Page 8 of Blame It On The Carols

“Thanks. It’s nice being back. I’d better get over there before they sign us up for more songs,” I joked, not knowing what else to say.

“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much with that.”

“Why not?”

He held up a stack of papers and shook them in the air.

“Because they’ve already signed up for all of these. Looks like you guys will be here for a while.”

I sighed heavily, knowing it was going to be a long night made even harder knowing that I would be stuck having to fight whatever these feelings were that I was getting every time I looked at Aiden. I was only supposed to stay in Sugarplum Falls for a few weeks, which meant I had no time to fall in love again.

Seven

Aiden

It was hard being aroundMakayla and not touching her like I wanted to. It wasn’t my fault that my body refused to forget the insane chemistry we had or that every time she walked past me, I smelled the familiar scent of the coconut shampoo she used. Her heart had imprinted on mine long ago, and there was nothing I could do about that.

After we closed for the night, I sent Jackie home while I finished up. There wasn’t much to do since she’d already had the kitchen crew clean up and prep for tomorrow. But still, I needed to keep myself busy so my mind would stay off of Makayla.

“What else do you need help with?” Sam asked, carrying the cleaning stuff he’d used to wipe down the tables. I’d told him he didn’t need to stick around since it was so late and he had an early day tomorrow. He was supposed tosellthe lattes, not drink all of them.

“I think that’s it. I’m just closing out the register, and then I’ll be done.”

“Cool. I’ll hang out for a few then.”

I looked over my shoulder as he sat on the barstool and folded his hands in front of him on the counter.

“Don’t you need to get some sleep? You’re going to be struggling in the morning if you try to pull an all-nighter. We’re not in our twenties anymore,” I teased.

“You act like we’re old.” He rolled his eyes. “You just barely turned thirty a few months ago, and I’m only thirty-five. We still have plenty of youth in us.”

“Yeah, but you’re already yawning,” I pointed out as he tried to hide it behind his hand. “You have work tomorrow, while I don’t have to be back until tomorrow evening. I don’t want you to be exhausted because of me.”

“I’m fine,” he said, waving dismissively. “Besides, Mary is opening tomorrow. I don’t have to be in until the afternoon. We have a few new hires, so I’m going in to show them around, and then we’ll do some of their training after we close.”

“You guys have had a lot of new hires lately. Why aren’t any of them working out?”

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