Snowbound Christmas Cheer

by Veronica Tower

  “Jo, it’s snowing! You shouldn’t be driving in this weather.” Keisha reminded her. There was definite hostility in her voice now. What was going on here?

  “She’s got a point,” A.J. said. “Why don’t we drop your car off at your place and then you can ride with me to the restaurant. You like pizza?”

  Jo opened her mouth to speak but Keisha beat her to it. “Who doesn’t like pizza? This is America, isn’t it?”

  Now Keisha sounded like she was inviting herself along for the meal. What the heck was going on?

  “Um, Keisha, I could be wrong, but I think he’s talking to me,” Jo told her.

  A.J. sounded a little more diplomatic. “Not that we wouldn’t like to take you out another time, but tonight Jo and I are getting reacquainted.” He grinned at her, leaned very close and whispered, “And hopefully better acquainted.”

  A spasm worked its way up Jo’s body. If the man’s voice was enough to get this sort of reaction out of her, what could he do with the rest of his body?

  “It’s really snowing pretty hard,” Keisha warned. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Jo really wasn’t certain of that, but before she could voice a concern, A.J. licked the tip of her earlobe.

  This time the resulting spasm felt more like a tremor.

  She had a hard time getting enough breath to answer clearly. “I think we’ll be fine. A.J.’s …a good driver.”

  “And how do you know that?” Keisha demanded.

  Jo wasn’t certain how to justify her answer and it was hard to think with a cute guy nibbling on her ear. “Well I know he’s got good instincts,” she finally said.

  A.J. stopped kissing her, pulled her back into his arms, and spoke aloud for Keisha on the other end of the phone call. “Instincts, timing, and I’m pretty damn good with my hands.”

  Chapter Five

  Jo eased forward past the stop sign, unhappy about the way her tires were spinning on the icy road. She wasn’t finding a lot of traction out here which meant the roads were a lot more dangerous than she’d thought they were when she agreed to let A.J. take her out tonight. Maybe she should change their plans—either take a rain check on the date or send A.J. out for the pizza and invite him to eat it at her place. They’d have to ask Keisha to join them, but that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

  Somehow, thinking about Keisha’s responses on the phone, Jo knew it would be a problem, but she still wasn’t quite certain why.

  She looked for A.J.’s car in the rearview mirror. The snow looked even more thick and heavy behind her vehicle than it did in front of it. She wasn’t quite certain why that would be the case. Maybe A.J. had just fallen further back and she couldn’t see him properly.

  A pickup truck turned on to the road ahead of her and she idiotically slammed on the brakes. Her car skidded forward, turning sickeningly as it did so. She started to drift into the oncoming lane of traffic. Her father had told her what to do in these circumstances a million times, but right now she couldn’t remember a single word he’d said.

  She twisted the wheel back toward her side of the road but that only seemed to make things worse.

  A car honked, terrifying her.

  In an act of unthinking desperation, she jerked the steering wheel back the other way. Her foot slipped off the brake and she slammed it back down, hitting the gas by mistake.

  Her wheels began to spin and the car lurched forward, fortunately in essentially the right direction.

  She hit the brakes again as soon as she realized she was speeding up, pumping them so they wouldn’t lock and start her skidding again. Her car fishtailed back the other way, then straightened out on the snow-covered street without hitting anything.

  Heart pounding, Jo kept her fingers in a death grip on the steering wheel until she reached the parking lot outside of her building.

  “Are you all right?”

  Jo looked up at A.J. as he pulled open the door to her car and crouched down to look in at her.

  Her heart was beating more slowly now, but no, she didn’t exactly feel okay.

  “I thought that idiot was going to clip you,” A.J. told her.

  “Me too,” Jo whispered.

  “But somehow you got out of it,” A.J. continued. “I don’t know how you pulled that off, but you were awesome—swerving all over the road without a single ding or scratch.”

  By the time he finished speaking, A.J. was grinning ear to ear with pride and relief at her accomplishment.

