Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
“I don’t really have to go easy on him. He’s a good student. In my class, at least.”
“A good student? That’s so funny,” Maya said.
“Why?” James prodded.
Her face turned serious. “Oh, nothing. Kyle surely knows because of how he grew up in the church, he was…a big deal in Wyachet. And I guess…” She was struggling like she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. She took another sip of wine, as though wanting to buy herself time to think. “Small-town talk is weird like that. You hear these stories about someone, but you don’t really know people until you know them.”
James’s jaw tensed. He must’ve known what she was referring to, the sorts of things she would have heard from my asshole father pitting as many people in his congregation as he could against me.
“I don’t know why you’d believe any of the nutjobs in this town,” Bentley said. “Either they’re methheads or cult members.”
“And which are you?” Maya asked.
“The small minority of normal people.”
“If you’re normal, I think I’ll be joining one of the cults,” Hanna mused, but while everyone was enjoying Hanna’s tease, I caught a glimpse of James, noticing his serious expression.
It was nice that the awkwardness of Maya’s comment had passed, but really, James couldn’t have known…this had been my life for a long time. I’d been lucky enough to find people like this crew, who were kind, who didn’t dismiss me based on the things they’d heard.
I was lucky to have my friends and Tex.
And him.
When we finished dinner, we walked over to the Botanical Gardens, just a few blocks from the restaurant. The walkway through the entry was decorated with giant bright-white snowflake ornaments, the trees lining the path covered in white lights. They had a variety of themed areas. My favorite was an Alice in Wonderland winter exhibit, with giant ornamental red-and-white roses, the red roses covered in fake snow. James and I kept to the back of the group, permitting us moments where we could graze the backs of our hands against one another’s.
Close, but never close enough.
I just had to remind myself it wouldn’t be that way when the night was over.
We took photos and bought hot chocolate at a nearby stand. When we finished up, we headed back to our cars. I’d known my destination before we’d even started the night. Back to the park in the woods behind James’s home. As I followed that familiar path, I received a text from him: Running an errand, so may be a minute.
An errand?
It was all well and good. Gave me time to shower off and get ready for a movie before fun and then bed.
I turned on Supernatural and watched an episode. I must’ve dozed off, because the next thing I heard was the familiar hum of his car as he pulled into the drive. I waited not so patiently…and waited, and waited. If I wasn’t so paranoid about getting caught, I would have raced to the door and seen what he was up to, but finally, the sound of the door opening came, and I heard a bit of a commotion followed by, “A little help.”
I hopped to my feet and practically sprinted to him when I saw him pushing a tree about a foot taller than him through the doorway and closing the door behind him.
I could have melted into the floor.
“I figured since you offered to help me decorate for Christmas, I wasn’t going to let you get out of helping me.”
He knew damn well what he was doing, being too cute for words, his cheeks reddened, some pine needles stuck in his messy bangs.
“I’ll dig through the boxes for the stand, if you want to grab that adorable Santa cap.”
“I’ll find it. But I might lose some other clothes while I’m doing it.”
He beamed.
Moments like this made it all feel totally normal.
It wasn’t us versus the world. It was just James and me and these feelings that expanded with every moment more that James welcomed me into his beautiful world.
I streamed some Christmas tunes on my phone while we got to work decorating the tree with the ornaments his wife had brought over. We got a little carried away between impromptu dances to favorite songs and a few innocent kisses before we had the tree covered in multicolored bulbs and James’s assortment of ornaments.
“So you think star or angel this year?” He stood at the box, holding the two.
“Star, for sure.”
“But my angel’s so cute.”
“No, you’re fucking cute,” I said before kissing him. “And I think your corny is rubbing off on me.”
“Can we not get into rubbing off until we finish?”
It made me think of the way he told cheesy jokes during class.
I snickered.
We didn’t jump right into bed, though.
We streamed a film we found on Netflix—The Spirit of Christmas—on his downstairs TV. He lay against my chest, the way we were beginning to when we watched TV together. I ran my hand through his hair, without inhibition, feeling the right to do it.