Tic-Tac-Mistletoe - N.R. Walker Page 0,31
last Christmas with him. I guess we don’t know these things. Otherwise, I probably would have made a bigger deal out of it.”
“How did you spend it?”
He shrugged. “We just hung out. I mean, we were always kind of low-key, but we’d do a lazy breakfast. We had pancakes, from what I remember. Then we had a huge lunch with ham and potatoes, and he’d make Grandma’s gravy. We were always too full to eat dinner.” He smiled at that. “And after we got the kitchen all cleaned up, we’d mess it all up again and bake Christmas cookies in the afternoon. That’s what we’d eat for dinner.”
“You ate cookies for dinner?”
He nodded, a little teary. “Every year. We’d watch whatever Christmas movie was on TV, drink hot chocolate, and eat as many cookies as we could fit in.”
“Oh, Ren. That sounds amazing.” I rubbed his back. “We could make cookies this afternoon,” I suggested. “If you want to, that is.”
His eyes met mine. “Really? You’d want to do that?”
“Uh, yes,” I replied seriously. “Though a word of warning, my baking skills are on par with my general cooking skills, which isn’t great. But my eating skills are exceptional.”
He finally smiled. “I’d really like that.” He took the little Rudolph I was holding and put him and Santa on the side of the mantlepiece. “Okay, what else is in that box?”
Next was a garland type thing that he put on his small dining table, and there were some more figurines and smaller Christmas trees he put around his living room and a runner of fairy lights he put over the fireplace. It was just enough to be tasteful and pretty without looking like a dollar store exploded.
The place looked like a dream.
Ren stood back and smiled. “I’m so glad you convinced me to do this,” he said. “I would have regretted not doing it.”
God, he looked so sad. All this talk of his dad was so hard on him. I contemplated not asking, but back when I lost my parents, I knew how much it meant to me . . . “Do you need a hug? Or would that be weird?”
He barked out a teary laugh. “A hug sounds great.”
I pulled him in and wrapped my arms around his waist. His arms went around my shoulders and my head fit perfectly into the crook of his neck. Like, perfectly. We were a perfect hug-match. He sighed against me and I knew then that he’d been touch starved, and hell, maybe I had been too.
Because he didn’t pull away and I sure as hell wasn’t about to either.
I could have stayed right there in his arms forever.
He was strong and he smelled divine. The rise and fall of his breaths synced with mine, and I closed my eyes and relaxed into him. I rubbed his back and he sighed again. “Feel better?” I whispered.
“Mm,” he mumbled, nodding against the side of my head.
I wanted to pull back just enough so I could look up into his gorgeous face and stare into those deep blue eyes. But I knew if I did, I’d want to kiss him, and I didn’t want to ruin this. He needed consoling after dealing with emotional shit. He didn’t need me coming onto him like a sex-deprived leech.
But then he pulled back, just far enough to look into my eyes. His gaze flickered to my lips and back up again, and holy shit . . . he was going to kiss me. He was so close, and his lips parted—
And then the FaceTime app on my phone began to chime. Because of course it did. “Dammit,” I said, fishing my phone out of my pocket. It was Liv. “Sorry, I told her to FaceTime me.”
Ren took a step back and let out a breath. “Sure. Yeah, of course.”
“I’ll just take this in my room,” I said and quickly closed the door behind me. I hit Answer and waited for her face to appear. “Good timing, sis,” I hissed at her.
Her smile faltered. “Sorry, what?”
I whispered as low as I could so Ren wouldn’t hear. “He was just about to kiss me!”
“Wait, what?”
“I know!”
She laughed. “I’m sorry. But it’s so good to see you!”
I sighed dramatically and plonked down on the bed. Her dark hair was in long waves, her dark eyes bright and sparkling, and Lord, I missed her. “You too. You look great!”
Her smile widened. “You too. Oh my God, Hamish. What is going on with