Page 81 of Holiday Hostilities

“Do I look like a man who needs help, Griswold?”

She raises a smug brow as she studies the mess in the kitchen. “Yes.”

“Well luckily, I have a better idea,” I tell her.“Before we check out your apartment options, wanna hit up Essy’s?”

“Now you’re speaking my language, Marino.”

31

OLIVIA

“Last but not least, this is the bathroom,” says the landlord, a burly guy named Kris, as he pushes open the door to a small, but clean, room with white tiled walls.

I follow Kris into the space, Aaron right behind me. It’s a squeeze for three people, especially when one of them is as big as Aaron. I try not to notice the heat radiating off his body behind me, but every time I so much as breathe, I catch the now-familiar scent of his skin—warmth and clean laundry and the hint of some deliciously spicy, masculine cologne.

I refocus my attention squarely on the task at hand, which involves appraising this teeny, tiny but bright bathroom. Luckily, given my rather nomadic lifestyle lately, I don’t have many toiletries to take up space in here. My stuff takes up a laughably small corner in Aaron’s master bath.

At that moment, my eyes zero in on the shower, and I tumble back to last night.

His white shirt, wet and plastered to his muscular chest. His eyes on fire. His hands on my body…

Kris, who looks to be in his mid-forties and lives with his wife and kids in one of the building’s top-floor apartments, frowns. “Is it not to your liking?”

“Oh, no. It’s nice,” I say quickly, my voice a little shaky. I can’t let my wayward thoughts of Aaron’s mouth on mine distract me, because this place is perfect. It’s not a huge apartment, by any means, but everything is clean and well-kept, there’s a communal laundry room in the building, and it’s close to transit connections to the airport.

Most importantly, it’s a one bedroom, which meansno more raving roommates.

“Verynice,” Aaron adds with a note in his voice that gives me goosebumps and makes me wonder if he’s looking at that shower thinking the very same thing as I am. I crane my neck around to look at him and find him looking back at me, that same fire from last night sparking in his eyes.

I swallow thickly and turn to Kris. “I’d love to fill out an application form.”

“Great.” He looks pleased, but then, his expression morphs into one of concern. “Are you feeling okay, Olivia? You look a little hot. Would you like some water?”

Fml.

“Yes, Olivia, would you like some water?” Aaron echoes with a smile in his voice that makes me want to simultaneously slap him and drag him into this shower to test out its kissing capacity.

Last night, after kissing me senseless in his shower, Aaron and I returned to the party like nothing happened. Well,heacted like nothing happened. I, on the other hand, blushed like a tomato and lied about having pizza stuck in my hair when Jake—who had been super distracted with Sofia all night—suddenly took a keen interest in why my hair was wet.

A story which made Aaron smirk at me in a secret way that left me breathless.

For the rest of the night, he’d go out of his way to surreptitiously trail his fingers on my arm in passing, and there were a few moments where I found him watching me from across the room with such an intensity, it made me lose my train of thought mid-conversation.

I’m not sure what it means, exactly, or if anything like that will happen again. But one thing’s for certain: that was the best kiss of my life, hands down.

And more than that, as Aaron and I went from breakfast at Essy’s to three different apartment viewings this morning, I’ve realized that something has fundamentally changed in the way I feel towards him.

It’s been difficult, lately, rectifying the fun I’ve been having with Aaron and our meaningful, surprisingly deep conversations, with the loathing I’ve been carrying towards him for so many years. It was like I couldn’t put the pieces of him together to form a whole person that I had one opinion about.

But after what he said last night, it’s a little easier to blend thethenandnowversions of Aaron in my mind.

Although, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined him kissing me likethat.

I’m about to make some veiled comment about wanting more water—because I’m still wondering if Aaron is thinking about last night as much as I am, and if he’s not, I want to remind him. But when I look at him, he’s taken his phone out of his pocket and is texting someone at lightning speed.

“Um, no, thank you,” I tell Kris instead, once again trying to redirect my thoughts. “I’m good for water. I’ll just take the application form.”

I filled out an application for the first apartment we looked at, too, but this one is superior in every way. I’m feeling relatively excited about it as Kris leads us down to the lobby. He gives me a form, and then heads into his office. I look upat Aaron, wanting to ask his thoughts on the place and confirm that it’s a good find—because I do actually kind of care about his opinion—when his phone rings.

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