He won’t say anything to the art studio, right?”
“Our secret is safe with him,” Ben murmured back.
She looked pleased at that. “Good. Then if he figures it out, it’s just a funny story.”
To tell our grandkids, Ben added in his head. That was the whole saying. It’ll be a funny story to tell their grandkids one day.
But his buddy didn’t bring up the recognition again, and when their food arrived, Kent headed out, leaving just the two couples to have brunch together.
The food was great, but the conversation was even better, flowing back and forth with ease until their plates were cleared away.
“Another round of coffee?” Mel asked, getting up and moving her seat to be closer to Chelsea.
Chelsea clapped her hands together. “Absolutely.”
Ben could get used to this. He rubbed his fingers up and down the bare stretch of her neck. “I could sit here for a while. We’re waiting for more Christmas trees to arrive at the stand down the street.”
“We got one there yesterday,” Mel exclaimed. “It smells so good.”
“They’re re-stocking at two this afternoon,” Chelsea said. “So we’ve got some time to kill.”
Cade stretched his arms wide, then grunted at Ben. “Hey, how’s the search for your stuff going?”
Ben shot him a warning look. Cade glanced sideways at Chelsea, who was buried in conversation with Mel. She doesn’t know? his friend mouthed.
Ben shook his head.
Was it weird he hadn’t told Chelsea about the moving debacle? They had just met. He’d find a way to bring it up later. It was another funny story, that was all.
When they got back to the pop-up tree stand, fresh trees were being unloaded off a truck. Chelsea did a happy dance, which made Ben and the sales guy both laugh.
There were a few kinds to pick from, of varying heights, and the sales guy pointed her to one type of tree that exactly fit her description. “It’s a skinny tree, will fit anywhere, and it’s a good price point,” he said, proud that he’d remembered everything she’d said.
He was doing his job, trying to make the customer happy.
But Chelsea had fallen in love with a big, blue Douglas fir the second she’d seen it being hauled off the truck. It reminded her of Christmas trees from her childhood, of driving to Colorado to see her grandparents.
It reminded her of snow, and family.
“This is the one I want,” she said, not caring about the higher price tag.
Ben popped the monster of a tree onto his shoulders like it weighed nothing, and Chelsea paid up.
Ben even whistled a Christmas song on the walk home.
It was perfectly festive, right up until the stood the tree up in her apartment and cut the twine off of it—and the branches filled the entire space between her couch and her craft nook and her TV.
“It’s too big.” Chelsea sagged, her disappointment an impossible weight on her shoulders. And her heart. “Of course it is.”
“We can move…” Ben glanced at her couch, and her coffee table, and her craft corner, and her desk. “What about your bedroom?”
That would never work. “My bed is too big.”
He didn’t miss the opportunity to give her a sizzling appraisal. “It sure is.”
She laughed out loud. “That was just a tease to make me think about sex instead of this foolish purchase, wasn’t it?”
“Did it work?”
She preferred the flirtatious banter to the sad feeling that she’d missed the mark on a perfect Christmas, so she grabbed his hand and tugged him in that direction. The bedroom that had felt so off-limits just two days before.
It wasn’t off-limits anymore, and if she’d just wasted a hundred dollars on a tree, she was going to make up for it by getting laid again.
But Ben stopped her. “I have a better idea.”
“Better than sex?”
He paused for a beat. “Okay, I have two ideas, and one of them is sex.”
“I’m in. What’s the other idea?”
“How would you feel about putting your Christmas tree in my apartment?” He looked nervous making the suggestion, but Chelsea clapped her hands together.
That was a genius idea. “Do you have room for it?”
Chapter Nine
Ben should have explained the situation sooner. It was weird now, and he’d opened his mouth without thinking it through, because she’d looked sad and he just wanted to make it better.
But was putting her dream Christmas tree in an empty apartment making anything better?
“Ben?” Chelsea blinked at him expectantly.
“Yep, lots of room.” Why the heck not? He gave the prickly tree a big bear hug, to get