an ushering hand toward the inside of his townhouse.
I close my eyes and try to form a sentence. “I brought you a tree.”
He cocks his head. “You brought me a Christmas tree?” He looks past me again toward the truck. “Shoot. That completely shows up my earlier attempts at gifting room décor.” Ran disappears into the house and when he comes back, he’s got a long-sleeved Henley on and suddenly I’m able to think, breathe, and speak again. He skips down the steps toward the vehicle and slides the tree out of the bed, hoisting it over his shoulder, and presses past me on the sidewalk to enter the house. “Thank you, Maggie.” With the enormous tree still balanced on his broad shoulder, he slouches down toward me and gives me the faintest peck on my check before crossing the threshold. Everything in me goes instantly hot.
He’s already slipping the netting off the tree and looking around the room for a place to set it up, when I realize I’m standing outside in the freezing cold, but I’m still noticeably warmed by the shock of his kiss. When his dog bounds out the front door toward me, like he’s retrieving me to bring me inside, I bend down to pet him and follow him back into the house.
“Goldfish crackers and a Christmas tree,” Ran says, pulling out a tree stand from a hall closet. “Two very random, but very welcome, gifts. And you showing up on my doorstep unannounced. That’s random gift number three, my favorite.”
“The goldfish are for the tree,” I explain, sliding out of my jacket. I hook it over the back of one of the dining chairs. “I thought maybe we could make garland out of them or something if you have a needle and fishing line.”
“How very crafty of you, Maggie.” Ran rights the tree and settles it into the stand just to the left of the fireplace, which pops and crackles with an orange glow. “I think I have both of those.”
“You know what, Ran?” I help him balance the tree with a magazine under one of the stand’s legs. It still leans to the left just a little, but not as badly as before. “I was thinking of what we could use to decorate it and how we could make it personal, and I realized I hardly know anything about you. All I know is that you have a weird thing with lonely goldfish.”
Ran’s eyes squint. “Would you be surprised if I told you that you know more about me than almost anyone else?”
“Yes,” I admit, crouching down next to him at the base of the tree. “I would.”
“Well.” He pushes off his knees to stand and extends a hand down to me. “You do.”
Ran’s face is illuminated by the firelight and I want so badly to reach out and drag my finger across his features, but I keep my hands at my side, determined not to embarrass myself more than I have a history of doing. The way the glow highlights and shadows his face is so intriguing, just like his personality.
“So. What do you say we get some decorations on this tree?”
The goldfish garland doesn’t go as planned. After crumbling nearly half of the carton between our fingers—which Ran’s dog, Nikon, was happy to clean up for us—we decide that popcorn is the better route to go. More spongy, less crackly.
I head to the kitchen to pull a bag of popcorn from the cupboard and settle it into the microwave as I try to determine which keys I need to press to get the device to work. Why do all microwaves have to work differently? Can’t they make some universal one where you can just press START? Life as a whole might not be easy, but there are some things that should be inherently simple. Microwaves definitely fall into that category.
I’m still figuring out the electronic device when Ran comes up behind me and punches the keypad over my shoulder. “You know how earlier you said you didn’t know much about me?”
I nod, my back still turned to him. I can feel his body heat against my sweater even though he’s still a foot or so away.
“You forgot that lengthy list of all the things I’m really good at.”
“You mean the one about guitar playing and backrubs and cooking?” I feel my heart beating at the base of my neck and stare at the numbers counting down on the microwave to calm