Dreaming of His Pen Pal's Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,39
three...”
Journee took a deep breath and threw a tremulous smile in Dante’s direction. His face looked stern, serious, and focused.
It looked the opposite of everything she felt.
“... Two, one...begin!”
There was no gunshot; they didn’t even ring a cow bell. But Christmas music did immediately start blasting out of the speakers.
Journee found it a little distracting as they hurried over the chimney.
“He said we had to go up and down, so that’s kind of the opposite of what you’d expect Santa to do but shouldn’t be too hard.” Dante bent over and looked in the makeshift fireplace. “How sturdy do you think this thing is?” he asked as he wiggled the stones.
“It’s probably a good question for you, since you’re the biggest guy here. If it’s not going to last through someone climbing it, you’re probably the one.”
Dante froze, then turned slowly to look at her. “I think she just called me fat.”
“I think he’s digging for compliments on his muscular physique. How about we focus on the competition, and we can talk about your muscles later?”
“Now she just called me a dumb jock.”
She laughed. “This is a great time for you to get supersensitive.”
“Hey, big guys have feelings too.”
“I thought guys didn’t have feelings?” she asked, bending over beside him and looking up the chimney. “Do you want me to go first?”
“I think chivalry demands it,” he said, kinda sounding sarcastic.
“When you hold open doors, you let the ladies walk through first. When it comes to going up chimneys, it’s men first every time.”
“Man, I knew I should have brought my etiquette book along.”
She couldn’t even think of the retort for that, because he just looked so hilarious standing there, the tough football player, almost twice as big as she was, making a smart comment about his etiquette book.
“I’ll let you borrow mine. Not now. Both of us need to conquer this chimney.”
“Exactly. And we’re wasting time debating about it.” He paused, eyeing her up. “Rock paper scissors?”
She jerked her head down. “Done.”
They both held their fists out. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Her rock beat his scissors.
He smirked. “Guess that means you go first.”
“Wait. I won.”
“I know. That means you go first.”
Half amused, half exasperated, she hunched over again. She really was going to have to go up the chimney first. She didn’t want to.
“Have I ever mentioned my issues with claustrophobia?”
“I totally understand. I have the same fear of horses.”
This wasn’t the time for her to get the giggles, but she had to laugh over that. “What does that have to do with anything? We’re looking at the chimney. There’re no horses in sight.”
“I just wanted you to know I commiserate with you.”
“You know, I feel like I need to petition the Board of Directors to have a horse race in the Ironman contest next year.”
“I think I am going to be busy next July. Maybe training camp will start early.”
“Nice.” She peered up the chimney, knowing that it made sense for her to go up first.
The conversation had been quick, and most people were still moseying over to their places. The contest wasn’t all about getting the best timing, although finishing quickly did count.
“All right, I’m just gonna close my eyes and do this.”
She bent over and took a breath. She wasn’t joking about being claustrophobic.
He put his hand on her arm and said softly, “Hey. I’ll go first. I was just teasing you.”
“No, I was going along with the joking, but it just makes sense for me to do it first since I’m smaller, and honestly, that’s not meant as an insult. If it’s not that sturdy, we’ll find out now. Although, I really am claustrophobic. I was in a foster home for a little while growing up, and that was one of the punishments. Being locked in a closet.”
“Oh. That sounds awful.” He truly sounded like he meant it.
She hadn’t meant to say anything and didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. She tried to downplay it. “It was at the time. I’m over it now. But I had five siblings, and I was used to doing everything with them, and that was probably half of the problem, that I was alone in that closet. Not just that it was dark and I couldn’t get out.”
She shivered. Looking back, she could be rational that nothing was going to happen to her in the dark closet, but at the time, she’d been petrified. Rightfully so, just being a young child who had recently lost her