Page 21 of Christmas Kisses

When the tree doesn’t appear to be moving, I ask Zane, “Can you push a little harder?”

“If I go any harder, I could break some of her branches,” he replies, his voice projected over the tree that stands two feet taller than him. “But if you’re okay with that, I’ll give it a go.”

I don’t want to hurt the tree, but wouldn’t it be worse if we left her out in the cold instead of showing her that it’s okay to incur damage if you’re still striving to live your best life?

“Push her. She’d want that. She would rather have a handful of flaws than a fake, loveless relationship unworthy of her beauty.”

“All right.” Zane peers at me through her thick branches before flashing me the grin he hit me with when the cab refusing our ride for fear the tree would scratch the paintwork moved out of the way enough for us to see the horse and carriage parked across the road. “Stand back. I don’t want you being knocked down with her.”

I almost say,Too late, but the worry in his eyes that I could get hurt stops me.

He truly seems oblivious to my flaws.

If only he were as blasé about Santa’s attention.

The carriage ride was everything a romantic lovestruck idiot could wish for. The horse was large and white, the carriage was covered with tiny flickering fairy lights, and the hot chocolate and blanket the driver supplied were as warm as the heat thattrekked through me when Zane placed his hand high on my bare thigh partway home.

I had never been so shocked, panicked, and horny in all my life.

I didn’t think anything could come between my rampant need for Zane to move his finger an inch higher and his demand for me to remain quiet. Then a familiar Christmas greeting filled the air, and a jolly man in a big red suit appeared out of nowhere on the sidewalk next to the carriage.

I would have worn hot chocolate for the second time in a week if Zane hadn’t guzzled it down at the start of our romantic gallop through the main streets of Ravenshoe.

I’m returned to the land of the living when Zane checks that I’m out of the firing zone. “Ready?”

I inch back a little more before replying, “Ready.”

Zane doesn’t push the tree into my apartment. He crash-tackles it inside, his maneuver as effective as our revenge fuck.

I once thought revenge fucking was made up by people wanting to excuse the swiftness of their ability to move on, but I know it’s more than that now. It’s about acceptance more than anything and that it’s okay to admit when something isn’t working.

I would have preferred if Peter had done that in a better way than me walking in on him kissing Noelle’s neck while ringing her Christmas bell with his thumb, but he got the message across better than the multiple times I tried to walk on both our relationship and my job position the past two years.

“Grab the stand,” Zane requests, returning my focus to him.

“The stand…?” I breathe out slowly while peering at him in unease. “Would that be the stand we should have purchased with the tree?”

“It works.”

“It does,” I agree with Zane, smiling.

Since I haven’t had a real Christmas tree since leaving home, I didn’t have a stand to keep her hydrated until the New Year, so Zane improvised with a steel bucket and some bolts from the maintenance closet of my building.

It was a fix-it job most couples would fail even after years of wedded bliss, but Zane and I cruised through it without a single hiccup. We talked, flirted, and sang along to the corny Christmas carols thumping out of my neighbor’s apartment like this has been our tradition for years.

Today has been so different from my last three Christmases. I’m almost grateful I arrived twenty minutes early for my appointment with Noelle. Peter’s betrayal will always sting, but shouldn’t the guilt of that weigh solely on his shoulders? I didn’t do anything wrong, so why should I be shamed by his actions?

I shouldn’t, so I won’t.

“Are you happy with where she’s sitting?” Zane asks as he steps back from the tree. “My mother spends more time aligning her tree than she does picking out her next husband.”

He has joked about his mother’s constant quest for new love multiple times over the past few hours. I don’t think he realizes how often he brings it up, but it is clear it bothers him.

“The position is fine, but do you think we should spin her to face the other way?” I step toward the tree that is so curvy and beautiful she’s hogging the entire main window of the livingroom. “She has a massive scrape down her trunk from her dramatic entrance and is missing a limb.”

“I think she looks good as-is. Naturally perfect and free of any encumbrances.” I realize Zane is talking about me and not the tree when he whispers, “You’d have no clue she drank all the other elves under the table last night.”

When I toss a reel of switched-on Christmas lights at his chortling face, he uses the long strip to lasso me toward him.

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