Holiday for Two (a duet of Christmas novellas) (15 page)

Snap out of it.

She splashed water on her face, and then took another good look at herself.

Harry loved her for
her
.

And she needed to get over these pre-sex jitters.

There were a few things she had to do:

1. Clean herself up, as the splashing water on her face resulted in the raccoon eye look. So not attractive.

2. Brush her teeth. Rinse with mouthwash. Get some mints. Spritz self with perfume.

3. Find the assortment of condoms in varying sizes in one of Harry’s brothers’ rooms.

4. Be herself.

5. Get out of this dress. Though she really liked the dress and she was sure Harry had, too.

Removing the dress was rather easy to do—the zipper was on the side, and she shrugged her way free.

Perhaps she should change her bra and panties.

But then again . . . perhaps she shouldn’t.

S
HE CAME TO
him practically naked.

He was downstairs, poking the fire, as the snow fell heavily outside. He had opened a bottle of Merlot. He was still amazed that no bits of cork were floating in the liquid—his grip had been slippery, his finger fumbling, as his heart jackknifed in his chest. They were really going to do this.

And he was way overdressed.

Her bra and panties were black and looked satiny. Her bra had red bows right over her nipples. Like mini bowties.

His heart gave another hard, swift kick, and his mouth was suddenly dry. He turned, searching for the bottle of wine and glasses he’d prepared. Red liquid spilled onto the faux bearskin rug the moment he lifted the glasses from the mantle.

Yes, there was a bearskin rug that his father had given to his mother as a joke one Christmas. His mother had returned the favor by giving him a signed Derek Jeter jersey. His father was a longtime, born-in-the-womb Red Sox fan. To be fair, the rug was atrocious and the signed Derek Jeter jersey hung on one of the walls . . . as a makeshift dartboard. So far, no one had beaten his oldest brother Truman’s record.

“Is that for me?” her voice was whisper-soft behind him.

When he turned around, she was going to be right there. Almost naked. All that soft, delectable skin that he wanted to sink his teeth in on display. He was going to touch her. Kiss her. Be in her.
Holy hell.
He still couldn’t wrap his mind around that.

“Harry?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, finally turning around, “this is for you.”

She took the glass of wine, sipping it. “Aren’t you going to have any?”

“Um . . . yes, definitely.” He took his glass and gulped it down in one fell swoop. His head swam, his blood heated—and it wasn’t just from the wine.

Her eyes crinkled in laughter as he stared at his empty glass. She touched his wrist, her fingers skating over his pulse. “You’re nervous.”

“Got that, did you?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said I was nervous, too?”

“You? Nervous?”

He knew Felicity. She was confident, assured, and knew who she was . . . it was very rare that she got an attack of nerves or had any self-doubt.

And when she did it was usually over life-changing moments, like the night before Fat Lady Sweets opened. They had spent the night together—not in
that
way. She’d come over to his place with a bottle of wine and a plain cheese pizza, and worried the whole night that the opening would be a bust. That her shop would go under. That she would go bankrupt and then be sent to jail—and, as she had told him, orange was not the new black, despite what that memoir had tried to sell—and that she would just be an utter failure.

He’d listened. He talked sense into her. He’d gotten drunk with her. And all the while, he had wished he could just lean over his kitchen table and kiss her. To comfort her as more than a friend. To hold her.

And now he could.

FIVE

“E
XCUSE ME FOR
just a minute,” Harry said. “I—I have to do something.”

She blinked. “Harry, what do you have to do that’s so important . . . right now?”

“Well, there’s no music.” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it. “Doesn’t there need to be music? To set the mood?”

“Um, not really. Plus, don’t you think this”—she gestured to the fire crackling in the fireplace, the snow falling furiously outside—“is setting the mood?”

Harry looked toward the window. “Are we supposed to get a bad snowstorm?”

“Harry,” she dragged out his name. “It’s December. It’s Vermont. Snow sort of goes hand in hand with that combination. If it
wasn’t
snowing, I’d be more concerned. And why are we talking about the weather anyway?”

