Page 48 of Deck the Fire Halls

I followed him in and stood beside him, both of us staring at the tree. “Uh, he dropped it off this afternoon.”

“Hm. You probably should give it a bit more time.”

“Oh.”

“We could decorate it tomorrow?” he said with a shrug. “I’ll finish around four, if that suits you? I mean, you can totally do it yourself any time tomorrow without me; I didn’t mean to imply you had to wait.”

A thrill ran through me. “That would definitely be date number three.”

His eyes darted to mine and he knew exactly what I meant. “It would be, yes. Date four, by some standards.”

I had to chew on the inside of my lip so I didn’t smile too wide. “Hm. Dinner and wine and...”

“And I’d like to say second base but I’m pretty sure once we get past first, we’re just gonna blow right past second into third and probably a home run.”

“Not if you use a baseball analogy we won’t be.”

He laughed. “Not a fan?”

“Terrible. Not the sport, just the analogy.” I grinned at him, glad we could get past any awkwardness and still be joking with each other. I went to the table and slid the box toward me. “Should we see what other amazing Christmas decorations the Home Mart had?”

Soren stood beside me and opened the lid to the box, only when he did, he sliced his finger. “Ow.” He instinctively put his finger in his mouth. “Paper cut.”

I pulled out a seat. “Sit down. I’ll grab my kit.” I came back from the bathroom with my small med kit. It held no more than acetaminophen, bandages, tweezers, cotton swabs, some saline, and alcohol wipes.

“You don’t have to do that,” Soren said. “It’s really fine. Just a paper cut.”

I sat next to him, our knees touching, and I took his hand. “It might get infected.”

He pulled his hand away. “But if you treat me, I’ll technically be your patient. Then there will be no euphemisms, no baseball analogies.”

I rolled my eyes and took his hand again. “You’re not my patient.” I inspected the sliced finger, took an alcohol wipe, and he hissed when I cleaned it.

I lifted his finger to my lips and blew on it, and it made him smile.

I opened a bandage. “Paper cuts, which are such a small nuisance infliction, hurt so much because of the damaged nerve endings in the epidermis, setting off mechanical nociceptors.”

He snorted. “Interesting.”

I wrapped the bandage around his finger. “And those nociceptors let loose a flurry of electrical signals that travel through your nerve fibers and into the spinal cord. Then nerve cells in the spinal cord relay those signals to the brain.”

“I happen to find your intelligence a huge turn on,” he said. “Just so you know.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. And you know I do have extensive first aid and emergency training, and I’m sure you forgot something.”

I looked at his finger—at his measly paper-cut-bandaged finger. “Is that so?”

“Mm.” Then he lifted his bandaged finger and pouted. “You need to blow on it twice. It’s the second time, that’s the key.”

I laughed, the humor and warmth in his eyes making my heart thump. But I took his hand and gently blew on his finger again. “Better?”

His gaze lingered with something I couldn’t quite read. “So much better.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOREN

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