Page 42 of Wrapped with a Beau

Ves sighs and explains. “I told you Elisha is helping with the house. Her mom made us a nice lasagna and some dessert the other night. Her grandfather brought it over and he was literally right here, man. Didn’t exactly set the mood.”

Before either of his friends can ask if he wanted it to be romantic, he hastily asks, “So how do I wrap these chocolates? And what do I do about the food containers? I washed them, obviously, but it feels awkward to just knock on their door and be like, ‘Thanks, here’s your stuff back and this box of chocolates to show my gratitude.’ ”

Even Ves knows that’s ungracious, but he has no idea how to play this. He has to assume Arun knows stuff like this, because he and Cade just moved into a town house near him in the East Village where their neighbors actually bring welcome cookies and just-because-it’s-Friday bottles of wine like they’re in a sitcom. Ves has lived in the city his whole life and has never encountered people that eager to be friends.

“So this was a homemade meal,” Arun says slowly. “From scratch? Not, like, lasagna sheets with a bag of frozen peas and a jar of Ragú?”

Ves is appalled. “What lasagnas from hell have you been eating?” He hears Cade snicker in the background.

“He who mocks can fend for himself,” Arun snaps. “And he who laughs doesn’t get sex tonight.”

Both Ves and Cade shut up quick.

“Chocolates are nice, but impersonal,” says Arun. “We just got some lovely peppermint bark from the sweetest little Midwestern girl two doors down. I’m making some polar bear–shaped sugar cookies in return. They’re so cute, I’m coating them in buttercream icing and desiccated coconut—”

Ves crookedly smiles. Arun could ramble about baking forever if he and Cade let him.

“—Anyway, my point is, it’s always a classy move to return containers with something homemade inside.”

“Okay, so where would I get that?”

Arun breathes noisily. “From your home.”

Horrible realization bubbles in Ves’s gut. “So when you say homemade, you mean... actually made in my home... with my actual hands.” He stares at the limbs in question, trying to work out the mechanics.

“That would be the definition, yes.”

In the strained silence that follows, Ves is positive the soft gulping sound is Cade or Arun unsuccessfully trying not to laugh. Possibly both of them. Probably both of them.

“I’m hanging up now,” says Ves.

“Wait—”

Ves slips his phone into his pocket. He can fry up bacon, poach an egg, maybe even do a mushroom-cheese omelet if he’s feeling fancy, but none of his cooking, let alone his baking, is at a level that he can offer it as a return gift. Why must people like Arun go to all this polar-bear-cookie effort? If everyone could just do nothing, then they wouldn’t have to bother with these social niceties.

Except... that’s how a Grinch thinks, isn’t it?

He leaves the containers for later and decides to bring the chocolate box in the gourmet grocery’s prettily decorated bag and marches for the door with it hooked around his pinky. As he heads down his front path in his favorite Chelsea boots and meets the sidewalk, he can’t help but wonder which window of the house opposite is Elisha’s. If she’s already at the Chocolate Mouse party. What she’s wearing. Whether she’s thinking about him.

Ves groans, running a hand over his face. Adjusting his thick red scarf over his buttoned, immaculately lint-rolled coat, he trudges on toward Main Street. Flurries dance around his head, big ones the size of quarters. Every step tempts him to catch one on his tongue like he’s seen some of the kids do.

He’s thirty years old and is no stranger to snow, so there’s no need to be this wistful, but when has he ever noticed it like this before?

Everyone’s breath steams in the brisk mid-December air. People make eye contact as they pass Ves: smiling old men doffing flat newsboy caps, women in outrageous stiletto-heeled boots clutching their dates’ arms as they head into brightly lit restaurants. He sidesteps the sandwich board outside the Chocolate Mouse to let a middle-aged couple pass, returning their smiles in a way that still feels a little forced.

The party is well under way by the time he arrives. No one hears the bell tinkle or sees him enter, which gives him a moment to take it all in. The fragrance hits him first, as though he’s dived headfirst into a giant bowl of spiced punch. If he has to be sentimental, he would say that it smells the way Christmas-scented candles only wish they could. Where the vaulted ceiling, open to both the first floor and the ivy-draped balconied second, gleams silver and gold. Fairy lights twine with translucent paper snowflakes, glittering against silver acorns and gold-dusted pine cones.

Ves breathes in sugar cookie, spruce, and mulled wine. There must also be a wood-burning fire somewhere, because the back of his throat tickles with the hint of smoke, and something else, too. Spicy and citrusy. As he makes his way past the entrance and the opportune mistletoe suspended from oak beams, peppering the aisles full of tall shelves stacked with nutcrackers and ballerina figurines, he discovers the source: bundles of cinnamon sticks and clove-studded oranges strung across the mantel.

Every single lamp is on, casting halos of light against the partygoers, who are milling around sipping from cut-glass goblets and nibbling at finger foods. There’s plenty of space for the large crowd, as though the floor plan has been rearranged to look less like a store and more like an experience. Choral Christmas music plays from vintage-looking radios that have an iPhone plugged into the dock. There are lush wreaths and artificial trees everywhere, decked out in ornaments and tinsel, white cotton fluff banked in clumps to resemble snow.

Nothing about this is garish at all. In fact, it’s kind of perfect. Enchanting, even.

His attention breaks when two blond women start to approach him, whispering in each other’s ears and giggling. A redhead in the corner abruptly ignores the man speaking to her in favor of ogling Ves.

“Ves, you made it!” booms Dave’s voice. He makes his way through the crowd, bypassing the blonds so fast that by the time he reaches Ves, he’s a little ruddy-cheeked. Although that could also be from the generous pour in his tumbler. He pumps Ves’s hand exuberantly with both hands.

This time, Ves’s smile comes naturally. It’s impossible not to be fond of Elisha’s grandfather, who has always greeted him with warmth and welcome. “I thought you said it was just a little party?” He arches a brow at the room. It’s like the whole town is here, with more people bustling in by the second.

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