“Oh?” And she was not hung up on the owner’s daughter part. Okay, she was maybe a little hung up on the owner’s daughter part. But she made herself focus. “Like getting a key to Margie’s office?”
“Like getting a key to Margie’s office.”
Thank God. It was the only place in the building with access to turn off the stupid speakers without shutting down all the power in the store for the night.
“You are my hero.”
“I live to serve.” He pointed at the display case of snacks. “Get that started, and I will go get that”—he lifted his finger toward the ceiling—“stopped.”
“Aye, aye.” And oh God, she saluted. Where the fuck had that come from?
She waited until he was out of sight to close her eyes and bang her forehead against the counter.
The thing was, for all that she had a crush on mister tall, blond, and assistant-manager-y, they never actually spent all that much time together, at least not alone. They closed the store together a few times a week, and there were always little conversations in the downtime between customers, but that was it. He teased her about her classes and her nose always being stuck in a book, and she stammered and maybe teased him in return. She knew he liked sports (and the Steelers in particular), and that he lived with a bunch of guys in a glorified frat house—the cleanliness of which concerned even him. For all that he got this twist in his voice whenever the subject of his own lack of a degree came up, he was one of few people who could keep up with her and give back as good as he got. Sometimes, on particularly wild nights, the occasional innuendo flew between them. But then they’d go back to whatever they were doing or part ways at the door and head home.
Now they were stuck here overnight together at the very least. She hadn’t been living in the area at the time, but she’d heard stories about the blizzard a decade or so ago that had stranded people for days. Christmas-themed baked goods weren’t going to keep them going that long. Nor were her anecdotes about statistical analysis and dweeby board games and British television shows. Her ideas about other, sexier ways to pass the time were optimistic in the extreme.
She’d have to talk to him. Really talk to him.
Her chest got even tighter. She’d managed to come across as more or less normal all this time, but after a few hours closed in like this, she wasn’t going to be able to hide it anymore—not the latent geeky tendencies he’d already at least gotten glimpses of, and not the other things, either. The things she never showed anyone. Goddammit.
The music cut off, and blissful silence finally descended over the space. She gave herself to the count of three to get her shit together, then uncurled herself and rubbed at the place where her brow had pressed against the counter.
She’d just gotten the tray of cookies out when Sam reappeared from the back room. There was something about his smile…
“Hey. Remember how you said I was your hero?”
She coughed to hide any lingering remnants of her mini-internal-freak-out. “Anyone who makes Mariah Carey stop singing should get a medal.”
“Well, prepare for a whole new level of hero worship.” He held his arms out of sight as he wove his way toward the front.
“Oh?”
“Yup. I found…” He whipped one hand out from behind his back, unfurling a big, red, incredibly ugly blanket. “Covers.”
She squinted. “Are those gnomes on that thing?”
He leveled her with a mock-disappointed look. “I believe they’re called elves. But never mind that. It gets better.”
“Better than an elf-covered blanket that’s presumably been in Margie’s office for years. You’re not exactly setting the bar very high there.”
“Hey, I found the blanket in a dry-cleaning bag, so it’s probably mostly sanitary.”
“Very reassuring.”
With a roll of his eyes, he withdrew his other arm, twisting his wrist to make a show of displaying his prize.
She paused. “Is that…?”
“It is.” He ran his hand up and down the face of the bottle of vodka.
Oh God. This was so much better and so much worse than she could have imagined.
“Okay,” she managed. “This just got interesting.”
His lopsided grin was all invitation. “So what do you say, college girl? Care to show me a thing or two you learned in school?”
Chapter Two
“Seriously?” Sam was clearly trying to keep his expression stern, but one corner of his lips kept creeping up. “This is what you learned in college?”
Holly scowled and plopped down on her square of blanket, waving a hand at Sam dismissively. She liked the little picnic she’d laid out between the aisles, thank you very much. It was a bit bare-bones, but she didn’t exactly have a lot to work with. Just the plastic cutlery and paper napkins they kept by the register. Hell, she’d even hauled over one of the fake Christmas trees from the display over by the door. “Whatever. Like you could do better.”
“I can imagine a couple of improvements.” His tone made it sound like most of those improvements would involve nudity. Well, he was welcome to start that trend anytime he wanted to.
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping for something a little more college party and a little less…tea party.”
Ugh, she’d been to her share of keggers. “If you know someplace that’ll deliver a pound of weed, a couple dozen drunken frat boys, and a strobe light in the middle of a blizzard, then by all means.”
He shuddered. “Never mind, I take it back.” With that, he lowered himself to the floor and sprawled out beside her, lying on his stomach with his elbows underneath him. Reaching for one of the cookies they’d pilfered, he gazed at it contemplatively. “No kidding, though, this looks like something my baby sister would set up. I’m just waiting to be ambushed with dolls and offered pretend tea.”
“I could try and raid the kids’ section, if that would make you feel better.”
“Ew.” He pulled a face. “I’d prefer not to get the plague, if it’s all the same to you.”
