Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
GABE
I pull a T-shirt on as I scoot barefoot downstairs. Used to living alone, I’d initially gotten to the top of the stairs in just my underwear before going back for clothes.
It didn’t help that I was distracted by all the noise down there. What the fuck is happening?
I’d think Natalie had turned the organ-grinding monkey back on, but the music’s so loud that it has to be coming from inside the house. And what is that sickly sweet smell?
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn toward the kitchen and stop in my tracks.
A red mist of fury flashes across my eyes as my heartbeat rises to match my temper.
How dare she? How fucking dare she?
There’s a pink tinsel Christmas tree adorned with red and blue baubles and other random knickknacks next to the fireplace, stockings hanging from the mantel, green twig things dangling from the minimalist chandelier, a fleece blanket with a cheesy village ice-skating scene on it stretched across the back of the sofa, and a Santa having a party with some toy-making elves on the sideboard. And he’s waving. Mechanical Santa is grinning and waving at me.
And coming out of every one of the integrated ceiling speakers is someone singing, “I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day.”
One day a year is way too much for me. And this was supposed to be the first year of my life where I get to have my dream of absolutely no fucking Christmas at all.
But then my eyes come to rest on her.
There she is in the kitchen, where it looks like a flour bomb has gone off and scattered baking materials everywhere. Oblivious to my presence, she’s mixing something in a bowl while dancing to the music—but only moving from the hips up, because all her weight is on just one of the bare feet sticking out of those ass- and thigh-hugging jeans. The injured one balances on its toes.
And she’s wearing the shirt I lent her. The blue one with my team’s large rocket ship logo blasting across those round breasts that are the perfect probably-more-than-a-handful size.
Screwing up my eyes and shaking my head, I pull myself out of the daze I seem to have drifted into for a second.
“Hey, Bugs,” I call out, heading toward her. “What the hell is all this?”
“Oh, morning.” She looks up from her mixing duties, a wide, bright smile across her ridiculously gorgeous face.
I run my fingers through my hair and head toward the kitchen island, which looks like the scene of a violent food fight .
I rest my hand on the one clean patch near the edge. “Was I not clear enough last night that I don’t want decorations or music? I didn’t want them on the outside, and I don’t want them on the inside. You’re supposed to be taking down the ones you already put up, not adding more.”
She pushes a strand of hair off her face with the back of her hand and unwittingly smears a bit of floury butter on her forehead.
“I texted the Sullivans, and they apologized for not letting me know they’d sold. Marilyn said it all happened so quickly they forgot to tell me. And she also said they’d forgotten to pack little Sophie’s decorations, and they were probably still in the closet in her room. So I thought I’d put them out to liven the place up a bit.”
She might be cute as all hell, but she’s also frustrating as all hell. “Seriously. Was I not clear?” My fingers tighten their grip around the edge of the counter.
“I thought maybe you were tired and crabby after the drive and the blizzard and your shoulder and everything, and that this might cheer you up.”
Her expression is almost childlike, radiating with the innocent bliss of the utter nonsense that is all this festive bullshit.
“It is doing the opposite of cheering me up. If being cheered down is a thing, I am being cheered to the deepest pits of cheerment.”
“See, you do have a sense of humor hiding in there.” She points her spatula at my chest, and a dollop of mixture drops from it onto the counter with a soft splat .
“Bet one of these will make you feel better.” She widens her large blue eyes and points at an array of cookies shaped like Christmas trees and snowmen laid out on a cooling rack. I have a cooling rack?
“I’m not the greatest baker,” she adds. “They won’t be as good as the ones from Kneads Must.”
“Kneads Must?”
“The bakery on Main Street.” She says it as if I should have known.
“Does everything around here have a cheesy name?”
She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I haven’t decorated these yet. But you can try one if you’re good.”
There’s something about this woman that makes me want to be not good . Something that makes me want to yell at her to get out of my goddamn house and take all her Christmas garbage with her, but also to peel down those jeans and bend her over the counter—taking care with her ankle, of course.
