Page 30 of Snowed In With The Second Chance Daddy

She smiles back. “We can split one.”

“Okay, one pretzel, please.”

Once we get our pretzel, we head over to the condiment station and start arguing over the types of mustards they’re serving. Brown mustard, yellow, German, Dijon.

“I need a little of each,” Iris says. “I just want to try them.”

“We don’t have room on the plate for all of them.”

“Yes, we do, just a little pump of each one and–”

Suddenly, from above, a sprig of greenery appears between us.

“What the–”

It’s a bunch of mistletoe on a fishing line attached to a pole held by a gangly man dressed in lederhosen. “The mistletoe has chosen you!”

“Oh, no, we’re not–” Iris tries to explain.

I rub my chest, trying to calm my throbbing heart. “Yeah, we’re just friends. We can’t–”

‘Friends’ is putting it kindly. We’re more like enemies than anything. Except to the outside eye, I’m sure it looks friendly.

I bought her a gift, kept her warm from the cold, now we’re bickering like a married couple over mustards.

“Friends to lovers! The best kind of all!” The man smiles nonplussed by our rejection.

Ohgod.

“Come now, give her a kiss!”

That’s when I realize we have an audience. A bunch of strangers are looking on, waiting for us to fulfill the Christmas promise of a kiss under the mistletoe.

“Is mistletoe even a German tradition?” Iris gives a nervous laugh.

“Kiss her! Kiss her!” people start chanting.

I could die from mortification. “Okay, fine, let’s just–”

Iris’s eyes widen. “You don’t have to do this, Trevor.”

“Can I kiss you to shut them up?” I’m not going to force her to do it, but it would certainly help this awful situation.

Iris glances around, then nods. “Fine. Just do it.”

Let’s get this over with.

I touch her cheek.

This will be the last one. Officially.

An annoying voice inside me says, “Make it count.”

Or maybe that’s the lederhosen guy.

I press my lips to hers in a chaste kiss. Long enough to appease the crowd and short enough to not make a thing out of it.

Who am I kidding, though? The second my lips are on hers, all the memories flood back at once. All the kisses. Small ones. Grand ones. Perfect ones. Messy ones. All the kisses we’ve ever shared collide in my brain.

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