The Mistletoe Motive(37)
He’s still staring into his coffee like he’s not quite ready to face me after that. I wonder if, like me and my reluctance to open up before today, he’s been scared to be seen differently. I want him to know he’s safe with me, that knowing this about him feels like I’ve been given a key to a room of his heart that very few are allowed in, and that’s a gift I’ll protect fiercely.
Knocking his boot gently under the table, I finally earn his eyes and give him the words of affirmation that he gave me. “Thank you for trusting me.”
His eyes search mine, and he nudges my foot back. “Thank you for being safe to trust.”
“You can tell me from now on, okay? When you don’t feel well or when you need a break. Just like I’ll try to be real with you, especially when I’m struggling.” I pause for a moment, to try to find the words, because this matters and I want to say it right. “I know I don’t get it, in the sense that I don’t have diabetes, too, but…maybe I understand it a little, living with something persistent and beyond your control. You can’t take it off or walk away from it or lay it down for a while. And even when you’ve become accustomed to its reality, when it’s not really bad or good, it just…is, sometimes it’s hard when you’re with others. When you feel that sense of difference and distance from them as you deal with the part of yourself that they don’t understand, that you have to think about in social situations and in your daily life in ways they don’t.”
Jonathan’s quiet. But then his boots softly clamp around mine, our feet tangled under the table. “Thank you, Gabriella. That—” He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice sounds different. Quieter, tight, like he’s barely holding something in. “That means a lot to me.”
Our eyes meet. We lean close. A little closer. Warning bells ring in my head. His thigh is right there, between mine. I’m staring at his mouth, remembering our every perfect kiss.
And thank God, right when I’m about to grab my friend by the gorgeous evergreen sweater and kiss him into the new year, the bell chimes over the door, heralding a customer.
Chapter 11
Playlist: “The Holidays with You,” Sara Watkins
When the Big Sale Event—also our final day open—arrives, Jonathan and I have successfully spent the past eleven days behaving ourselves. No petty squabbles. No arguing about whose turn it is to make the coffee and who made it too strong. No juvenile shelf-switching or feature-table rearranging to privilege our preferred genres.
No frantic, breathless kisses.
It’s been devastatingly boring.
Except for the part where, as of yesterday’s total that Jonathan ran—with my supervision, of course, to make sure there was no funny business when he crunched the numbers—our December sales totaled twenty-five percent greater than last year’s and I am unequivocally in the lead.
I’m not exactly surprised, because while Jonathan’s still hustled with customers to make decent sales, he’s also spent a good bit of time frowning at his computer, shooing me away when I got too close. Every moment he was tap-tapping away on his laptop, I was out on the floor, logging more sales than him. A strategy that’s had me a bit stumped. What’s he been doing with that computer? I can’t begin to imagine, unless he’s started applying to those skyscraper downtown finance jobs, after all.
This should make me ecstatic. I should be running victory laps around Jonathan Frost to the Chariots of Fire theme. And yet, as I stare out at my bookstore kingdom, I feel no glory in my triumph. Instead, I feel very close to crying.
Which is absurd. This is what I’ve wanted—the bookshop safe, for now at least, my place in it secure. I’ve made peace with Jonathan, and we’ll part on good terms. In just a few days I’ll meet Mr. Reddit and hopefully feel every wonderful thing for him in person that I felt online.
So why am I on the verge of tears? What is wrong with me?
As I dab my eyes with the back of my hand, Jonathan joins me, hands on hips, surveying the store, which, I can admit, sort of looks like Santa’s workshop and the Abominable Snowman had a baby and it just threw up all over the place.
Garland, tinsel, fake snow, sparkling homemade papier maché and clay stars and snowflakes, kinaras, and dreidels, seven star pi?atas, menorahs, and solstice symbols, as well as shiny silver and gold curled ribbons dangle from the ceiling and, let’s be honest, all possible surfaces on which something can hang.
The air smells like powdered sugar and dark chocolate, citrus and fresh cut pine. Twinkly lights glitter across the tops of bookshelves, and iridescent metallic figurines decorate shelves and tables—reindeer, tiny gift boxes, and pine cones. The train set whistles softly on its tiny tracks, spinning around the base of the store’s Christmas tree decorated in white lights and jewel-tone ribbon, garland and ornaments, nestled near the fireplace.
Colorful stacks of books brighten every table the store owns, placing them front and center, within reach, garnished with clever little labels that list genre, tropes, themes, setting, and “If you like Such and Such Title, you’ll love this.” Beside the window display on one side is a massive table of pastries, which is next to another table of crafting supplies—cotton balls, paper plates, and glue to make snow people and winter animals like foxes, rabbits, and polar bears; gingerbread house materials; glitter and coffee filters to make snowflakes, finger paint and construction paper and colorful pipe cleaners to make any kind of festive craft a child could want, and pre-cut wood bookmarks for folks to decorate to their heart’s content.