by Tracy Brogan
“Nothing is going to unfold.” I picked up the coat and hung it on the rack. “We’re just friends.”
“Friends, huh?” Dody looked skeptical. “For two hundred bucks, I think the kid should put out. Just sayin’.”
“What is the matter with you two? Honestly. Behave yourselves while Drew is here, okay? Don’t embarrass him. Or me for that matter.” I was already getting agitated at just the prospect of what they might say.
“You mean embarrass you like with a story about how you used to wear a training bra on the outside of your shirt and pretend you were a hula dancer?” Grandma said.
“Yes, that’s exactly the kind of story I’m telling you not to tell. And how about you don’t mention your book club, either? Put those paperbacks away.”
Grandma turned to Dody. “My granddaughter is a prude. I’m so ashamed.”
Dody tsk, tsk, tsked as she walked over to the Christmas tree in the corner and began rearranging ornaments. “Prudishness is a travesty, but maybe the Hampton boy will unleash her inner goddess.”
“Oh, my gosh. Really?” I truly started to sweat. “If you mention my inner goddess in front of Drew, I will dump every ounce of liquor in this house into the toilet. And don’t think I’m kidding.”
Dody looked over her shoulder. “Anita, she’s a prude and a teetotaler. Are you sure she’s your granddaughter?”
“I blame her parents.” Grandma hung her head.
I shook my own. I knew they were teasing. At least, I decided to pretend they were teasing. My parents were solidly middle-of-the-road when it came to the topics of sex and alcohol. They didn’t ask and I didn’t share. But I wasn’t a prude. I was actually quite adventurous. I could even be spontaneous, given enough advance notice. In fact, Blake often said I was fun in bed, although in reality, he wasn’t very imaginative. Maybe I wasn’t, either, though my imagination had gotten quite a workout last night when I was sitting in that booth across from Drew. I kept wondering what he could do with those long arms and long legs. I’d come up with quite a few possibilities, and all of them made my skin flush and my heart race.
Memories of our conversation, the suggestive glimmer in his eyes, the echo of our laughter, all of that had stirred my senses all damn day, especially when I’d sat down and tried to respond to Blake’s e-mail. I’d spent an hour earlier this evening reading it and rereading it. Searching for a hidden message. A clue as to what he’d meant about the future and about us. I thought about calling him, thinking a conversation was in order, but I didn’t. I blamed it on the time difference, but the truth was, I just didn’t know what I wanted to say. I didn’t know how I felt, about him, or Drew, or the Haskells, or my job. Basically every aspect of my future was currently up for debate.
Apparently so was my outfit.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Dody asked, adjusting her turquoise-framed glasses like she was about to inspect a suspicious mole on my neck.
I looked down at my favorite blue sweater and cream-colored scarf. I’d gotten both at the consignment shop next to Haskell’s Holiday Haven and considered them quite a find. I also had on the jeans Fontaine had said made my butt look perky. Perky is always good.
“Yes. Why?” I fluffed my vintage scarf.
Dody perused me another moment, her mouth twisting into a kind of Elvis-y sneer. “Oh, I don’t know. I just think you might want to show a little skin. You’re trussed up tighter than a Christmas goose. How’s he supposed to get at you?”
I looked in the mirror by the front door. It was draped with a garland from the Haskell’s Night Before Christmas collection. “It’s seven degrees outside, Dody. And he’s not supposed to get at me. It’s just a casual outing between two old friends.”
That didn’t sound convincing, even to my own ears.
“Don’t you have anything a little plungier?” Grandma called from the couch. “You can’t very well expect to get his lord a-leaping in that dull outfit.”
Dody nodded emphatically, her jingle bell earrings causing a ruckus. “Exactly. Not a creature will be stirring, especially in his pants, if you don’t make some effort. Sometimes Santa needs a little helper.”
“Ohmygosh, stop it, you two,” I said, clenching my fists in pointless irritation. “You’re making me nuts. I don’t have time to change, anyway. He’ll be here any minute.”