Seeing the rocket ship shift across her breasts as she moves isn’t helping.
“Sit down.” She points to a stool opposite her and nudges the rack of cookies toward it. “I’ll make you some breakfast nog to go with it.”
I find myself doing exactly as she says and pull out a stool. Is it years as a teacher that’s given her some sort of magical tone that makes everyone instantly do as she says?
“What, in the name of God, is breakfast nog?”
“Well, it’s milk and nutmeg and?—”
“Absolutely not. I’m having coffee.”
“I have no idea how to work that machine.” She gestures to the counter under the kitchen window behind her, where the coffee maker sits between the fridge and the sink. “It has those pod things.”
“I’ll do it.” I snap out of obedience mode and move to her side of the island, casting my gaze over the baking massacre that’s taken place on it. “Was all this stuff here? The flour and the eggs and the butter and the…sprinkles? And the pans and the racks and everything?”
“Of course,” she says with a tone that says I’m an idiot. “Do you not know what you have in your own house?”
“I had a company send someone to furnish it.” I turn to riffle through the rack of pods and settle on the darkest brown one, labeled “Intensity.” That sounds like what I need to get me through this day. “But I wasn’t expecting them to assume I’m a baker.”
“Perhaps”—she lifts her dough-covered spatula in the air—“they assumed you were a normal human who likes the holidays and so might be doing what normal people do. Like, you know, having fun.”
I shake my head and turn my attention to the coffee maker.
“Well, lucky they did get this stuff,” she continues, “because it’s given me something to do while I wait for the fallen tree to be moved. I checked the town message group, and the latest post says it’ll be a couple more hours before they’ve chopped it up and cleared the road.”
“Great. That’s plenty of time to take down all these decorations.”
She humph s.
I’m about to close the lid on my pod but stop. “Do you want coffee?”
“Ooh, yes, please. I filled it with water but then couldn’t figure out how to start it. I’m a simple French press girlie.”
I wouldn’t have described a French press as simple. Maybe…traditional?
I think better of it and pull out my pod—if she gets a shot of strong caffeine inside her, who knows what else she might decorate before the road’s clear.
Hmm, a paler brown one is labeled “South American" with the words “light and crisp” in smaller writing. That sounds like something she might like.
Hold on. What the fuck is wrong with me? I have absolutely no idea what coffee she might like. Nor do I care. The only thing I care about is getting her out of my house along with all the holiday garbage and baked goods.
The music coming out of the integrated speakers changes from an irritating boyband singing “Funky Funky Christmas” to something more acceptable. “Finally, a tune without singing frogs or rattling bells.”
“You like this one?” I can almost hear the sound of straws being grasped.
“ Like might be a bit strong. But I can tolerate it.”
“It’s the march from The Nutcracker ,” she says as the music gets louder. “One of my favorites.”
“I didn’t mean you should turn it up.” I pull the lid down on the South American pod and an awkward silence, other than the bubbling of the coffee machine and the not-unpleasant music, falls between us.
It’s broken by the ping of her phone. Except, of course it’s not an actual, normal phone ping. It’s a short jingle of Christmassy sounding bells.
“Christ, you even have a festi?—”
“Oh, fuck.” Natalie’s exclamation has that tone that, even coming from a virtual stranger, tells you instantly that something terrible has happened. Even if I hadn’t picked up on it, the crash of the spatula into the mixing bowl would have been another clue.
I turn my attention from the snowy scene outside the kitchen window, unsullied by any artificial decoration, to see Natalie staring at her phone, mouth wide open, cheeks pink. It’s impossible not to notice how pretty the flush is, even if it has been caused by panic.
I’m about to ask if everything is okay but think better of it, because it obviously isn’t.
“What’s happened?” I ask. “I mean, if it’s not private and you don’t mind?—”
“There’s been a fire.”