Page 57 of Pining for Christmas

Nothing to see here.

Noelle’s mouth twists, but she lets me change the subject like a coward. “A Muppet Christmas Carol.”

For fuck’s sake.

“You’re pushing it.”

“And you’re messing with my feelings.” When I whip around to stare at her, Noelle frowns at the screen, ignoring me as soundly as I just ignored her. “So I guess we’re even.”

Oh, hell.

“I’m not—”

“Besides,” Noelle goes on, talking over me, “you were right to stop us. It was a terrible idea, and I’m the one who saved that mistletoe. I got us into that mess, so it’s my fault. Sorry, boss.”

Mess?Sorry? Noelle is sorry for kissing me? For making me feel alive for the first time in my whole lonely life?

“That’s not—”

“I vote we pretend it never happened.” Noelle turns to me at last, smiling wide, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “We won’tbe the first boss and assistant who made this mistake, and we won’t be the last. It happens.”

Ithappens?

The most important moment of my life, the thing that changed me from the inside out, that turned me upside down and shook my insides around… was a mistake? A mistake thathappens?

If my stomach sinks any lower, it’ll reach the Earth’s core.

Because I know I messed up back there by leaving like that, know I made things awkward—but this is who I am.I’m the guy who needs a minute sometimes to get his head on straight. Things that come easily to most people—things like chatting and emotions—are an uphill slog for me. Noelleknowsthat.

I didn’t think she minded. Thought she accepted this part of me.

God knows she’s used to my stilted behavior. My moods, my grumpiness, my barked orders first thing in the morning as I stomp around our shared office.

“If that’s what you want.”

Noelle turns back to the movie, conversation closed. “It is.”

Noelle

The tricky thing about laying down the law is you also have to stick to those rules. And like a butt-hurt idiot, forty minutes ago I declared that Reid and I should pretend that nothing happened between us—that we never kissed so long and deep and hard that my bones turned to jelly.

Yeah, right.

He agreed, and my boss has been silent ever since. Withdrawn and pale. My heart aches every time I glance at him, his jaw harder than granite, those icy eyes fixed unerringly on Kermit’s antics. His damp hair is all rumpled from the shower, and his skin smells like the inn’s complimentary lemon-scented soap.

Is Reid okay?

Did I hurt his feelings?

Buthe’sthe one who ran away from our kiss like he was horrified. I did him a favor by drawing a line under it. Saved him from the thing he hates most in the world—an awkward conversation. Right?

It’s a relief when the movie ends and we can crawl under the bed covers. Part of me dreads that Reid will insist on sleeping on the floor, that he won’t allow something so pedestrian and intimate between us as sharing a bed, but he slides beneath the covers without comment. We both flick off our bedside lamps, sudden darkness filling the room.

Reid turns over, facing away from me, the sheets rustling against his clothes. He’s still dressed in his freaking shirt and pants, but hey. At least he’s not curled up in the shower tray, determined to keep away from my grabby hands.

“Night,” I say. My voice sounds weird.

“Goodnight.”

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