  Jo found herself grinning back. “You know, if you paid for a ride like that at Six Flags, you’d feel like you’d gotten your money’s worth.”

  She unfastened her seatbelt, picked up her purse and slid out of the car. Her legs felt a little rubbery, but that wasn’t a problem because A.J. scooped her up and hugged her as she emerged.

  That felt nice, almost as nice as his lips felt when he began kissing her again. The snow coming down all around them only added to Jo’s pleasure.

  When they stopped kissing, she found herself effectively pinned in the space formed between her car and her open door with A.J.’s hard body blocking her in. “You still want to go to dinner?” he asked. “I promise to take it nice and slow. I’ll get you home safely when you’re ready.”

  Jo knew that going to dinner would be a very stupid thing to do under these circumstances, but she was feeling lucky in more ways than one and she really wasn’t ready for A.J. to go home yet.

  She slipped her arm into his. “I’d love to. Where’d you have in mind?”

  “Pizza Hut looked open when we passed it,” A.J. told her. “How about we get a couple of personal pies and a salad bar?”

  “That would be great, but what about my groceries?”

  A.J. didn’t seem concerned about the food they had bought. “Why don’t we stick them in my car? It’s not like it’s not cold enough out here to keep them refrigerated.”

  Jo was frankly amazed at just how much food A.J. could pack onto the little salad bar plate at Pizza Hut. She’d tried to tell him he could go back for seconds and he seriously assured her that he fully intended to. That hadn’t stopped him from putting a couple of helpings of everything on his plate and then carefully carrying it back to the table where they were waiting on breadsticks and their personal pies.

  Jo took a sip of her ice tea and thought longingly about the brandy and eggnog they’d left in A.J.’s car. She knew she didn’t need any more of that. In fact, the brandy she’d already imbibed might have contributed to her near accident. But she missed it just the same. There was something about the way the liquor warmed her stomach that was just perfect on a snowy evening. And from now until the day she died, she would always associate hard eggnog with the taste of A.J.’s kisses and the way he magically, effortlessly, brought her body to life.

  Now that she was mostly sober again, she felt a little bit embarrassed that she had let A.J. touch her that way so quickly after meeting him again, but she was honest enough with herself to know that she really wanted him to do it again.

  “So you don’t have any brothers and sisters,” Jo said partly to restart the conversation and partly to distract herself from memories of A.J.’s strong arms holding her…and his deft fingers exploring her body. “And your cousins all live in other states. What about best friends?”

  “Oh sure,” A.J. told her. “I grew up with a couple of guys I think I’ll always be friends with. You know how it is. I bet you’ve got a couple of girlfriends you’ve hung out with forever and expect to keep close with until you’re both in your graves.”

  That wasn’t exactly the way Jo thought about them, but sure, she had some good friends.

  “Take Keisha, for example, or Thea,” A.J. suggested.

  “Thea’s just somebody I work with,” Jo corrected him. “I love her to death, but we haven’t actually known each other more than a few years and we don’t really hang out either. Keisha, on the other hand, is somebody I met in high school but we didn’t become really
good friends until we got our associates degrees and were looking to move out of our parents’ houses. My parents were especially strict about that—”

  “With seven kids they’d almost have to be,” A.J. interrupted.

  Jo didn’t like A.J. feeling like he had to defend her parents. She hadn’t been criticizing them. They’d been very good to her as a child and were still good to her now that she was grown up. “They let me stay as long as I was in school,” she explained, “but after that I had to move out. My younger sister-”

  She censored herself, not yet ready to spill a family secret to A.J. not that it wouldn’t be obvious that Halle had a child the first time he met her. Heck, she had two now and still showed no sign that she intended to get married.

  You don’t want me to choose wrong, Halle would defend herself. And Mom would cross her arms and say: It seems to me you’ve already done that—twice!

