Page 14 of One Hundred Lights
“Is it everything you dreamed of?” I resist the urge to reach out and swipe the bit she missed. She grins and nods, sucking the candy cane in between her lips, having no idea what she’s doing to me. Jesus. I look away. A middle-aged couple walks in the door, holding hands and snuggling into each other.
“How are things with you and Reese?”
I take a sharp breath, not intending for it to be so audible.
“Could be worse. Could be better. We’re not quite the co-parenting stars that you and your ex are.”
“You’ll get there,” she says.
“I feel like a bad person.” The words spill out of my mouth, but they ring true. They’re the ones I think all the time but never verbalize.
“No, Adrian . . .”
“Wait, let me finish. Not because of you.” I turn my body toward hers, and she does the same. We’re so close. “You know how my parents were. I’m sure your brother told you stories. They were always fighting, making up, then cheating again. It was horrible. And after they got divorced, it was worse. They didn’t talk to each other, but just communicated through me and my brother. To this day, they haven’t spoken since their divorce—including at my wedding.”
“I’m so sorry.” Britt’s now fully facing me.
“Don’t be. I just want Reese and I to have the best chance at co-parenting. And I haven’t done a good job so far. She won’t really talk to me outside of text messages.”
“It’s all my fault. I tried to remove myself from the situation, but I’d already screwed things up.” Britt’s face crumples and she bites her lower lip. “I’m just sorry, A.”
Her old nickname for me slips out of her mouth so easily, and it’s natural for me to reach for her hand. She takes it without hesitation, linking our fingers together.
“Don’t be sorry.” I want to say more, but we’re on dangerous ground here. Holding hands, spending the day together, dancing around what happened, talking about it, but also not really at all.
How do I feel about her? I want to kiss her—I know that. I want to pull her to me and peel that heavy jacket off.
She rubs her thumb against the inside of my wrist and there’s a stirring in my groin. This is lust. Not love. Maybe she was confused as well. She thought she was developing real feelings for me, but they weren’t.
The thing is, this doesn’tfeellike just lust.
She pulls her hand away. “Let’s get going. We have eighty-six more boxes to find.”
I laugh. “Eighty-seven. Doable, I’d think.” We toss our empty drinks—a serious sugar high is coming—and climb back into the car. “My phone says the next store is twenty minutes away.” I start the navigation.
“This better be the one.”
“It will be. I promised you we’d hit the jackpot, remember?”
“I remember.” A smile is in her voice, and I match it on my face.
We walkinto the next store, hands no longer linked, but arms brushing against each other. Britt leads us directly to the aisle where the lights would be.
“Holy shit!” she screeches. An employee, wearing a Santa hat and struggling to fit boxes of lights from his cart onto the shelves, jumps back at her yelp.
“Sorry,” I say to him. But I can’t keep my eyes off of Britt as she surveys what we’ve found.
There are so many boxes of lights, they fill the shelves from top to bottom. She turns to me, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, hands in the air, pure joy on her face.
“Think this will be enough?” I ask.
The employee skitters away, terrified.
“Yes!” Britt jumps up and throws her arms around my neck in a celebratory hug, then stills and keeps her body against mine, head nuzzled in my chest. Warmth explodes in my body. Our hearts are beating in rhythm, our open jackets keeping only two layers of fabric between us.
Britt is in my arms.
I place my hands around her waist on the outside of her jacket.
