Falling By Firelight (Christmas Romance)

by Rose Ivory

  As she contemplated putting on underwear, something she should have thought to do before but had blown past in her panic, her cell sounded in the living room. A call. Kate’s stomach clenched. She raced toward the couch, grateful for the sticky dots that coated the bottom of the pajama’s feet, lest she slide her way straight across the floor. She reached her phone on the third ring, raising it. Unknown Caller. The air left her lungs. This is a good thing. This is a good thing. Be strong for the good thing.

  Trembling from the nerves, Kate hit accept and raised the phone to her ear. She squeezed her eyes closed. Waited. “Kate?” Her stomach went leaden. Her mouth dried. Any color drained from her creamy skin. “Kate, this is you…isn’t it?”

  “Matthew.” Her voice was hollow, flat. She didn’t need to raise the tone at the end. It wasn’t a question. She’d know his voice anywhere.

  “Yeah. Hey, Kate. Thought I didn’t have you there for a sec.”

  You don’t. You never should have. Why the hell—“What’s up, Matthew?”

  “Well, after the party, I wanted to call. But I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me.”

  She waited. Silence. Kate crossed her free arm tight across her chest. “OK.”

  “So I thought I’d call now and say, well, Merry Christmas.”

  Her eyes fell shut. Her mouth barely opened. “Merry Christmas, Matthew.”

  “It’s been a while, since we…it’s nice.” She said nothing. A few moments ticked by before he cleared his throat. “And I just thought I should, you know, let you know. Tell you personally that Miranda and I are expecting.”

  “That’s great.” She opened her eyes, watching the snow fall through the pale morning light. “Isn’t it a little early for that kind of call?”

  “Oh, well,” she could hear him tense up even over the line, “Miranda is still asleep, so I thought—“

  “Ah.” Her lips curled into a somber smile. “Was there anything else then?”

  “No, really, I just, I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and happiness. Well, general happiness. You deserve so much. In your life.”

  “Great.”

  “And I miss you.” Kate’s tired eyes flew wide. She blinked in disbelief, a few times, looking around herself. “Kate?”

  “You don’t get to say that, Matthew. You don’t—“

  “I always hoped that, at some point, we could be friends.”

  “You don’t get to be my friend.” Kate’s voice sharpened to a point that could cut glass. “You gave up any right, no, not even, you gave up any chance of getting to be my friend, Matthew. And you know that. And if you don’t, you’re even more self-absorbed than I’d realized, or could ever imagine.” Silence. Kate cocked her head to the side, waiting. “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was so quiet that she barely would have been able to make out the words. If they hadn’t been the same he’d repeated to her on a loop since it all came out.

  “Lovely. Merry Christmas to you too then.” She went to hang up the phone, but paused. Kate held it away from her ear, but kept the mic close to her lips. “And congratulations. Really.” She hit the red button and dropped her phone to the couch. Without waiting to see how it landed, she turned and made her way back into the kitchen. Stopping at the kettle, she took its handle in her grasp, then paused. No, my dear, caffeine will not be enough this morning.

  She let go and went instead to the fridge, scouring a bottle of Prosecco from one of the bottom shelves. Kate filled a tall glass with the bubbly wine, topping it with just an inch of OJ. The pale, pale orange of the drink made her smile. Now that is what I call a mimosa. And anyway, it is a holiday. She trudged back in front of the fire and fell onto the leather couch. With the raw heat of the hearth kissing her face, the cool, refreshing notes of the mimosa were even more satisfying.

  Mid-sip, Kate’s phone sounded again. She shot it a deathly glare. Dear lord, please, please make it stop. Reaching out a tentative hand, Kate flipped the phone so that the screen faced up. Elena. Sighing, mostly from relief, she accepted the call.

  “Merry Christmas, Elena.”

  “What?” Over the staticky line, her friend’s hiss was especially pointed. “How can you say that to me? Merry Christmas? Really, Katie? Really?”

  Kate fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Um, because it’s Christmas? And you celebrate Christmas? And that’s what you and the family are supposedly doing right now?”

  “God, Katie,” she whispered. “Sometimes you are insufferable. You really are.”

  “Why are you being so quiet? I can barely hear what—“

  “I have maybe two minutes, OK? I’m barricaded in the bathroom and I’m guessing that in no more than two minutes, those kids are gonna find me, burst in here, and drag me out to do gifts. They’re like homing, homing…what’s the thing that homes?”

  Kate grinned. “Pigeons?”

  “No, more like bombs. The missiles that hone. Anyway,” a new fervor came to her voice, “what happened with the man?”

  Kate’s face fell. Her grip on the glass tightened, shading her knuckles a ghostly white. Two painful calls in one morning? Really? “What man?” she muttered, quickly filling her mouth with a hearty helping of cocktail.