Sure enough, he rang the doorbell promptly at seven. Just like he’d promised. I took a deep breath. I was nervous. I shouldn’t be, but I was. And I was excited, too. I hadn’t felt this tingle of anticipation in, well, in forever. Maybe never. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I didn’t have time to analyze that right now.
I tugged open the door, and there he was, wearing a charcoal-gray wool overcoat with jeans and a blue-and-white-striped shirt. And glasses. Oh! The black-framed lenses did it for me. He had this whole sexy King of the Nerds thing going on, and I found myself wishing I’d put on the plungier sweater after all. Dody was right. A little skin would have been a better choice. Sure, it was snowing like crazy and seven degrees outside, but I was hitting about one hundred and ten on the inside, and he hadn’t even said anything yet.
We exchanged slightly awkward hellos and did the equally awkward are we hugging thing, finally just leaning toward each other and bumping shoulders as if we were doing some kind of old-time Bell Harbor folk dance.
“Oh, my. Look at you two. What a simply delightful couple you make,” Dody said, coming up behind me. “And, why, look at that. You’re under the mistletoe.” She pointed up at the ceiling, but there was nothing there.
“Nice try, Dody,” I said, taking my green wool coat off the hook.
“How are you, Mrs. Baker?” Drew asked politely, ignoring the mistletoe comment and stepping inside. Still so polite.
“Well, I’m just Slim-Jim-dandy, although I’d be even better if I was going to the planetarium with you. My, my, you certainly are tall.” She fanned her rosy cheeks with both hands. I knew how she felt.
“What’s going on over there?” Grandma hollered like a hillbilly from the other room.
Drew leaned forward, not stepping off the foyer rug in his snowy shoes, and peeked around the corner. He reached out to wave. “How are you doing, Mrs. Parker? How’s that new hip?”
“Come on over here and I’ll show you,” she called back, patting the spot next to her on the sofa.
More heat rushed to my face. “Grandma!”
“What? I was just going to show him how well I can stand up. What did you think I meant?”
“Such a prude,” Dody muttered in my ear, then she spoke more clearly to Drew. “You kids may as well skedaddle. I’ve got things all under control here. And don’t worry about coming home late, Kelsey. Or even tomorrow morning. I’m sleeping here tonight because Anita and I have big plans.”
“What plans?” I slid my arms into my coat.
“An all-night Supernatural marathon. We love those Winchester boys, don’t we, Anita? They’re both so tall.” Dody ran a provocative gaze over Drew. “You’re tall, too, Hampton boy.”
“Come on,” I said, pulling him by the wrist. “Let’s go. It’s not safe for you here.”
Chapter 5
LIKE MOST PLACES IN BELL Harbor, the Fountain Park Planetarium was not very far away from my grandmother’s house, and after a brief car ride full of extremely superficial conversation, we were there. Drew took off his glasses and tucked them into the pocket of his coat. I was a little disappointed, because the Clark Kent thing was totally working for him. And for me.
In the lobby, a rather beat-up version of the solar system dangled from a water-damaged ceiling. It looked like a science fair project turned in by third graders, complete with Styrofoam balls hanging from fishing lines stuck to the ceiling tiles with paper clips.
“Huh,” Drew said, looking upward. “I haven’t been here since I was a kid. I remember it being bigger. And nicer.”
I followed his gaze. “Me, too. A little more magical and a little less�
�”
“Dank and musty?” he interjected.
“Yeah.”
He smiled down at me. “Do you want to skip it?”
“Hell no. I paid two hundred dollars for this. I want heavenly bodies and celestial motion.”
“Okay, if you say so.” He went over to the ticket window and handed the cashier a sheet of paper that he’d pulled from his wallet. I took the time to admire him from afar and wondered if his hair was as soft as it looked. Blake kept his hair extremely short and used some kind of gel in it that made it kind of crunchy, but Drew’s hair was just right for running fingers through. I took off my gloves and put them in my pocket, just to be ready in case the opportunity for finger running presented itself.
There were a dozen or so people wandering around, looking at displays of meteors and hunks of space debris collected over the years. This wasn’t exactly the hot spot to be on a Friday night, and when we went into the actual theater, we discovered it was just the two of us.
