Page 21 of Planes, Trains, and Candy Canes

“Uh. You wanna borrow mine?”

“No! But I promise I usually have smooth legs!” Reese called.

I’m so confused, Derrick thought to himself, sinking onto the edge of the bed. He peeled off his shirt and looked for his sleepwear in his single piece of luggage.

Oh, yeah. His pajamas were just a particularly soft and worn pair of baggy boxers. The only clean shirt he had left was another polo. His skin crawled at the thought of sleeping with a collar pressed against his neck.

She was going to shower with you. Nakedness, dude. I think she can live without you wearing a shirt.

He looked in the streaked mirror mounted over the “kitchenette.” Going to the gym had given him some muscular definition in his chest and arms. Nothing to put on a swimsuit calendar, but not bad.

“Can you look in my suitcase and bring me my shampoo? There’s none in here. Oh, and see if you can find my pajamas.”

Why does it feel like I skipped dating and went right into marriage?“Okay, what do they look like?”

Derrick slowly unzipped the single surviving suitcase Reese had managed to hold onto. Underwear, socks, jeans, bras, and a bag that looked like it had been attacked by a bottle of Elmer’s glue. “Uh... I think your conditioner exploded.”

“What?”

“I think your conditioner exploded—oh, God!” Derrick juggled the plastic bag containing several bottles. The thick white hair product had seeped through the plastic zip.

“My what did what?”

“I’m coming in!” Derrick bellowed after realizing there was no other source of water in the room and his hands were covered in lavender-scented slime.

“Ee! Okay!”

Reese’s head was poking out from around the curtain when he entered, shirtless and holding up the bag. “Your hair products, m’lady.”

“Oh, hell. My conditioner exploded,” she moaned.

“That’s what I said, and I’m covered in it, and so is half of your luggage. Also, that bag is full of underwear and jeans. And socks.”

“Gimme the bag. I’ll wash off what I can and—Jeff!! That bastard! The lid wasn’t shut.” Reese shook a teal bottle angrily.

He tried not to stare, really. It was just that in her rage, she’d come out more and more from behind the curtain, revealingslender shoulders, a cascade of thick, silky hair turned into a wet, dark river, and two of the most perfect breasts in existence.

And I’m standing here—with my wet, goopy hands and my jeans half-unzipped. And no shirt.

And this is. Not. How. I. Date!

Reese was staring at him as he avoided staring at her. A glistening wet arm reached out and gently removed his glasses and set them on the edge of the sink. “You’d better put your hands in here,” she whispered. “If you flush the toilet or turn on the sink in these places, you scald the person in the shower.”

“Will you go out to dinner with me in Pine Ridge?” Derrick blurted, looking at the ceiling, even as he nodded and allowed himself to be pulled by the wrist.

Reese laughed. “Yes. Will you go out for coffee with me?”

“Yes.”

“And a movie?”

“Mhm.”

“So, we have three dates set up?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know about you, but I usually wait until the third date before...doing things.”

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