Tied Together (The Cade Siblings Duology #1)

29. Alana

CHAPTER 29

Alana

The tree is bundled up on top of the car and as we pull up to the door of our building, Alex turns to me, a serious look on his face.

“Okay, so one thing I didn’t do before we went out on this little adventure…”

I raise my eyebrows and wait for him to continue.

“IdidntexactlyclearitwithMaura,” he says it so fast and so jumbled together, it’s impossible to understand.

“Say that again?”

“I didn’t exactly clear it with Maura,” he says sheepishly. “So we are going to have to sneak this tree into the elevator without her seeing, because I doubt she is going to want a live tree with pine needles in one of the building’s flats.”

“And how do you suppose we get this tree upstairs without her seeing it? It’s huge!”

“Well, Albert is going to help me carry it upstairs. He doesn’t know that he’s helping me, but I know he likes me and he doesn’t much care for Maura so I should be able to convince him. While we’re getting it through the lobby, you’re going to distract Maura.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ll be great at it. She loves you.” Yeah, right.

We climb out of the car and Alex walks over to Albert, talking to him in hushed tones. Before I go inside, he looks over at me and uses his index and middle fingers to form a peace sign and then points them from his eyes to mine, in an ‘I’m watching you’ sort of gesture.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I’m nervous. Get in there tiger,” he says to me and pushes me through the door. I stumble into one of the decorative trees at the entrance, making it wobble and gaining Maura’s attention.

I make my way in slowly, trying to figure out what I could say in order to get her to look the opposite direction for a few minutes. I glance behind me and see that Albert and Alex have gotten the tree off of the car and are just waiting for me to distract her.

I walk over to the elevator and push the button so it’s at least on its way down, then I make a big show of remembering something and walk over to the desk where she is ignoring me.

“Hi Maura,” I say cheerfully. She doesn’t respond, just looks up at me with a bored expression.

I spot a stack of papers on the counter, so I lean over them as I speak to her.

“I was wondering if you had an extra key to our flat? I seem to have misplaced mine.”

She starts talking in French, no doubt putting some kind of curse on me for losing my key, and bends down to look in the drawers. Alex and Albert start making their way in just as the elevator doors slide open, but it looks like Maura found the key because she starts straightening back up.

Before she can stand up fully and see the illegal decorations, I sit up off of the counter and “accidentally” push the papers in front of me down on top of her head and onto the ground.

“Fils de pute est bon,” she says in an angry tone. I don’t know what it means, but I’m sure it isn’t kind.

I turn around and see Alex standing in the back of the elevator snickering, the tree pushed just out of view. Glancing back at Maura, I see she is crouched down, gathering the strewn about papers back into a pile. Her distraction makes this the most opportune time to get away, so I run and jump into the elevator, standing in front of Alex. Just as the doors close, Maura straightens and looks more angry than I’ve seen her so far.

“Found it,” I exclaim, holding up my key. Once the doors close, I lean back against Alex and let out a large breath. After a second of silence, we both break out in laughter.

“She might hate us even more now than before, but at least we have a tree.”

Our laughter has subsided as we reach our floor and I help Alex carry the tree inside. We talk for a while about where best to put it, but decide on the living room because we’ve been spending most of our time in there anyways.

After we get the tree set up in the corner, Alex moves to work on something on the TV, and I start unboxing the lights that he had Marco pick up for us while we were out at dinner. I get to work untangling them and plugging them into the nearest outlet, but get distracted when I hear the beginning music from the movie Elf .

I smile as I realize he really is planning on completing some of the items on my list, and I wander over to the couch and take a seat to watch the opening credits. Alex says nothing, but sets the remote down on the table and walks off to the kitchen.

It’s about twenty minutes later when I see him walking back into the room and look up. He is carrying two mugs that look like gingerbread men. They each are piled high with whipped cream and red and green sprinkles. He sets his down and hands me mine without a word, then heads back into the kitchen.

“Alex, did you seriously make hot cocoa?” I yell at his retreating back.

“I don’t know, take a sip,” he shouts back.

I cautiously bring the mug to my lips and tilt it back, careful not to burn myself, and I close my eyes when the chocolatey goodness hits my tongue. This tastes like absolute heaven, probably the best hot cocoa I’ve ever had.

“What did you put in this?” I call out.

“My mom’s special recipe,” he answers, loud enough for me to hear him.

“I am going to need that recipe when we get back.”

“I’m sorry, family secret.” He’s smirking as he returns to the room.

“I bet I can get it out of you.”

“You probably could,” he says with a laugh.

The way he balances the plate of cookies in his hand is impressive and he holds it out to me. There are chocolate chip, sugar with different holiday sprinkles, snickerdoodle, chocolate with white chocolate chips, and gingerbread men.

