Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Jess
The studio smells like peppermint and pine, a weirdly comforting mix. Gran is mixing up a new batch of holiday scented candles, and the smell gives me visions of sugar plums dancing in my head.
I’m hunched over my drafting table, a charcoal pencil smudging the side of my hand as I shade the curve of a design. New project, new distraction. If I keep my head down, maybe I can outrun the memory of a certain kiss under the arena lights. It’s been two days, and I haven’t called Mr. Mistletoe.
I’d rather have a good memory of him than press my luck. Things have a way of never working out for me. And this guy—with his sweetness, his height, and those magic lips—has to be too good to be true. I’m better off remembering him as a perfect stranger who kissed me senseless. Twice.
My phone buzzes from across the worktable, my brother’s name flashing on the screen.
“Here we go,” I mumble, reaching for my phone. “Hey—”
“What the hell, Jess?” His voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “What were you thinking?”
My stomach dips. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Don’t play cute. Kyle is pissed. You embarrassed him in front of the entire Stingers arena. I should have never set you up with him.”
Anger boils in my chest. “No, you shouldn’t have. He was a complete jerk. He stared at his phone the whole time. He didn’t even pay attention to me.”
“So you kissed the guy next to you to get back at him?” Matt huffs. “That’s really mature.”
“It wasn’t like that!” A shiver runs through me at the reminder of Mr. Mistletoe’s lips on mine.
I sit back, the pencil rolling from my fingers. The first kiss had been spontaneous, a blur of adrenaline, but the second had been all heat. All us.
“I didn’t plan it,” I say. “It just…happened.”
“Yeah, well, things like that don’t just happen to most adults. You’ve got to grow up, Jess.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re gonna be thirty.”
“Not for six years.”
“It’s time you stopped acting like a teenager.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I stick my tongue out at the phone and swipe to end the call. There, take that. Conversation over.
Gran takes one glance at my storm-cloud expression and lowers her oversized, noise-cancelling headphones. “What’s up, Buttercup?”
I ball my fists and make a growling sound in my throat. “Matt.”
Gran rises and bends to touch her toes in a fluid motion that most octogenarians could only dream of. “Your brother has always known how to push your buttons.”
“He’s so annoying.”
“What’s he done this time?” she asks from her rag doll position, peeking out from under the curtain of her silver hair.
I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood. “It was me that did something.”
“What did you do?”
“I kissed…” My throat closes up, and my words trail off in a whisper.
“You kissed somebody?” She chuckles and continues her stretches. “Even in my day, that wouldn’t make you a hussy.”
Heat rises on the back of my neck. “The man I kissed wasn’t exactly my date.”
A gleam of curiosity twinkles in her eyes, silver brows shooting up on her forehead. She sits down at the small table where we often break for snacks and points to the chair next to hers.
“What do the young people call it these days?” She purses her lips in thought. “Drinking the tea?”
“Spilling the tea.” I slide into the chair and prop my elbows on the table between us. “It’s so embarrassing.”
She pats my arm. “Start at the beginning, dear. Spill every drop.”
I fill Gran in on the details of my date up until the moment I kissed the sexy stranger.
Her eyes sparkle brighter and brighter as I get to the end.
I would spare her the details, but she insists I tell everything, right down to the pillow softness of his lips and the hard muscles of his arms locked around me.
She leans back in her chair and fans her face. “Wow. That was some hot tea.”
I drop my head into my hands with a sigh. “Yep.”
“So, when are you gonna see him again?”
“Never.”
“You didn’t give him your digits?”
I lift a brow at her attempt to use slang. “He gave me his number.”
“So call him. What the heck are you waiting for?”
The image of him standing under the exit lights, gazing down at me fills my head. “He probably thinks I’m crazy, kissing a stranger like that.”
“Then, he’s crazy, too. Perfect match.”
I feel dreamy, imagining what a perfect match we could be.
It’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to dream.
I’ve been disappointed too many times to count.
Starting with my first boyfriend in high school who cheated on me, all the way through a bunch of losers in college, to fizzled relationships in the past year.
My love life has been nothing but one miss after another.
Is it better to have that one perfect moment of our kiss? Or experience another failure?
My mind drifts to the way Mr. Mistletoe’s jeans hugged his butt in all the right ways. “He is cute, though. And tall. At least six-foot-three.”
“And he made your toes curl.”
I twirl my ponytail around my fingers, fantasizing about how good we could be together.
“Oh, and he’s from Starlight Bay,” I say. “That cute little town in the mountains where you do the Christmas market.”
“Mistletoe Marketplace,” she says. “It’s my favorite event of the year.”
Regret burns like acid in my chest. “What if—”
“What if he was your soul mate?”
I roll my eyes. “You know I don’t believe in soul mates.”
“Well, maybe you should. He could be yours.”
I prop my chin in my hand, considering. We would definitely make cute, tall children together. Maybe I should call him.
“Call him,” Gran says as if she has a secret view of my mind.
“Now?”
“You’re not getting any younger. You’re gonna be thirty.”
“Not for a few years.”
“Time has a funny way of passing when you’re not paying attention.” She gets up and heads to the door of the studio.
I sit up straighter, watching her grab her purse. “Where are you going?”
“You look like you could use a pumpkin spice latte.” She looks pointedly at my phone. “I’ll be right back.”
After she leaves, I stare at the number, my heart pounding furiously. My finger hovers over the call button, and before I can change my mind, I go for it.
I hold my breath while it rings. The more it rings, the higher my panic level spikes. The thought of leaving a voicemail makes my throat go dry. What would I say?
I nearly chicken out and hang up when someone answers.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice.
My heart beats double time. “Uh, hello.”
She hesitates. “Who’s this?”
“This is Jess. I’m calling for…” I stumble and stutter. “Um…”
“Are you trying to sell something? Because I’m not interested,” she says. “Hanging up now.”
“No,” I say in a rush. “I’m not selling anything. I’m trying to reach this guy I met at a basketball game.”
“What guy?” Her voice takes on a sharp edge. “It better not be Joey.”
Sweat beads on my brow. This isn’t going as I’d hoped. “Is Joey about six-foot-three with a beard?”
She laughs with relief. “He wishes. Try five-foot-seven and can’t even grow a mustache.”
A male voice protests in the background, and the woman laughs harder.
“I must have the wrong number,” I say before quickly hanging up.
Humiliation stains my cheeks. Mr. Mistletoe gave me a fake number. Guess he isn’t my soul mate after all.
I trek back to my workstation, determined to forget about the entire situation. Picking up my pencil, I sketch furiously. If I’m a failure at love, the least I can do is succeed in my career.