  Thinking about this made Jo feel a little more guilty about making out with A.J. in his car and really guilty about hoping they could do it again soon, but she was twenty-six now, not sixteen like Halle had been. She was old enough to do what she wanted.

  “Your youngest sister?” A.J. prompted her.

  “Oh, it’s not important. We all had to move out when we finished with school,” Jo told him.

  “My parents and I haven’t really talked about that,” A.J. said. “Hopefully I’ll have a job and it won’t be an issue.”

  That brought up an interesting question. “Where are you planning to work when you graduate? Detroit or Peoria?”

  A.J. looked uncomfortable with her question. “I’m actually interviewing in both places,” he admitted. “The economy sucks so I’d planned to take a job wherever I could get one. I like Detroit but I really don’t know what I’d do if I graduate here without a job. It’s happening to an awful lot of people these days.”

  Jo knew that was true. The economy sucked all around. It even affected her job with Dr. Bartlett. Lots of people put off dental work in bad times like these.

  She reached across the table and touched A.J.’s hand. “You’ll get something,” she assured him. God, let him get something here in Detroit, she prayed.

  Then she took her hand back and smiled to herself. Wasn’t it a little early in this relationship to be praying to God that A.J. would stay in the area when he graduated next May?

  The food came, which was always nice on a first date, because it helped with the conversation by giving them something to do besides talking. Jo had gotten green peppers on her personal pie and A.J. had gone with the meat lovers. Watching him wolf it down, she didn’t think one pie would be enough for him. No wonder he planned to go back to the salad bar for a second helping.

  “I can’t believe how hard the snow is coming down,” A.J. said. “I mean, look at it. I’ll bet we’ve already gotten another inch since we came in here. No wonder this place is dead.”

  Dead was only a slight exaggeration. There were only two other tables in use in the restaurant. The delivery business was thriving, but nobody else wanted to brave the storm who didn’t have to. It made Jo wonder if maybe she and A.J. should have put off their date until the weather was a little better.

  “Hey, you want to catch a movie on Netflix when we’re finished here?” A.J. asked her.

  Jo felt a flush creeping up her neck to warm her cheeks. Somehow, she didn’t think watching movies was what A.J. really had in mind.

  She thought about the snow again, but discarded her concern. “That sounds interesting. What movie did you have in mind?”

  If she had any doubt that A.J. wasn’t really interested in a movie, his next words erased it. “Oh, I don’t know. We could watch something Christmassy—whatever you want to see.”

  Jo decided to go for it. “Just so long as it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life. I saw that way too many times growing up.”

  A.J.’s face lit up with his smile. “Great! I’m sure we’ll find something. They’ve got that instant download feature. There has to be something good to watch on it.”

  Jo thought of something that could dampen the evening. “You said your roommates are all gone, right?”

  A.J. seemed pleased with her question. Perhaps it reassured him that she was thinking about the same things he was. “That’s right, although I ought to warn you that they left their mess. Brad and Victor aren’t the cleanest guys, you know.”

  “And I’m sure you’re Felix Unger by comparison,” Jo told him.

  A.J.’s face clouded as if he didn’t get the reference.

  Jo thought of another concern. “And you don’t live in a dorm, right?” She didn’t want to have to check in with campus security. That would be downright embarrassing.

  A.J. put down his piece of pizza and took her hand again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been off campus since my junior year. Nobody is going to bother us.”

  Jo wasn’t completely certain she wasn’t making a mistake, but she nodded anyway. “Good, I’m looking forward to seeing where you live.”

  “You’re doing what?” Keisha snapped into the phone.

  Jo was sitting next to A.J. in the front seat of his Capris Classic as they cautiously navigated the very snowy streets to his apartment. “I’m going back to A.J’s apartment with him. We’re going to catch a movie. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Well I am worried!” Keisha said. “Jo, you don’t really know this guy! And now you’re going with him to his apartment in a snowstorm? What if things don’t work out right? How are you going to get home again? A taxi isn’t going to pick you up on a night like this!”