“A private showing,” Drew said. “I guess that’s not all bad.”
But it was bad. The seats were hard and rickety, the music was unpleasantly screechy, and the show itself was mediocre. In fact, it was laughably awful. Quite possibly the least comfortable, most nonromantic setting imaginable. I’m pretty sure I heard water dripping down the wall, and, at one point, the pitter-patter of little rat feet. Okay, maybe no rats. That may have been just my imagination, but even so, I hesitated to leave my feet on the ground, just in case. And yet, the worse it got, the more we laughed. We bonded like hostages held during a bank heist, entertaining and distracting each other with a running commentary about the horror of it all. Drew Hampton was adorably funny. He seemed to think I was funny, too. Or maybe we were just lightheaded from all the bad air inside the dingy old theater.
“I could have done a better job with two laser pointers and a white board,” Drew said as the last bit of music blessedly drifted away. “I am so sorry, Kelsey. This was so not worth two hundred dollars.”
“Forget about the money. It doesn’t matter. And anyway, that was fun.”
Drew was slouched down in the uncomfortable seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and his head tilted back as he continued to stare at the ceiling. But he turned when I said “fun,” and a lazy smile spread across his face. “Wow. You are pretty easy to please.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but aren’t you having fun?”
“Yes, but I’m having fun because of the company.”
I felt myself blushing and was glad the lights in the theater were dim. “That’s why I’m having fun, too.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Oh, yeah?”
“Of course. That’s why I’m here. You didn’t think I really cared about the planetarium, did you?” I might have cared a little about the planetarium, but fortunately for me, not that much.
He gazed at me for a moment. “I’m not sure what to think. You’re the one with the boyfriend, remember?”
Oh, the boyfriend. That pesky detail. I’d managed to keep Blake and his cryptic e-mail far from my mind for the past hour. It hadn’t been that hard. “Let’s not talk about him right now.” I moved in my seat to turn toward Drew. He noticed and did the same.
“Okay. What would you like to talk about?”
What did I want to talk about? Well, I could mention how much I wanted to touch his hair, or that his cologne was making my nose happy and other parts of me tingly. Or I could mention that when his leg bumped against mine, he may as well have nuzzled my neck for the delicious jolt it sent through me.
“Let’s talk about Debbie Hinkle’s fourteenth birthday party,” I said instead.
His forehead creased in thought. “Debbie Hinkle? Was she the one with the unicorn shirt who always smelled like bananas?”
“No, that was Carmen Walters. Debbie was the one whose family had chickens and goats.”
He nodded. “Oh, that’s right. I remember . . .” His voice trailed off as realization dawned across his face. “Oh, Debbie Hinkle’s birthday party. Of course I remember that. That was a good party.” He sat up even straighter and rested his elbow on the armrest between us.
I toyed with the edge of my sleeve. “Do you remember playing spin the bottle?”
Cue his sexy smirk. “I do.”
“Well, in that case, I have a confession to make. You were my first kiss.” I looked up and realized he had leaned even closer.
“Your first kiss ever? As in, ever?”
“Yes. Unless you count the time in kindergarten when I got cornered in the cubby room by Mike VanBoxtel. You were my first real kiss.”
He looked smug for the briefest span of time, then gave a soft chuckle. “Well, go figure. I guess that’s something we have in common. You were my first kiss ever, too.”
“I was?” Now I felt kind of smug. I didn’t know I’d ever been anybody’s first kiss.
“Couldn’t you tell?” he asked. “Well, that’s good, I guess. I must have been better at it than I remember.”
I was feeling suddenly bright and happy inside and couldn’t resist teasing. “Well, keep in mind I had nothing to compare it to. Mostly what I remember is going into the dark little closet in Debbie’s basement and then getting my hair caught up in one of the hangers. It’s all kind of a clumsy blur in my mind.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good for me or bad. I’d like to think it was all fantastically memorable for you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember the kiss itself very well at all.” I shook my head and offered up a sad, expectant sigh. This was so unlike me. But maybe Dody was right. For two hundred bucks, I should get some action.
