Page 10 of Love Letters to Christmas

Her pretty brown eyes break as she whispers, “That’s horrible.”

I shrug. “Not really. We were all busy with mail. But—still—this wholewarm mealthing you’re doing?” I smile. “It’s spoiling me something awful. So…” I reach for her dustpan and slip it from her hands. “…maybe let me clean up my own mess.” I get a wonderful idea. “Andmaybe after you’re done here, you could come with me somewhere?”

“Come with you…somewhere?”

I grin, and rise, scattering more fairy dust as I offer her my free hand. “Let me help you wrap up here, then we’ll go on an adventure.”

Lips parted, Amelia looks up at me, glances at my hand, then brings her shaking fingers into my grasp. I help her to her feet, but I don’t let go.

She tries to pull free; I don’t let her. Her slender fingers shiver in my hold. “U-um…”

“Hm.” I turn her hand over in mine, look at her palm, drag my thumb up from the center of her lifeline to her middle finger. “Your hands are really small,” I say.

“They…” Amelia’s breath quakes on her inhale. “…are?”

I swipe my thumb across her palm. “Yeah.” Practically fragile. I’m not used to people’s hands feeling so small in mine. Since I’m barely above average height for men at five-foot-ten, most of the time I find myself in the presence of giants.

Looking at Amelia now and remembering hugging her in this very spot, it’s kinda clear. She’s tiny.

“You’re cute,” I say.

Amelia squeaks as her mouth falls open.

Smiling, I release her hand, spin a flurry of glitter around me, and start toward my room. “Let me get cleaned up, then I’ll help you, so we can go on our adventure.”

“I— You— Uh—” She grips her hands to her chest. “O-kay. Yes. A-adventure.”

Heh. Yeah. She’s really so stinkin’ cute.

Chapter Five

Cute…like a gnome.

Amelia

I’m cute. Brian thinks I’m cute. He said I was cute. I’m cute.Cute.Me.

I’ve not breathed correctly for the past few hours. Working side-by-side with him in the kitchen, listening to him laugh at his own jokes, hearing him hum the song I was singing back when my brain possessed the capacity to recall tunes… It has been such a blessing to exist today.

And now, here we are, on ouradventureshopping for holiday decorations as though the day could get even better.

Brian, adorably, stares at an American eagle wreath made of fake feathers featuring the stars and stripes, and whistles. “Incredible.” He places it in our cart—our!cart! Because we areshopping!together!—and continues perusing the patriotic aisle of Hobby Lobby.

My eye catches on a bag of hard candies wrapped in flag-printed plastic, and I pick it up. “Brian.”

He stops, tilting his whole body back when he looks at me.

Smiling, I present what I’ve found as though my heart isn’t racing. “For the candy dish you keep at the front door?”

His green eyes sparkle as a smile overwhelms him. “You don’t say my name a lot.”

Forgetbreathing correctly. There goes my ability to breatheperiod.

He dips his chin toward the cart, indicating that I should addthe bag of candy, then he returns his attention to the displays, noting mildly, “You should say my name more.”

Okay, well. I have died dead. I’m gone. My spirit is floating somewhere else. I think, maybe, during our years apart, I forgot exactly how…BrianBrian is. He’s such a casual dream, and I’m not prepared for the attacks on my waking mind.

I know it means literally nothing. I know, logically, he is not flirting with me, at all. I know, deeply, that there is no room left in his heart for anything other than mail. When I started work with him in the mailroom just last week, I read thousands of words about his love of mail in the training manual he wrote, and I have since re-read parts as though it’s my favorite book, because it very well might be.

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