Page 3 of Pining for Christmas

My heart sinks. He’s not—not looking at me properly. Jack empties the cash register, avoiding my eye, and I’ve got this sickly, swooping feeling. Like I’ve missed a step on the stairs. Like I’ve misread somethingimportant.

“Wait, Jack.”

I could kiss Gina for keeping him here a while longer. But then she reaches past me, grinning, and tugs open the drawer with his gift. He peers down into the drawer, and when he realizes what he’s seeing, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead.

“Santa, huh?”

“Made me think of you.” Gina’s smile is sly.

Jack laughs, but there’s a strain to it. Can’t she hear it? Am I the only person paying attention to this perfect man? I grab a cloth and scrub aimlessly at the bar, working my frustration out on the wood.

“What do you think, Clara?” My best friend elbows me. “Want to sit on Jack’s knee and tell him you’ve been good?”

My mouth goes dry. I stop scrubbing, still squeezing the cloth tight, eyes fixed on the bar.Answer, you idiot.“I, um. I…”

In the time it takes me to stumble over my words, I go from pale to bright, glowing crimson. The blush spreading hot over my cheeks—it’s damning. It tells the whole freaking world thatyes, that’s exactly what I’ve been picturing. What I’ve been yearning for in the dead of night.

Gina’s grin falters. She was joking, but I forgot to play along.

“Sure,” I say weakly, way too late. “That’d be funny.”

Funny.The way I feel about my boss is a literal joke. Kill me now. And when I gather up the courage to look at Jack, he’s staring like he’s never seen me before.

“See.” Gina snatches the red hat from the drawer and jams it on Jack’s head. She’s flustered, trying to cover for me, but we’re fooling no one. “Santa. Told you it suits you.”

Jack starts to say something, his reply a low murmur, but a customer waves from the other end of the bar and I stumble over, light-headed with relief. I serve the man in a daze, my hands clumsy and my lips numb, and I don’t look at my boss and best friend again. Not even once.

For hours and hours, I serve an endless line of customers, and I do it with dry, unblinking eyes and a blush seared into my cheeks. After a while, Gina comes to check on me, her words a soothing murmur.

“You okay, honey?”

I nod, still speechless with horror, loading the dishwasher with dirty glasses.

Gina hums, and the sound is miserable. “I didn’t know, Clara, I swear. I wasn’t out to cause you trouble.”

It’s obvious, then, how I feel about Jack. Exactly as I feared.

It takes a few seconds, but I force a reply through my tight throat. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

But itdoes.It does to me, anyway. Jack’s good opinion is the only one I really care about. And he’s done so much for me, and how do I repay him?

By pining after him. Making a scene.

I’m so embarrassed. So ashamed.

When the bar closes and the last singing customer spills out into the night, we clear up in record time. Gina and I whirl around the bar like demons are chasing us, wiping down tables and stacking chairs, rounding up glasses and restocking the shelves. Five minutes in, Jack comes out of his office again and leans on the doorway, watching us work. He doesn’t offer to join in this time, and we don’t ask.

His gaze is heavy on me. My cheeks flush brighter, and I blink back tears.

Jack’s office door closes with a snap.

“It’ll be okay,” Gina tells me, hugging me tight at the end of our shift. We’re standing in the doorway, snowflakes swirling in the moonlight, and I’m so tired I’m swaying on my feet. “He’ll have forgotten it all by morning.”

I nod, miserable, her dark hair tickling my nose. “Can you forget too, please?”

She squeezes me tighter. “Sure, honey. If that’s what you want.”

When the door closes, I’m left alone in the bar. It’s silent, no sound except for thepopof the dying embers in the grate and the echoes of earlier conversations still bouncing off the walls.

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