Page 30 of Lighting Up Christmas

“Thank you, but you must have things to do.”

“My mission, and I choose to accept it”—she saluted—“is to help out in the pop-up shop. So tonight, like it or not, my job is helping you and the other artists.”

“I’m not an artist,” he said quickly.

“I know the feeling,” she said.

He looked up at the two hanging lights sculpted into intricate balls from wine barrel staves and wrapped with lights. Were those hers? How could she not consider herself an artist?

“Let’s festive up your display,” she said.

Zhang tried not to wince as her gaze intently took in his modified wine barrel and bucket of ice with three ice wines and late harvest Riesling standing straight up like soldiers under review.

He braced and waited for her to say something. He might not know how to festive anything, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t it.

Another smile lit her face. “Take a sip of the coffee. It’s heaven. I’m going in the back to see if Sophia has anything we can steal that can help us out.”

We? Us, he pondered. It was presumptuous, and yet he liked it.

Don’t.

He tried to keep people at arm’s length for a reason. Too many people he got close to left. He “lacked resilience,” his mother had said over and over and wanted too badly to connect.

Zhang stared at the door Riley had disappeared behind, much like a dog waited for its master.

Disgusted with himself—he shouldn’t have come—he tentatively sipped the coffee that would likely be too sweet and cloying. Except it wasn’t. The warmth and burst of flavors—a rich dark chocolate, coffee, and spicy peppermint along with a layer of whipped cream and then the jaunty candy cane sticking out tasted like he’d always imagined Christmas would taste. He took another sip and closed his eyes to better savor the flavor.

“That’s the spirit,” Riley said. “Was I right? Heaven.”

He opened his eyes, so startled that he almost spit out the coffee. Clinging to his dignity, he swallowed and schooled his expression back to bored, indifferent, while noting that she held an explosion of holiday colors in her hands.

“I am still alive, so I cannot speak about heaven,” he noted drily. “But the coffee is rather good. Thank you,” he added stiffly, remembering the nicety at the last minute.

“Good,” she scoffed. “If someone says your wine tonight is merely good, I’m going to slap some adjectives down so fast they’ll take another sip and buy a case.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked cautiously. He didn’t know Riley well, but there was very little he imagined she wasn’t capable of saying.

“Make your face all bland like the Easter Island statues. You were savoring the coffee, which you were finding beyond good by the way, and then when I noticed and wanted to engage with you on your enjoyment experience, you shut down like a flipped light switch.”

She was perceptive. And nosy. And he could imagine what her expression would twist into if he tried to explain. But he didn’t want to.

He was used to silence. He lived in it. Jackson tolerated his silences. Lived with them and hadn’t taken offense, and then they’d both learned to use his aloofness and silence to the company’s negotiating advantage.

Riley cocked her head and regarded him, her expression rather scientific, which alarmed him. Most people looked away quickly. His eye contact was too direct and his face too remote. He’d heard it over and over before along with well-meaning advice. Most people quickly grew uncomfortable, tried to fill the silence. Riley absorbed it, analyzed it.

Then she smiled as if everything were normal.

“I brought the goods,” she said lifting her laden arms out toward him as if they were an offering. “May I approach the idolic god of Rogue Valley and please him with this offering?” Riley sang and sank down in a low curtsey before him.

He stared at her in confusion—embarrassment heating him inside. People must be staring, but he could not look away.

“What are you doing?” He was finally goaded into speech.

“May I approach?”

“This is ridiculous.”

Riley looked up, and he caught a sliver of green through her lashes that he hadn’t realized were that long and lush. Her full lips curved in a smile he’d describe as impish, only Riley was so tall and athletic that impish didn’t fit.

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