One
Amelia
Silver Bells…
I frown as I climb out of my car, automatically disapproving of the traditional Christmas music blasting from the unseen speakers.
Silver Bells…
Slamming the car door, I huff out a long, aggravated breath as my boots crunch across the gravel parking lot.
It’s Christmas time in the city…
God, I despise Christmas music. It doesn’t help that they start playing it in October. That they start showing holiday commercials earlier and earlier every year. But with the season brings brisk business, and since I work at my family’s fine jewelry store, that means we’re extra busy for the last three months of the year.
This also means I have to deal with listening to a lot of Christmas music during those three months.
My parents live for the holiday season. My father and my older brother, Palmer, make marketing plans years in advance. My mother enjoys decorating the store and creating special boutique shopping hours for our VIP customers. Palmer also loves nothing more than to come striding into the store every morning in one of his expensive, custom suits, acting like a big shot. As if he owns the place. Someday, he will. So will I. Our parents are splitting it between us, fifty-fifty, which not so secretly infuriates my brother.
Me? I just show up every day and do my job, all while keeping my recent complaining to an absolute minimum and pray my mother doesn’t try to set me up with some bachelor who wanders into the store, desperate to find a gift for his mother/nanna/aunt/whatever. My prayers never work.
Mother is always trying to set me up.
Grumpiness has become my every day mood ever since I finally broke it off for good with my ex-boyfriend. He whose name shall never be mentioned. I refuse to say it out loud, or even think it. He caused a lot of trauma in my life over the years. He was gorgeous. Sweet—when I first got together with him. Possessive. Obsessive. Angry. We had outrageous fights and outrageous makeup sex. Seriously, when I was furious at him, he could make me come like no other.
Weird, right? Twisted and fucked up, if I’m being honest.
I’m beyond that now. I’d rather be alone than feeling on edge all the time. It’s taken me a while to get over him. Get over the extra-bitter taste he left in my mouth. My mood has been so foul lately, my parents try to come up with any reason to get me out of the store, even if only for a few hours.
So today, they sent me on a mission. To Sullivan’s Christmas Tree Farm to find a tree for the store.
Funny, that they send the grouchiest, anti-holiday person they know to pick out a Christmas tree. I’m tempted to choose a pink flocked tree just to make them angry.
But I won’t. There is one thing I will never do on purpose, and that’s disappoint my parents. I do that enough accidentally as it is.
Supposedly, customers were complaining about my unusually snappy responses. I tried to fake it when Dad came to me, his voice gentle as he explained it to me. And when I say fake it, I mean I acted extremely surprised when he revealed the customer complaint(s) to me. Like I had no idea I was so grumpy.
Lies. All lies. I’ve reveled in my grumpiness for almost two months now. I guess I need to get over myself and paste on my best smile. Fake it till you make it!
Ugh. Shoot me.
My friend Candice—and the very, very near future Mrs. Charlie Sullivan—said she’d meet me here at her fiancé’s family tree farm, but I don’t see her anywhere. There are people milling about, mostly families with young children who are hyped up on the free candy canes that are available somewhere. They’ve all got them hanging out their mouths as they run around through the rows and rows of towering trees, and I’m worried they might trip over their own feet and jab the back of their throats with those things.
Okay that’s a gruesome thought. One I need to shove firmly into the back of my brain.
I make my way toward the red building in the near distance Candice told me to meet her at, smiling at all the people as I pass by them. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but we’re only a couple of days away so I guess we’re close enough. Candice and Charlie’s wedding is this Saturday. The Saturday after Thanksgiving. Candice admitted a while ago that Charlie wasn’t particularly happy about her choice of wedding date at first, since it’s smack at the beginning of his busiest season. But he agreed to it because he will do anything to make the woman he loves happy.
And what makes Candice happy? Christmas. Friends. Family. Decorations everywhere and twinkling lights and holiday music and rows and rows of fresh green trees. Basically, she’s marrying her dream man, the Christmas tree farmer. I’m happy for her.
Can’t help but wonder what that’s like, meeting the man of your actual dreams. The one who will drop everything to help you. Be with you. Who only wants to make you happy and doesn’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Who loves and cherishes you and doesn’t let his gaze linger too long on a pretty woman while he’s standing right next to you. Yeah, I have no idea what that’s like at all—
“Whoa, watch out!”
I run smack dab into a wall, AKA a man. As in, my entire body just smashes into him, my face pressing right into his firm chest for the briefest moment before I seemingly bounce off of him like I’m a rubber ball. A fleeting thought floats through my head as I almost stumble backwards and nearly fall.
This guy. He smells really freaking good. Like pine and cotton and…campfire smoke?
“Sorry about that. You okay?” He grabs my shoulders, his grip firm yet gentle and keeping me from falling to the ground.
Slowly I tip my head back to find a very attractive man watching me. He’s wearing a dark green ball cap with the words Sullivan Tree Farm stitched in red across the front of it. He’s got a matching forest-green sweatshirt on and jeans, and he’s gripping me with hands that are covered by work gloves. His brows are lowered and his full lips are parted and I have another, weirder thought.
What would it feel like to kiss those lips?
I shake my head, knocking that wild idea out of my brain. “I’m fine.”
“You sure about that?” When I frown, he continues. “It’s just, you said you’re fine and shook your head at the same time. I call that a mixed message.”
That almost sounds like an insult. But when I study his face, his very friendly, cute face, I don’t see any derision or anger in his expression at all. He’s just stating himself plainly. No games.
“You startled me, that’s all,” I say with the faintest smile.
He returns it, and wow, that just upped his attractive factor by about a million. He has perfectly straight teeth, and his blue eyes light up, as if he’s extremely happy to see me.
Even if he doesn’t know me.
“Sorry,” he repeats as he tries to let go of me. As in, his fingers are umm…sticking to my very expensive denim jacket. “Damn sap,” he mutters under his breath as he pries his fingers away.
I glance at the spot he just touched on my right arm, seeing the sap stain he left behind. “That probably won’t come out, will it?”
“It might, if you use rubbing alcohol. Make sure you pour it on a clean white washcloth first, before you try to rub it out.” He makes an uncomfortable face and starts to chuckle.