Page 65 of Never Kiss a Krampus
“Bastian is… observing the shop.”
“Too bad. A hot, glowering Krampus would definitely increase sales.” She arranged a display of glittery snowmen with an artist’s eye. “Speaking of sales, we need to move a lot of stock today, honey. That bank appointment is getting awfully close.”
The deadline. The blizzard. Grinchly. It all felt like a heavy cloak I couldn’t shrug off. “I know.”
“So,” Jenna said, her tone shifting to something more serious. “What’s the deal with you two? For real.”
I busied myself with arranging gift tags, my fingers fumbling with the thin cardboard. “There is no ‘me and two.’ He’s here to… assist.”
“You’ve got ‘assist’ written all over your face.” She put a hand on her hip, her expression softening. “Look, I know you. You wear your heart on your ridiculously festive sleeves. You like him. A lot.”
Of course she saw it. Jenna had been my best friend since we’d both gotten detention for putting tinsel on the anatomically correct skeleton in biology class. She knew all my tells.
“He’s complicated,” I finally settled on, the word feeling inadequate.
“They always are.” She sighed. “Just be careful, Noelle. He’s not exactly… from around here.”
“Tell me about it.” I pasted on a bright smile and turned to greet the first customers of the day, a family with three small children who immediately descended on the felt reindeer ornaments like a pack of wolves.
The market was a whirlwind. A steady stream of people flowed past our little stall. I smiled until my cheeks ached. I recommended ornaments for every taste and budget. I wrapped purchases with surgical precision, my hands moving on autopilot while my mind kept drifting back to my quiet shop.
To Bastian.
Was he okay? Was he still standing by the window, a lonely, imposing figure? Or had he retreated to the stockroom, to the ordered sanctuary he’d created for himself? The thought of him alone in that silent shop, with nothing but my grandmother’s ghost and a bunch of sparkly reindeer for company, made my chest ache.
“Hey.” Jenna’s gentle voice pulled me back. “You’ve been staring at that snow globe for five minutes. Everything okay?”
“Just… thinking.”
“About a certain dark and furry consultant?” she guessed correctly.
“We had a fight,” I admitted quietly, keeping my smile fixed for the customers browsing nearby. “A big one.”
“Oh, honey. What happened?”
“He…” I lowered my voice further. “He said what’s happening between us is just an… accident. A byproduct of being in close proximity.”
Jenna’s jaw dropped. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“Well, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not, though,” I sighed, adjusting a line of candy cane-striped ribbon. “He’s… not human, Jen. There are rules. Consequences.” I couldn’t bring myself to explain about being “unmade.” The words felt too heavy, too final for the bright, noisy marketplace.
“So he’s scared,” she stated, and the simple accuracy of it struck me. “All that big, scary talk, and he’s just scared.”
“I think so, yes.”
“Then you have two choices,” she said, her tone taking on that practical, no-nonsense quality I loved. “You can either back off and let him stew in his own grumpy, self-sabotaging misery, or you can show him that some ‘byproducts’ are worth the risk.”
“That’s… a lot of pressure.”
“Noelle, you run a shop dedicated to the most hopeful, optimistic, occasionally illogical holiday of the entire year. You believe in miracles and happy endings and the power of a well-placed bow. Are you really going to let a seven-foot-tall horned creature tell you that what you’re feeling isn’t real?”
She had a point. A very good, very Jenna point.
The afternoon wore on, a blur of transactions and forced cheer. But my conversation with Jenna had planted a seed. A dangerous, hopeful little seed that refused to be stomped out. Every ornament I sold, every smile I forced, I found my thoughts straying to him.