Yeah. The little stash of toys and dolls they kept for kids to play with while their parents shopped was basically a pandemic waiting to happen.
She grabbed for the vodka and nipped a careful sip straight from the bottle to wash her cookie down. Ouch. Apparently Margie had as good of taste in alcohol as she did in ugly blankets. Restraining her reaction the best she could, Holly held the vodka out to him with a raised eyebrow. “‘Tea’?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He tipped it back a lot less conservatively than she had, and she winced in sympathy as his eyes bugged out and he choked. “Jesus Christ,” he managed through coughs, pounding his fist against his chest as he set the bottle down, then swiped his wrist across his mouth. “That’s harsh.”
“Um. Paint thinner is harsh. That’s on a whole other scale.”
“Freaking Margie.”
“Pretty much.” She shifted and reached for another cookie. “Next time she gets us stranded in her store for the night, the least she could do is spring for the mediocre stuff.”
He laughed and rolled over onto his back, landing close enough that his shoulder brushed her knee. He probably had no idea what it was doing to her, that kind of casual contact.
Or maybe he did. He quirked one eyebrow up, and with a little smirk, he yawned, swinging his arm out so his hand ended up on her thigh. “So. Getting drunk is going to be painful, during and after. Got any other good ideas for how to pass the time?”
Did she ever, and the worst part was, she was pretty sure he’d go for it, too. Everything about his body language and the not-so-subtle ways he’d been checking her out all night—the way he’d been flirting with her all semester—left little doubt of that. Only, she wasn’t a big fan of one-night stands, and a guy who came on as strong as he did usually wasn’t after much more.
“I don’t know,” she said drily. “There are plenty of books, I suppose. We coul
d sit around and read.”
That had him moving away from her leg quickly enough. “Ugh. Your ideas suck, college girl.”
“Not a big reader?”
“I used to be, I guess. Stopped being fun at some point, though.”
How? She couldn’t imagine.
“Come on.” Extending a hand to the side, she slid her fingertips along the spines of the nearest row of books. They happened to have set up base camp in the classics section, and she stopped on a copy of Pride and Prejudice. “You just have to find a way to make it fun.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. Adding ‘in my pants’ to the end of every line?” Plucking the book from the shelf, she flipped through to the opening and put on a serious voice to read. “‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ In his pants.”
He laughed, a warm sound that was at odds with his disaffectedness of a few moments earlier. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Sure it does. Where else would he want a wife?”
“Pretty sure he’d want to be in her pants.”
“Well, that just shows how little you know about Austen. If anything, he’d want to be in her corset.”
“Hot.”
It kind of was, actually. Why the hell had she started this game, again?
Deflecting, she shrugged. “Regency-era clothes usually were. Try wearing fifteen petticoats in the summer.”
“Regency? Pretty sure you mean Georgian.”
That made her stop short. Considering his teasing about her and her college girl ways, that was some pretty esoteric shit. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I do.”
All mock-offense, he insisted, “I know stuff.”
“Never doubted it.”
And she hadn’t, really. He liked to pretend to be a dumb jock, and the way he talked sometimes, she actually wondered if he believed it. But he was no slouch in the brains department. Still, he’d managed to surprise her.
A little off balance, she nudged his arm with the sole of her boot. “Come on. Your turn.”
“Ugh.” He made a show of grumbling about it, but he must not have minded that much, because it didn’t take him long to roll to the side, and he zeroed in on a book right away. Pulling it from the shelf, he angled it so she couldn’t see the cover, then paged deftly toward the end. “‘Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.’ In bed.”
She swallowed hard. She knew that line. Boy did she ever.
But the only words she could summon from her throat were, “I thought we were doing ‘in my pants.’”
“I decided to get creative.” He let the book fall closed and dropped it on his chest.
The illustrated horse on the bright orange cover stared back at her. “Didn’t figure you for a Holden Caulfield kind of guy.”
“What can I say? He was the least phony guy we had to read about back in high school.”
Be still her beating heart. First the Georgian era, now this. “That or the most phony.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Or that.” Grasping the book by the spine, he returned it to its place on the shelf.
Silence hung over them for a moment before she cleared her throat. “So do you want to go again, or…”
“Be my guest.”
She frowned, gazing at the rows of titles, but none of them really called to her. “This would probably be a lot more fun if we were in the popular fiction aisle. YA or sci-fi. Ooh, or romance.”
He chuckled. “You wouldn’t have to get very creative to add naughty words to those.”
“Hey, they aren’t all dirty.”
“No, but the good ones are.”
“And exactly how many romance novels have you read?”
“All I can say is a guy gets bored restacking the shelves sometimes.”
A low sparkler of heat went off inside her, and she was suddenly awfully conscious of how close they were again. She couldn’t quite picture it—big, masculine Sam picking up one of her guilty pleasure books. But the idea did things to her all the same.
Throat dry, she said, “I could go get a few if you want.”