  “The man you were supposed to be bringing over to your home? The one you wanted to have dirty nasty sex with?”

  “Oh come on, Elena,” she snapped. “I at not point said I wanted to do anything like that.”

  “Wait, are you OK?” Her friend’s voice went heavy with concern. “Did something happen?”

  I could just say it didn’t. In some ways, it really didn’t. Just not the physical ways. Even through her sour mood, Kate’s cheeks colored at the thought of Nolan on top of her, holding her close to his rugged frame. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Something happened. But it wasn’t,” she took a deep breath and blew it out hard, “it was a one time thing”

  “It doesn’t sound like you want it to be.”

  “Well, I agreed to it being that way. And he wasn’t here when I woke up, so, yeah.” Kate threw back her mimosa, drinking deep. The bubbles tickled the back of her throat, edged at her nose, but she kept on.

  “Kate, what are you doing right now?” She struggled to swallow her massive mouthful, getting it down with some effort. “Are you drinking?”

  “Mimosas are a morning drink. It’s brunch.”

  “Are you eating anything?”

  “Cookies,” she answered, shoving one into her mouth.

  “Oh, well that’s good at least.”

  “Mhm,” she grunted, chewing. On her near-empty stomach, the booze was doing its job quickly. She felt a little looser already. A little less frustrated. A little less sad.

  “Katie, I support day drinking, but not drinking to numb oneself from emotional vulnerability. So I’m gonna say what you don’t want to hear now: even if you agreed to do a one time thing, you’re allowed to change your mind.”

  Kate scrunched up her face, swallowed. “Not really.”

  “Yes, you are. Maybe you can’t make him want more. But if that’s what you want, then you can at least ask.” Over the line, Kate heard what sounded like a battering, or a very light-footed stampede. “Oh shit,” Elena hissed. The muffled cries that followed made Kate’s eyebrows vault up.

  “What the heck is happening over there?”

  “They found me,” Elena groaned. “OK, I have to go. But really, Katie, don’t stay small.”

  Her brows dropped back down, miffed. “I’m sorry, how am I small?”

  “Don’t stay in your comfort zone, pretending you don’t want this guy, because it’s easy. Do the scary thing. You’re sure as hell brave enough to do it. You just have to tap into that. And you can.”

  “Alright! You have been heard.”

  “Then I’m off. Merry Christmas, chica.”

  Kate sighed, but let a small smile sneak through. “Merry Christmas, babe.”

  The line went dead and Kate dropped her arm to the
side. She raised the other hand and the glass it held, polishing off the rest in one go. Lowering it to the side table with a clink, she swung her legs up and reclined on the plush leather. Her eyelids fell. Her pulse slowed. A lightness filled her body, coming close to peace.

  He’s probably cold. Her eyes shot back open. Nonono, Kate. No. We aren’t doing it. You’ve been out of the dating game for so long, and this is not how you get back in! We do not need to make a fool of ourself in front of the first man who shows interest in us, the first man who touches us in…shit.

  Kate covered her face with her cool hands. Be sure. If you’re going to pull some nonsense that you’ll think about every night and cringe and wish you hadn’t done, assuming it goes badly, which is safe to assume, if that’s what you’re about to do, you need to be sure.

  Maybe it was Elena, or the booze, or maybe it was the resistance spooling in her since the call with Matthew, but Kate sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the couch and pushed herself up to standing, wobbling just slightly. Fine. Then let’s get it over with. In a slight haze, she threw on her coat. Shoved her footied feet into her snow boots. She checked that she had her keys, then buckled down, charging into the storm.

  Though it wasn’t much of a storm anymore. It was a much lighter snowfall following the madness of the day before. If anything, she was the storm. A whirling chaotic mass of emotions, of lines to say, of grievances and soft spots, swirling madly as she blew across the cul-de-sac to Nolan’s door. When she reached the front step, she knocked hard. Three times. Kate folded her arms tight, securing any warmth she could to her. Nothing. She waited, and nothing. Just when she was about to give up, Nolan swung open the door.

  Just the sight of him started the melting process, the thawing inside her chest. Kate cleared her throat. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” He opened the door wider, honey eyes warm on her as she stalked past him. At least he seems normal. Good for him. As soon as he had shut the door, Kate squared her shoulders toward him.

  “You left this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “Why would you do that? It’s freezing. This place,” she shoved her arms out stiffly to the sides, “is freezing. You could get seriously sick. Was it really so awful or awkward that you had to run out into—“

  “Kate,” he cut in gently, “I was going to come back.”