“The list didn’t say what kind of cookies you usually eat, so I made a few different kinds just to be safe.”

I stare up at him, speechless.

“What’s wrong? I missed one didn’t I?” He lets out a sigh of disappointment. “I knew I should have made peanut butter. I just didn’t?—”

I stand and place a finger over his mouth to get him to stop speaking. It works, but now I’m distracted by the softness of his lips beneath my finger. Mission accomplished, I pull my hand back into the safety of my space and continue.

“This is incredible, Alex. You didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I wanted to.”

He holds the plate out to me again and I grab a snickerdoodle, taking a small bite.

“Are you just good at everything?” I ask. “First you cook an incredible meal, then you make some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had and now I find out you make incredible cookies too. What can’t the man do?”

“Own a hermit crab.”

“Huh?”

“I’m terrified. My mom got me one when I was little and after a few months it changed shells because it was growing. The sight of the naked hermit crab unsettled me so much I made her take it away immediately.”

I’m laughing now, imagining a small Alex screaming at the shell-less hermit crab.

“There, there, big boy. No hermit crabs in sight,” I tell him and pat him on the shoulder in a comforting gesture before sitting back down on the couch.

He shrugs me off and sets the plate of cookies down on the coffee table before grabbing one for himself and sitting down next to me.

“When did you even have time to make these?”

“While you were getting ready for dinner. You holed up in your room a lot the last twenty four hours.”

He’s right, I did. I wasn’t trying to be a hermit (pun intended), but I needed a break from the whirlwind that is Alex Ashford. I’ve been trying my hardest not to fall for the man, but I’m starting to admit to myself that I might not be able to stop it.

The constant back and forth I feel is so frustrating. One minute I’m ready to say ‘to hell with it’ and lean in for a kiss, and the next I want to run and hide.

Regardless, I make a decision to put this out of my mind for the rest of the night and just be in the moment. Alex has gone to great lengths to make this a fun night full of holiday traditions and warmth, so I am going to let it be that.

We sit and laugh at the movie and eat cookies for a while longer before getting up to continue working on the tree. Alex and I drape the lights from the top to the bottom and then get to work placing the red and green ornaments that he purchased a set of at the shop.

I’m about to get the star we picked out, but Alex stops me with a gentle hand on my wrist.

“We need to exchange the ornaments we picked out,” he says, placing a box in my hands.

I completely forgot we even got each other ornaments.

I start to unwrap the paper protecting it from breaking and open it to unveil a mini sized Diet Coke covered in glitter.

“Oh my gosh, this is perfect,” I say as I look down at the ornament. It seems we were on the same wavelength with our ornaments because the one I chose for him is similar. Always in each other’s heads lately.

“I saw it and it reminded me of you.”

I smile up at him.

I move towards the tree and start to reach up to place it on a branch, but I’m just a tiny bit too short to reach the one I’m aiming for. I go to move to a lower branch, but just before I do a hand snakes around my waist to hold me steady and I feel Alex’s body heat pressed behind mine.

“Here, let me help.”

He reaches up to where my hand is holding the ornament halfway onto the branch, and moves his hand over mine, helping to push the ornament fully onto the branch. Once he’s got it securely in place, I lower off of my tip toes and turn around, trying to get a little more space between us, but Alex doesn’t back up. He also doesn’t remove his hand from my waist, instead keeping it on my body as I spin around and letting it glide over my stomach as I turn.

Now I’m pressed in between him and the tree, and I can’t step back without risking an ornament falling and breaking. I remain trapped, breathing heavy from first stretching to place the ornament and now the close proximity to Alex.

“Thanks for the help.”

He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair back behind my ear that had fallen forward. “Any time, Lanie.”

A smirk lands on his face before he turns around and pretends like it never happened. His self-assurance is charming and I fall a little harder down the path I’m desperately trying to avoid.

“Alright, my turn,” he says, breaking the spell. He turns and grabs the bag that houses the ornament I chose for him, and begins to unwrap it. I suddenly find myself feeling nervous.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to?—”

He stops unwrapping and looks up. “Lanie, stop. I’ll love it because you picked it out, no matter what it is.”

I don’t respond, but he must be happy with whatever he sees in my silent reaction, because he continues unwrapping.

He pulls out the small glass bottle of Topo Chico, the sparkling water he always drinks, and immediately bursts into laughter. He looks up at me with the happiest expression I’ve seen on him in a while and I wish we could stay in this moment forever.

“This is perfect for me. Thank you.” He winks at me and turns to hang the bottle on a branch on the opposite side of mine and a bit further down.

For the rest of the night we laugh and talk, taking bites of cookies and sips of cocoa as we finish decorating the tree. Eventually we make our way back to the couch to finish the movie and I don’t even realize I’m drifting before I’ve fallen asleep.