In A Holidaze(71)

“I should?”

Every head in the room bobs in agreement.

I stare at them quizzically for a beat before saying, “Okaaaay. I’ll do that.” At least it gives me an excuse to escape. I shuffle down the hall, rounding the banister to begin climbing the stairs, but my foot lands on something and it crunches beneath the sole of my sock. I lift my foot, pick the item off the bottom, and study the silver object.

It’s a flattened peppermint kiss. I’m lost in bewilderment for a breath, but then my eyes focus back on the floor, and I realize there’s another one only a foot away in either direction: one leading upstairs, and one leading back to the kitchen, where I would normally come in from a walk.

Hope glimmers silvery at the edges of my thoughts. I jog up the stairs and follow the trail of candy down the hall and around the corner. It leads directly to Andrew’s bedroom, and stops just outside his closet.

My heart is an absolute maniac in my rib cage as I pull open the door, and Andrew squints into the light.

“That was a monster walk, Maisie. I’ve been waiting to hide for like a half hour.”

I’m nearly too stunned to speak, but apparently not too stunned to burst into tears. “Andrew?”

From the base of the stairs comes a burst of applause and cheers.

“I told you to go upstairs!” Zachary shouts before it sounds like someone claps a hand over his mouth and carries him out of yelling range.

With a raspy laugh, Andrew pulls me forward into the closet.

I wonder if I’m shouting, but my heartbeat is so loud in my ears it’s thunderous. “What’s going on?”

His voice is gentle, and the tiniest bit suggestive: “What does it look like?”

It looks like he’s sweetly lured me here, like he’s staring at my mouth, like he’s about to kiss me. But given my fragile, blown-sugar emotional state, it would probably be a very bad idea to assume anything right now.

“Well.” I bite my lip and look around the small, dim space. Stating the facts seems like a safe place to start. “It looks like you left a trail of my favorite candy so I’d find you in this closet.”

He gives me a bright flash of teeth when he smiles. I feel his hand as it carefully comes over my waist and slides down to my hip, fingers pressing, coaxing me closer. “Any idea why?”

I’m on the verge of replying that, to be safe, he’d better say it, but the words feel tired and dusty in my throat. What comes out surprises me: “You wanted to get me alone in the spot where we first kissed so you could admit that I was right all along.”

Andrew bends and presses his lips to mine once, gently. “You were right all along, Maisie.”

I know he’s talking about us, and what I said in the Boathouse, but the smell of peppermint lingers on his breath. “I know I was: peppermint kisses are delicious.”

He laughs, exhaling a warm puff of air across my neck. “Did you know that they are in fact called ‘Hershey’s Kisses Candy Cane Mint Candies,’ and they’re ‘white creme and the refreshing crunch of peppermint’?” He kisses my throat. “Which means, of course, they aren’t technically white chocolate. I don’t have to shame you for loving them anymore.”

“Wow, thank you.”

His smile straightens. “You bolted out of the Boathouse so fast, I didn’t get a chance to say anything.”

“I felt like you needed space.”

“I wish I could come up with the words faster,” he admits. “I’m just not built that way.”

“But if you came up with words faster,” I say, “then you wouldn’t be able to grand-gesture in your favorite kind of space: a closet.”

“With your favorite thing: terrible candy.”

“Don’t be coy, Andrew Polley Hollis, you know you’re my favorite thing.”

His playful smile dissolves and his expression goes slack in relief as we drop the game. Andrew cups my face and plants a lingering kiss on my mouth. It deepens, and he pulls me closer, exhaling a quiet moan when his tongue touches mine. “Can I say it now?” he asks, pulling back a few inches.

“Say what?”

“That I love you?”

My ears pop subtly, like a door has closed, sealing out the wind. Andrew’s attention fixes on my cheek-splitting smile. “I love you, too.”

He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “And you don’t have to be back in California tomorrow?”

“I do not. I’m on a collision course with adventure and ready for anything.”

“This is good news.”

“Yeah, no kidding. The last thing I want to do is get on a plane.”

He laughs. “I just so happen to have a truck, and Denver is only eight hours away. Maybe we could take a little road trip.”

I stretch to meet him just as he bends to kiss me, and the relief is so powerful it feels like a rave in my bloodstream. Step one in taking charge of my adult life: I’m sleeping in the Boathouse with Andrew tonight. And every night, if I have my way. Electricity? Running water? Overrated.

He hums in happiness, slowly pulling away after a string of kisses that feel like sugared raindrops. It takes him a beat to open his eyes, and I swear, with that small sign that he’s in deep, too, I fall in love with him all over again.