He swallowed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m nervous.”

Of course he was. It was his first time, and Harry wasn’t a laidback type to begin with. He liked order in his life, and he worried more than he should at times, but that was the whole package of Harry. She wouldn’t want to change anything about him.

Except for the current conversation about the snow, of course.

“Nerves are fine,” she said. “I’m a little nervous, too.”

Although saying she was a little nervous was like someone else saying a little pregnant. There was no “little” about it. You either were or weren’t.

And she definitely was nervous. So much so that she was rethinking her whole seductive strategy for tonight. She really shouldn’t have come down here in her bra and panties.

She should’ve been naked.

Although Harry might have had a heart attack with that one. That wouldn’t have been good.

But as much as Harry held back . . . she usually never did. That wasn’t who she was. Why not take the risk? Why not go for it? What was the worst that could happen?

Well, she could be standing here, practically naked, with the guy she was desperately in love with focusing on music and weather instead.

It
was
his first time, granted, but if he didn’t loosen up some more, then this whole night would end up a bust. And she didn’t want that.

So she had to rethink. Restrategize. She needed him to relax and get caught up in the mood, like he was earlier when they’d kissed.

She looked around the room. Perhaps the setting was too overwhelming and for Harry to think and he couldn’t perform under such expectations. And maybe she should have worn her Wonder Woman pajamas when she had come down here.

Ugh, she had totally miscalculated. And she was thinking too much. And Harry was thinking too much. And when too much thinking was going on, it always ended in disaster.

She walked to the couch and grabbed the throw, wrapping it around her to provide
some
cover.

“Let’s just forget it,” she said, staring at Harry’s back and tensed shoulders. He hadn’t said anything in a while. He was worrying. He said he loved her, but maybe it was just easier to love afar for him. Build it up and then never go after it, like a castle in a cloud. It was harder to go after what you wanted because there was no guarantee you’d get it.

Harry finally turned to face her. “You don’t want to do it?”

“It?”
It!
Anger sparked in her. “Can you even say it?”

“Of course I can.”

“Then say it.”

“Felicity. I don’t get the point of this.”

“Say it,” she repeated. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Felicity.”

“Sex. Fuck. Making love. There, it’s that easy.”

“Why are you mad?”

She gave him
the
look. “You’ve got to be kidding, right? I come down here . . . and all you can think of is the weather.”

“I’m nervous!”

“So you’ve said.” She stood up, still clenching the throw tightly around her. “Well, guess what? Not everything is about you!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” She stepped up to him, poking him in his chest. “You’re making this whole night about you.”

He stepped away from her poking finger and grabbed it when she went to jab him again. “Well, I can say the same about you. You strut down here . . . like . . .”

“Babe,” she gritted out, “if you can’t handle how I am, then you don’t deserve me.”

“You’re just so . . .
there
.” He dropped his hold on her, striding over to the mantle. He glanced warily at the fire poker near him and shoved it behind him, as if she would use that as a weapon. Smart move. “You always are. You’re always in the spotlight. People flock to you. You’re just . . . you.”

She dug her fingers into her hands. “I’m always going to be me. I’m not going to change.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t.” Harry adjusted his bowtie, his expression shuttered. “It’s just that . . . I’m not an in the spotlight kind of guy. I’m not even the guy who waits in the wings. People don’t flock to me. I don’t want them to. But I
do
wish I was the type of guy who deserved you. Who could be so
there
like you are and enjoy the spotlight like you do.”

She managed to get the words out, her voice choked with frustration and hurt. “So you think I can’t handle you? That I don’t deserve you?”

“No . . . it’s just I don’t see how this would work.” One of his hands gripped the mantle. “How we would fit. How we would be together.”

“You don’t even want to try,” she said dully. “It’s what I thought. It’s safer to love afar for you. How long have you loved me, Harry?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“I love you. That’s what matters.”

“You love me, but you only love me in a particular way.” She pressed her mouth together. She wasn’t going to cry. “Love isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be.”