Now that would wreck her. The two of them huddled together over a particularly filthy scene. They could trade back and forth on the dialogue. Or act it out.
She stopped that train of thought before it could pull any further from the station.
The darkness to his gaze said he was right on board with her, though. “If that’s how you want to spend the night.”
Yes. No.
“Not exactly,” she said with a hell of a lot more conviction than she felt.
He sighed. “Oh well.” When he stretched out long, it made the bottom of his shirt ride up a fraction, exposing a sliver of pale skin and sandy hair leading from his navel. It was all she could do not to drool. “I’m tired of book stuff anyway.”
He tugged his shirt down, covering up, and she managed to shove her tongue back in her mouth.
She shook her head to clear it, focusing on the important stuff: namely, him talking smack about books again. As if they were something you could get sick of. “Remind me again why you work in a bookstore?”
He shrugged. His hand had landed on the carpet next to her leg, and consciously or not, he stroked a finger along the edge of her boot, making her quiver just a tiny bit inside. “You take what you can get, you know.”
“A lot of English majors would be happy to trade places with you.” Several of her friends, in fact.
“Nah, I’m good. Anyway, my mom is friends with Margie, and when I needed a job…” He trailed off, glancing at the ceiling so he wasn’t meeting her eyes. “I wasn’t exactly in a position to be choosy, you know?”
A little furrow appeared between his brows, and she had to fold her hands together to keep herself from leaning forward and soothing it with her thumb. He was lying so close, his index finger still tracing a line on her calf, and she practically itched with the temptation. It would be so easy to extend her arm and run her fingers through his hair. Close her hand around his palm or touch his lips.
Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. Conscious of their proximity all the while, she shifted, uncrossing her legs and leaning back against the shelf behind her. Subtly putting a few more inches between their bodies.
It wasn’t quite subtle enough. He chuckled and patted her knee before withdrawing his arm, like a little promise that he could be good, even if it wasn’t his first choice.
She sighed and fiddled with her nails. The mood between them had shifted, the lightness of treating classic literature like fortune cookies falling away, only to be replaced with a certain seriousness. She cast about for something else to talk about. “So if your mom helped get you this job, she couldn’t put in a good word, too? Get you out of having to work the graveyard shift the night before Christmas Eve?”
His laughter this time had an edge to it, a hollowness. “Not really something she would concern herself with.”
“No?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got nothing but time.” She hesitated. “If you feel like talking.”
“I don’t.” His chest heaved as he gave out a low, grunting exhale. “My folks and I haven’t exactly been seeing eye to eye recently. Helping me get this job was the consolation prize for a lot of other shit.” He met her gaze, and there was something to his expression that told her not to pry. “Long story short, it’s complicated.”
“Family usually is.” Biggest understatement ever. Really, she should change topics now before he started reciprocating and asking questions about hers, but she was curious, damn it all. Testing, she asked, “You said you had a baby sister?”
Apparently that was enough of a topic shift for him. The corners of his mouth lifted, and some of the heaviness seeped away. “Yeah. She’s four. She was, uh, a surprise to say the least.”
“Yeah?”
“My folks were almost fifty
, and I was seventeen. They’re ready to start celebrating an empty house, and boom! Surprise baby.”
“Wow. That must have been something.”
“Right? They totally freaked, but…she’s awesome. Cutest damn kid you ever met. And it was probably a good thing anyway.” His grin faded fractionally.
“Oh?”
For a second, his expression darkened in a way she’d never really seen before, but then he blinked and looked up at her, covering for his moment of grimness with a not-quite-real smile. “Yeah. Otherwise, who would they be spoiling while I’m snowed in here with you?”
With that, he levered himself to sitting and grabbed the vodka again, clearly bracing himself before he took a more measured hit of it. There wasn’t any coughing or choking this time, but his distaste was obvious. He made a smacking noise with his lips as he set it down, gesturing at it vaguely. “You’d have to get really wasted before that became palatable.”
“True story.” She went back and forth in her head before asking, “Is that what you’re doing the next couple days? Hanging out with your family?”
“Haven’t decided,” he said, not looking at her. “Invitation’s open, apparently. But it’s the first time I’ve heard from them since this fall, so I don’t know how much they’d like it if I actually took them up on it.”
“You don’t want to at least see your sister or something?”
He was probably the best big brother ever. It wasn’t hard to imagine him with a tiny little girl, blond and mouthy, the two of them chasing each other around a big old house. Having cookies and fake tea with an army of stuffed animals. She bet he even let her dress him up.
His smile went wistful. “Oh, I’ll pop in at some point.” He glanced at her. “Just maybe not for the official part.”
She hummed. There was definitely a story there, and one he didn’t want to tell.
As if on cue, he grabbed the vodka again and passed it over to her. “What about you? Aren’t most of you college kids cleared out of here by now? What are you still doing here?”
“I. Uh.” Right. The part of the what are you doing for Christmas conversation she didn’t want to have. “I don’t go home for breaks.” She fidgeted, taking the bottle from him and turning it over in her hands.
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