Page 40 of Sleighing You
Across the room, Mary Lou shifted her grandson off her lap and whispered to her daughter beside her. She stood and made her way over to us.
“She’s coming over here,” Ed said, his voice panicked. “Why is she coming over here?”
“Maybe becauseshe likes y—”
“Don’t say it,” he snapped, cutting me off.
I obliged him, doing my best to hide my smirk.
She approached us with that beautiful, glowing smile. “Ed.”
“Mary Lou.” He couldn’t have sounded more stiff or awkward if he had tried.
“I just wanted to say thank you for the drinks the other night.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, and in that moment, they didn’t look like two people in their sixties. They looked like two lovesick teens, unsure of their own libidos.
“Drinks?” Ed repeated.
“At Nick’s,” she said. “By the time we got them, you had left already, and I didn’t have time to thank you.”
Ed looked incredibly confused.
“Uh, I—” He stumbled over his words and I knew I had to act fast.
I interrupted Ed before he ruined everything. “We were sitting there having Nick’s newest cocktail the other night at the Ugly Sweater Contest, and Ed said to me, ‘You know who used to love peppermint… Mary Lou.”
Ed looked to me, brows still pursed in confusion between his eyes. “I did?”
“Youdid.”
His eyes snapped wider. “Right. I did. I said that.”
That flush in her cheeks deepened. “You remembered my love for peppermint candy.” She reached into her purse and pulled a hard peppermint candy from within it, holding it out for Ed.
His gaze slid briefly to me, spine stiff as he reached out to take the candy from her palm. “How could I forget,” he said. His expression softened in a way I’d never seen before from him. Moisture brimmed in his eyes as he smiled at her. “You also would keep peppermint oil in your purse.”
“That’s right. For my headaches.” She chuckled and pulled a small bottle out as well. “Want to go to Nick’s tonight?”
“With… with you?”
She nodded. “I owe you a drink, after all, don’t I?”
“You don’t owe me anything. But I would love to take you to Nick’s tonight.”
“Great,” she grinned, backing away toward where her daughter and grandson were sitting. “Then… it’s a date.”
As soon as she was back with her family, Ed spun to face me. “I’ll take that snow globe.”
Guilt edged into my gut. I couldn’t let him give this woman a generic snow globe. I reached instead for the peppermint bath salts and lotion set, handing them to Ed. “Actually, I think she would prefer this.”
Ed looked between the peppermint bath set and the snow globe and for the first time since I’d met him, he smiled. A big, goofy grin. “I’ll take them both.”