He crossed his arms across his chest. “I’m not an idiot.”

And just like that the threat of crying disappeared as anger spiked anew. “Really? Because right now . . .”

“You don’t understand. You never do.” Harry strode toward her, his blue eyes blazing. But he didn’t grab her. He didn’t get in her physical space. He just yelled at her from a safe distance. Just like always. She wanted to get in his space, rattle him, and make him fight for what mattered. “You just jump in and don’t consider the after effects. But I do. I think and think and think, and I look at every single angle. And sometimes, even though I really, really, really want something or
someone
, what I expect to come after will end up hurting more.”

“It’s sex, Harry,” she reminded him. “It’s not going to change anything between us.”

“You’re stupid if you think that.”

“Stupid?” She gasped in outrage. How dare he!

“Stupid. Ridiculous. Foolish. Of course it’s going to change things. It already has changed things between us.”

She pointed her finger to the notepad on the table. “Then what the fuck was that contract for?”

“I was stupid, ridiculous, and foolish, too. I kidded myself, making myself believe that we could just do—have sex—but . . . I just don’t see how it would work out.”

“I don’t understand you. You were all for this not even twenty minutes ago.”

“I just . . . thought about it.”

“Ugh!” She shoved a hand through her hair. “I knew I should’ve forgotten about dinner and that stupid contract and just had sex with you instead. This is what happens when men think. They go screw it up.”

“Hey,” he said, feeling the need to defend his gender. Didn’t she get it? She was precious to him. Too precious to lose. And while he did want to have sex with her, there was just too much at stake here. “That’s unfair and not really that nice.”

“I don’t feel like being
nice
right now, Harry. You always have the advantage, don’t you? It’s you who made the calls all along. You say you won’t tell me how long you’ve loved me, but I’m not stupid. You’re evading. So my guess is that you’ve loved me for a long time. You drew up a contract.

“You tell me you love me and that you want to be with me, but then when the moment is about to happen, you withdraw. It’s easier to say all these things, to have this fantasy in your head of how it could be. It’s safer. Because when it’s in your imagination, all those possibilities are still possible. It’s easier to dream instead of going for what you actually want.”

“What about you?” he countered. “You controlled things when we arrived. First with the whipped cream bikini. Then the dinner—”

“The dinner? Yes, Harry, I wanted to make a great meal. I wanted to attract your attention there. As to the bikini, I’ve been trying to get you to notice me since we celebrated Thanksgiving. I tried to be subtle. I really did. And the truth is that I noticed the looks you were giving me.”

He was horrified. He’d been that obvious? “Since when?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, throwing his earlier words back at him. “I noticed, and I decided to do something about it. Subtle, at first. Which is against my nature. And that wasn’t working out at all. So I decided, fuck that, and just decided to be myself. And, yes, I’m the type of girl who would whipped cream bikini herself to seduce the man I love.

“I don’t think you get that through your thick skull. I love you. I wasn’t lying when I said that. And I didn’t mean I love you as in you’re my best friend and I’ve known you since forever type of way. I love you as in I want to be with you and whatever that entails. I don’t need to figure things out tonight or tomorrow or even the weeks that follow. I’m more than happy to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.”

“See? That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t like rides. I don’t even go near an amusement park because there’s nothing amusing about them.”

“It’s a fucking metaphor!”

“I don’t deal in metaphors.”

“Really? You’ve been throwing a lot of metaphors around.”

“The thing is,” he said, trying to get back to his point, “I think you would destroy me.”

Felicity drew back, paling. “That’s what you think? You don’t know me if you think that. You don’t love me if you think that. Fuck you, Harry.”

She turned and started up the stairs.

“Wait,” he said, hurrying after her. She didn’t turn around to look at him, and his heart thudded in his chest. “It’s just that . . . I don’t bounce back as easily as you do. I don’t take risks because, ultimately, I know I’ll end up the loser. I’ll get hurt. And, yes, it’s safer, but this is who I am. Who I will always be. I’d rather us . . . just try and move past this. Be best friends like we are.”