  All good points, Jo knew, but she still had a good feeling about this.

  “I’ll take Jo home the moment she asks me to,” A.J. announced loud enough for Keisha to hear him through the phone.

  “Is he listening in again?” Keisha asked. “What is with him?”

  A.J. had clearly had enough of Jo’s roommate. “I’m listening because you are shouting at Jo. I can’t help but hear you when you talk that loud.”

  Keisha didn’t have the sort of personality that backed down. “Don’t you talk to me about shouting, Mister!”

  Jo sighed. “Would the two of you please stop fighting?”

  A.J. reached over and patted her thigh. “Of course, Jo, I’m sorry I let her get to me. She’s only trying to look out for you.”

  At the same time, Keisha was saying, “I am not going to let his guy disrespect me, Jo! And I’m not going to let him disrespect you either!”

  Jo patted A.J.’s hand. “No one is disrespecting anyone, Keisha. A.J. and I are just trying to get to know each other better.” Why was she making this so hard? She’d done this when Jo had tried to date Greg too. She hadn’t even met A.J. yet. How could she dislike him already?

  “I’m just looking out for you, Jo,” Keisha told her in a tone of voice that suggested Jo was incapable of looking out for herself.

  “I know you are, Keisha, but A.J.’s going to be looking out for me tonight.” She smiled as she said this, and A.J. glanced away from the road to see her face. He had such beautiful blue eyes.

  “He’s the guy!” Keisha reminded her. “He’s the one you need to be on the lookout against!”

  All Jo could do was shake her head. “I’ll talk to you later, Keisha.”

  “Wait a minute!” Keisha hissed. And then in a much quieter voice she added, “Are you coming home tonight?”

  Jo studied A.J.’s Nordic profile. He had a slight dimple in his chin that added a lot of character to his face. His nose was straight, neither too short nor too long. She had to admit to herself that she really hoped she’d be staying over with him. What she said was, “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well watch the snow,” Keisha warned her, “or you may wake up to find you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  A.J. began backing his car into a space on the snowy side of the road. “This is it, Jo.”

  She looked up to see a non-descript four-story build
ing—like dozens of others in Wayne County. “We’re here, Keisha. I’ve got to go.”

  She disconnected the call without waiting for Keisha to answer her. She’d pay for that tomorrow but for now, she wanted to get on with enjoying her date and Keisha seemed strangely determined to interfere with that this evening.

  A.J. finished parking the car and took off his seat belt. “Are you ready?”

  Jo felt a moment of nerves. Maybe Keisha wasn’t just being crazy. What did she really know about A.J. anyway? He was a regular at the bar Thea’s fiancé owned. That really wasn’t a great character reference, was it?

  She looked into his blue eyes again and forgetting all about Keisha’s worries, unsnapped her seatbelt and opened her car door.

  “Let’s go!”

  Chapter Six

  The wind had picked up and there was at least five inches of snow on the ground. According to the weather reports, there was only supposed to be a couple more inches tonight, but this storm didn’t have the feel of one that was mostly over. Even though it was dark, she could see children up—all bundled up against the storm—running up and down the street having a snowball fight. It looked like fun. Last Christmas at her grandmother’s about thirty members of her family had poured out of the house to build snow forts and bombard each other with the fluffy white stuff. Maybe they could do it again this year.

  A hand touched her arm and gently turned her around.

  A.J.’s lips were a warm respite from the chill and his arms encircling her waist felt very natural. She broke the kiss and leaned against him. She’d been looking for a good guy for a long time and couldn’t help wondering if A.J. might be the one. They definitely had good chemistry, but Keisha’s negativity kept nagging in Jo’s mind.

  Suddenly A.J. scooped her up out of her comfortable position against his chest and whirled her around in a circle as he cradled her body in his arms. His voice was filled with laughter and excitement. “What do you say? Should we go watch a movie? Or would you like to wrestle in the snow?”