  Some of the wind left her sails, the bluster falling away from her voice. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you’re right. I could get seriously ill over here.” The glint in his eyes looked like it belonged attached to a joke. Somehow that infuriated her even more.

  “It’s not funny. You have a daughter to think about. Children have delicate immune systems. And why would you leave in the first place? If you were just grabbing something, you would have been back by—“

  “Can I show you?” Kate paused. Nolan held out a wide, rough hand, the palm facing up. She hesitated, bit her lip.

  “Is it gonna be something weird?” Why would you even say that?

  A lopsided grin spread across Nolan’s now stubbled face. She’d never seen him with stubble before. It must have grown in during the night. It was few shades deeper than his hair, more brown than blonde. The darkness of it on him was decidedly rugged. Mmm, she thought weakly, resolve crumbling. I do like that. “It’s nothing weird,” he said. “I promise.”

  Hesitantly, Kate took his hand. He led her through the living room, across the tiled floor of the kitchen, and stopped at a doorway that exuded cold. Nolan met her gaze, held her there for a minute as the thaw deepened, then swung open the door.

  It was his garage. And a woodworking shop. All in one. Tools gleamed in the dim morning light as it filtered through the tinted windows of the space. The scent of sawdust hung thick in the air.

  “Were you just working? Now?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I…” Nolan shifted his weight between his feet. Cleared his throat. Kate’s head tilted, entranced by the first show of real insecurity that she’d seen from him in the few weeks they’d known each other. “I thought, because it’s Christmas, and you can’t be with your family, I might…make you a gift.”

  Kate bit the corner of her lip as her smile grew. “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, but, I started over. I was making a wine rack because, really, I don’t know that much about what you like. But I knew wine was, one of those things. But then a wine rack felt too, I don’t know, basic?”

  Her carefully manicured brows arched up as she took a step toward him, resting her hands on his chest. “Basic?”

  “Pretty much.” He smiled down at her, covering her hands with his. “So I was improvising. Trying to come up with a new gift.”

  “You should be careful,” she said. “That’s a pretty sweet thing to do. I could easily misread that, even if you’ve told me very firmly that you’re not interested in being anything other than friends.”

  He tightened his grip on her hands, pulling her closer. She arched up to meet him, their mouths just inches apart. “I see how you could get that idea.”

  “Mhm, so you should probably be careful.”

  “I know. I do know. But the thing is,” Nolan took a deep breath, Kate watching him intently, “I might have been a little too firm. About all that.”

  “Really?” She tilted her head to the other side. “How so?”

  “While, yes, I do think that I believed those things—“

  “Believed as in past tense?”

  “—I’m not so stupid that if something great is right in front of me, I’m going to cut myself off from it.” His eyes softened, holding her in place, surging a gooey flutter in her stomach. “I may just be a landscaper, but I’m not quite that dumb.”

  “You’re a landscaper?”

  “Mhm. I own my own business. That’s what I do.” Talking about anything other than the matter at hand, especially in this tensely close embrace, felt silly. Almost as silly as she felt realizing that she’d had no idea what he did for a living. There was so much more Kate wanted to say, wanted to know about him, but it would have to wait. For one very important confirmation.

  “So,” she breathed. Suddenly everything was very breathy, her lungs seeming to forget how to work in the face of the most daunting question. “What does all that mean then? About being friends.”

  Nolan lowered his face to hers as she arched up, making it so that their lips just barely touched. “I don’t want to be friends,” he murmured.

  “Good,” she said through her smile. Sliding her hands around the base of his neck, Kate pulled Nolan into a kiss. He held her close, hands passing smoothly over the bulk of her jacket. As the kiss deepened, he unzipped the heavy coat and, paused. He pulled back slightly, taking in the fleece patterned onesie that lay beneath.

  “What is that?” he asked, bemusement creeping into his voice.

  “It’s pajamas.”

  A devilish glint came to his eye. “Are you wearing anything underneath?”

  “Actually no.” His brows vaulted. Clearly he wasn’t expecting that answer. “It wasn’t on purpose. It’s just how it happened.”

  Nolan raised a hand to the zipper embedded in the fleece, keeping the other supportive on the small of her back, and opened her like the greatest Christmas gift. She held his gaze as he slid his cool hands inside the opening, arched blissfully as he wrapped them around her waist.

  Nolan looked adoringly down at her body, then up into her eyes, wrapt. “You’re incredible,” he murmured.

  “You think that now, but maybe it’s just the holiday going to your head.”

  He looked hard into her, firming his rough hands where they gripped her waist “No,” he said.

  Kate’s hardened, jesting facade fell away and she melted into him. She crushed her mouth against his. Ran her stiff, cold fingers through his hair. Even in the chill, she didn’t shiver. She didn’t need to. She had something else to keep her war
m.

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