Drew turned his body toward me a little more, not an easy maneuver given the hard, rickety seats. “Maybe we should try it again.”
My sigh was no more than a whisper. I had a boyfriend. This was all kinds of wrong. But I was going to break up with Blake. Probably. Very definitely probably. And everything about Drew and this moment was drawing me in. “Maybe we should,” I said.
A metal door rattled and opened, and a security guard walked in. “Show’s over, folks. Let’s move it on out.”
Oh, no, the show was just getting started. I huffed in such obvious disappointment that Drew laughed. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “That’s okay. Next time I kiss you, I want to make sure you remember it.”
I sat back with a thud. “I would have remembered this one.”
He laughed again and stood up, holding out his hand. “Come on. We have a picnic dinner to eat. How about we do that at my place?”
Drew’s place turned out to be in a trendy renaissance zone of Bell Harbor, an area close to the waterway where a few old manufacturing companies had been refurbished into deluxe loft condominiums. Exposed brick walls and sheet metal ventilation gave it an old-world but urban feeling. As I expected, everything about his space was clean and effortlessly stylish, with lots of books, a few framed photos of his family, a blissful absence of holiday décor, and in one corner, a violin on a stand.
“Do you play?” I asked, pointing at it after Drew helped me out of my coat.
He shook his head. “No, not at all. It’s my grandfather’s. He just moved into a retirement home and didn’t have a place for it, so I told him I’d keep it here. I thought if I left it out, I’d be inspired to learn to play. So far all it does is make me feel uncultured.”
“I played the flute a million years ago. I’m not sure I could even read sheet music anymore.” My phone buzzed as I set my purse down on the brown leather couch. I pulled it out automatically. “Sorry. This might be my grandma. Oh, it’s my boss.”
Not Blake my boss, but rather Blake’s father. The big boss. Papa Haskell. Why on earth would Papa Haskell be calling me at nine o’clock on a Friday night? I frowned at the screen, but Drew nodded at me as if to say go ahead and answer it.
I tapped the phone. “Hello?”
“Kelsey?”
“Yes?”
&n
bsp; “Nick Haskell here. I need your help. It’s an emergency.” His voice was gruff and abrupt.
“Oh, my gosh! What’s wrong?” My first thought was of Blake, that something terrible had happened in Hawaii. My heart plummeted.
“As you know, Blake is in Hawaii.”
“Yes.” My lungs over-expanded, and Drew looked my way with concern.
“Well, with him gone, and me getting ready to head to Vail for the holidays, there is no one to take on a project that just came in. And it’s a big one, Kelsey. This could be the job that moves Haskell’s into the number one spot. This job could make us the biggest Christmas store in America.”
My head buzzed with confusion. “What?”
Papa Haskell went right on talking, fast and intense. “Since you decided to cancel your vacation, I thought you’d be just the person to head this one up. What do you say, kiddo?”
“I’m not . . . I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
“It would mean a few days back in the office, but you’d probably be home to Bell Harbor in time for Christmas. You see, we’ve been contacted by Harvey Spielberg. No relation to Steven Spielberg unfortunately, but Harvey is a production manager with Galaxy Studios. They’re doing a live production of Miracle on 34th Street to be broadcast on Christmas Eve, but all their set designs just got ruined in a mudslide, and they’ve asked Haskell’s to provide all the replacement items. Everything they need! A mudslide! Isn’t that lucky for us?”
“What?” I said again. My head was reeling. Was he serious? “That’s your emergency? You want me to work?”
He paused. “Well, yes, I want you to work. I know display consulting isn’t usually your area, but I’ve got complete confidence in you, and I assumed since you canceled your vacation, you’d step up and be a team player. The family depends on you, you know.”
“I didn’t cancel my vacation. I’m in Bell Harbor because my grandmother broke her hip, so I’m helping to take care of her. No one told you that?”
“Your grandmother? No, Blake never mentioned her. He just said you couldn’t make it to Hawaii. In fact, he was the one who recommended that I call you. So, anyway, what do you say about this fantastic opportunity? This could mean a big promotion for you, kiddo.”
