Page 23 of Under the Mistle-Foe

Focusing back on Jett, I could see the conflict inside his eyes as he looked at me. “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he quickly said before I could continue my words. “I know how hard it must be spending the holidays here without?—”

“No. I mean, yes. It does suck, but that’s not what I meant.” A sigh of frustration slipped out of me. Was articulating feelings always this hard? “What I wanted to say is that I was a jerk yesterday. Any issues I had weremine, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. So…will you accept my apology?”

There was a beat of silence, and I wanted to look away, but those dark eyes held me captive, suffocating me until Isaw the sparkle in them. “If I don’t forgive you, are we going to stand out here until we kiss and make up, like Adam and Rob were forced to?”

My confusion must have shown, because he suddenly pointed up. I followed his action to see that we were under the mistletoe.

Most people knew it as the symbol of love, but it was also known to represent peace. Back in the day, if enemies found themselves under a mistletoe, they would let go of their grudges for the day and call it a truce.

Mom had taken the meaning seriously and would chase Dad and Rob to work things out under this very arch whenever they’d gotten into a huge fight. But since they were both so stubborn, they would often stand outside the diner, glaring at each other and making all the customers who walked through the door feel awkward.

“Are you going to torment yourself with the cold by picking up bad habits from them?” I asked back with a grin. I could tell he was only teasing me and wasn’t actually angry with me.

That was one thing I’d come to like about the man. From interacting with him these past couple of weeks, I’d learned that Jett truly was a kind person. He wasn’t one to hold grudges against others and was always willing to open his heart.

“Fortunately for you, I’m not a masochist, so I’ll forgive you just this once,” he said with a laugh.

“Good, because I’m not wearing a jacket and it’s getting kinda cold even for me,” I said as I opened the door for us. Jett followed me inside, shivering off the cold as he shrugged his jacket off.

I followed him to his usual spot and lingered even after he’d set up his laptop. Jett glanced up at me with a raised eyebrow. I rubbed the back of my neck. “One more thing…I also wanted to thank you. For being there and helping my dad when I couldn’t.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he replied. The smile that lit up his face did something strange to my insides. I rubbed my chest as I made my way back to the kitchen to do the morning chores.

Both the morning and lunch rushes went by in a haze as my eyes kept drifting to the front. Jett stayed the entire time, as usual. Mostly in his booth working on his laptop, but he would occasionally wander around chatting with others.

An unfamiliar feeling spread through me as I watched him laugh and be merry with our fellow townsfolk. I’d never been the possessive kind of friend, but damn if I wasn’t feeling jealous of how popular the guy was.

Was this how people felt with their best friends? Always wanting to hang out and be in their presence? My closest friend was probably Kaysen, but even then, we’d never hung out all the time. He’d been busy with the farm and me with the diner.

It worked great for us, in my opinion, so why did I feel so different about my friendship with Jett? Maybe it was because I was so used to him hanging out at the diner that I’d started getting possessive of his time?

I didn’t know, but now that the day was ending, my mind was fixated on what Jett would be up to tomorrow with the diner being closed and all. He probably had to work or had something else equally important he needed to do. He had a life of his own.

All the contemplation was really making me crave another smoke. But I’d already had one too many this week and was already going back on my plan of cutting back. So instead of driving myself through the wall with all the wondering, I marched my ass up front and asked him what he was up to tomorrow.

Jett blinked at me in surprise. Well, I was surprised too,buddy. I was never the clingy friend, and now here I was, intruding on his life just because I didn’t like the idea of not seeing him for a day.

“I was gonna take a look at Santa’s Helpers Animal Shelter. Word around town is they need more foster homes for the pets while they continue working on the pipes. Heard there was a pretty big leak not too long ago.”

See? I knew he’d already have plans.

Jett paused and chewed on his bottom lip. They were always an alluring red color, most likely stained from all the cherry flavor lollipops he was sucking on. The pop of color was too eye-catching on him, and that was probably why I sometimes had a hard time shifting my gaze away from them.

“If you’re free tomorrow…would you want to come with me?” he asked, almost shyly. I couldn’t say what I said in reply, because all I could remember was that damn crooked smile beaming back at me as we made plans to meet tomorrow.

I had a hard time falling asleep in anticipation of the following day. I didn’t even particularly like animals. They were cute and all, but I wasn’t one of those people who obsessed over fur babies so much that I’d lose sleep over them.

But that was exactly what had happened last night as I crawled out of bed feeling like I’d slept for exactly two hours. Not that I was counting or anything.

It took everything to drag my body through the morning motions. “You look like shit,” Dad commented when we sat down for breakfast. “You should plop yourself back into bed after you eat.”

I touched my face, wondering if I really looked that bad. “Can’t. Meeting up with a friend later.”

“Jett?” Dad asked, then took a bite of his buttered toast. Ihummed in reply. He shot me a toothy grin, looking silly with all the crumbs littering his face. How he even got some on his cheeks, I had no clue.

“I’m glad you’re making friends with him. Jett’s a good man,” he said. I hummed again, because this was something I already knew. His eyes studied me, as if trying to glean something from my expression, but I only gave him a raised brow in reply. “It’s nothing. Go have fun. Rob’s picking me up later, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

When it got close to the agreed meet up time, I made the short drive to Jett’s house. The nice thing about small town life was that practically everything was a short drive away.

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