a deep breath. This was the hard part. “A few minutes before opening curtain, my friend sent me a text. The boy was in the parking lot. I was afraid to believe her, so I ran out the backstage door to look for myself. I had to know if he was really going to be in the audience watching me sing.”
“I didn’t even know you sang—” Bo started to say.
“No, you wouldn’t know,” I said, chuckling sadly, my eyes on my hands. “You were in the parking lot, Bo, but you weren’t there to see me.”
I finally met his gaze.
His eyebrows shot up. “It was . . . me?”
I bit my lip. “At first, I didn’t see you. But then I saw your truck parked over by the soccer field and my heart sank. You were just picking up Theo from soccer practice. Still, I figured if I ran to the edge of the parking lot, you might see me all dressed up and stop to say hi.” I shrugged. “And maybe that would be enough.”
“But I didn’t stop.”
“No. But you did drive right past me . . . straight through an enormous mud puddle.”
“Oh, no.” He closed his eyes and gave his head a slight shake.
“I was covered. My hair was wet, the front of my dress completely splattered with mud. But I was only minutes from having to go on stage.” I ran my hand over the fringe that lined the pillow in my lap. “So I did. I nailed my performance, but it hardly mattered. Everyone called me Muddy instead of Maddy for months. Except for Jake Morgan. He called me Muddy until we graduated.”
(Not So) Alone for Christmas: A Sweet Romantic Comedy Holiday Novella Page 4