Page 83 of A Love Like Christmas Time
“It depends,” he mumbles, putting his arm around my shoulder and lifting his mug to drink. “Walter, the guy who clearsthe roads, lives one town over. It depends on how quickly he gets here. If I had to guess, I’d say probably this evening.”
“Boo,” I pout, exhaling a deep sigh. “I could stay snowed in for another few days.”
Being snowed in is almost as if time stopped. There are no expectations, no need to go anywhere, days that feel as if they’re outside the realm of time.
“That would make the Christmas market tricky, though.” He chuckles, and my eyes widen. Fuck. I completely forgot that was this weekend already. I was too wrapped up in the prospect of staying snowed in with him.
“Right. I hadn’t thought of that,” I admit with a disappointed sigh. “But anyway—” I get up and set my empty cup on the coffee table, before extending my hand for him.
“I’m not sure how to feel about that grin of yours,” he mumbles, but lets me pull him up. “What are you planning?”
“We’re going to decorate the Christmas tree,” I say like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Come on.”
“I’m not sure what’s—”
“Hey,” I interrupt him softly and take his mug, set it down next to mine and lace my fingers with his. Lifting my chin to look at him, I step so close that not a sheet of paper would fit between us. “We will hang plastic decorations on a tree. Are you objecting because it’s your brand? Or because you really,reallydon’t want to?” Before he can answer, I quickly add, “Snickerdoodles.”
He holds my gaze for one breath. Two.
“It’s my brand, I guess.” He lets out a deep sigh and softly shakes his head.
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t give a fuck about your brand.” I grin and pull him after me to my home library.
Relief floods his voice when he says, “You’ve unpacked?”
“I told you I would if I had the space.” I shrug, then lift one of the boxes that has ‘Tree’ written in bold letters on the side and thrust it into his hands. “You take this one. I’ll take the second.”
“Two boxes just for your tree?” His eyes widen. “Why am I even surprised?”
“Yeah, why are you?” I giggle and brush past him.
Our first obstacle is the string lights. Over the course of packing and moving, even though I wrapped them up tightly, they’ve gotten completely tangled.
“No, Jenna!” I curse when my orange cat swats at the cable.
“I’ll take them,” Caleb offers, scoops up both cats, not without loud protest from them, and holds them to his chest while I untangle the string of lights.
“Finally,” I say, wholly annoyed by the time it’s ready to go on the tree. “I swear to Santa Claus, if they don’t work now, I’m going to scream.”
“Let’s find out. Here, take them.”
He hands both cats back to me. Taytay curls up on top of my folded legs while Jenna jumps up on my shoulder, all three of us watching Caleb as he expertly wraps the lights around the Christmas tree.
“A little higher over there, pretty please,” I ask him, and even though there’s a silent ‘are you for real?’ in his narrow eyes, he adjusts it. “Thank you. That’s perfect.”
He plugs them in, and I light up along with the room, my chest so full of warmth and joy tingling through my veins.
The light-yellow glow of the lights engulfs the entire room, and I bet it’s going to be beautiful at night. I can’t wait to curl up with a book, reading in the light coming only from my Christmas tree and the tons of fairy lights and Christmas decorations. Carefully, I set the cats down. They’re not even remotely interested in the tree. I can only hope they won’t decide to play wrecking ball with it when I’m not looking.
They barely shoot the lights a mildly curious glance before they wander off.
“Phew. Thank God.” I let out a deep sigh. “Now, let’s get the rest on there.”
We spend the rest of the morning putting up the red baubles and golden ornaments. And by that, I mean me. Apparently, I’m very particular about two ornaments of the same color hanging next to each other. We settle on Caleb handing me the ornaments and me finding their place on the tree.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do about your mom?” I ask him as he hands me a white ceramic bell ornament with blue snowflakes painted on it, topped off with a tiny red bow.
“I’m not sure yet,” he admits dejectedly, carefully pulling the last ornament out of the box. “A part of me doesn’t want to forgive her. And if I don’t, there’s no reason to stay in touch with her either.” I take the ornament from him, a simple red bauble. “The other part of me would love to have a mom, even if it means letting go of the grudge.”
