Kissing Santa Claus. Jill Shalvis

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      “You weren’t a nerd. You were beautiful. Then, and now. Your hair was always so shiny and you had the prettiest brown eyes. You confused the hell out of me. You always looked so serious, and so…focused. Like you knew exactly where you were going.”

      “Yeah, that was the horn-rim glasses. I was just as clueless as everyone else, trust me.”

      “You certainly didn’t come off that way.”

      “So, what, you’re saying you were too intimidated to approach me? It wasn’t like there was a crowd clamoring there. And even if there was, you’d have parted that sea with nothing more than a smile. You could have anyone you wanted. You can’t honestly want me to believe you didn’t think you had a chance with me.”

      “I can, because it’s the truth. You have to realize, that—and I’m not complaining, but this is just fact—I was very popular, which meant a lot of people, my peers, teachers, coaches, my family, everyone looked up to me as some kind of icon or role model, and it was a lot of pressure, trying to live up to that. I knew what I was good at, but—”

      “You were good at everything.”

      “I was good at taking advantage of sure things. I knew I could play sports. I knew I’d get a yes if I asked out a girl who was all but throwing herself at me. I knew the teachers liked me and that if I showed interest in class, they’d reward me.” He tilted her face up to his. “What I didn’t know, and was too chicken to find out, was if the one person who seemed completely unaffected by me would return my interest…or turn me down flat.”

      “So, was I just some kind of challenge, then? Get the one girl who isn’t chasing after me?”

      “If it was just a game, or a contest, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I was a very competitive kid.”

      “So…I don’t get it.”

      “I didn’t want to risk the rejection. Not with you. It would have mattered.”

      She held his gaze for a long moment. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

      “Is it really that impossible to believe? But yes, I couldn’t be more serious. I watched you, wanted you, for a very long time. After school, or on weekends, when I was at the restaurant and you were working over here, I did try to catch your eye. Sort of gauge the interest.”

      “You were always surrounded by a million friends, and your whole family—”

      “So…you did notice?”

      “I’d have to be dead not to notice you. And…yeah. I noticed that you’d be nice, wave, smile. But I thought that was just you being you. You were popular for a reason. People liked you because you were friendly, charming, outgoing. All the things I wasn’t. So…I watched from a distance. If you think your ego was all tied up in not being publicly humiliated, multiply that by, oh, a million, and maybe you could get what it would have taken for me to ever presume to try and get your attention.”

      “You had it without even trying.” He chuckled then. “I can’t believe we spent that whole year—”

      “Years,” Holly muttered, then looked away when he ducked his head to catch her eye.

      “Years?”

      “You’re talking about your senior year, when I was a sophomore. But I noticed you way before that. I mean, we more or less grew up across the street from one another.”

      “Oh, I noticed you before then, too.”

      A brief smile crossed her face, and maybe there was a little blush again. She didn’t say anything else, though.

      “So…” he said at length, suddenly feeling every bit the nervous teenager he’d been. At least where Holly Bennett was concerned.

      “So…” she said. “Thank you, again, for the dinner. And for, well, making me feel retroactively less of a nerdy dorky teenager. It shouldn’t matter, so many years later, but—”

      “Holly.”

      She paused in her nervous chatter and looked up at him. He saw her throat work and was close enough to see her pupils expand. “Yes?”

      “I’m not eighteen anymore. And I don’t give a damn about what people think. I still don’t like rejection.” He grinned. “But I’m not afraid to risk it.”

      “What—what are you saying?”

      “I’m saying that some attractions don’t fade with time. In fact…” He reached up, pushed that silky fall of hair off her cheek. “Sometimes, they just get more intriguing. Especially when you’re old enough to know where intriguing attractions can lead.”

      She didn’t just swallow hard. She gulped. “I, uh—I don’t know if I’m staying. I mean, I just came to—”

      “Aren’t you curious?”

      “Curious? About—”

      “About following up on that mutual attraction. Unless—unless, you’re otherwise—”

      She shook her head. More of a jerky move, really. “No, I’m not otherwise anything. Except otherwise unsure if this—um, pursuing this conversation any further is a good idea. I mean, maybe it’s just as well to leave the teenage fantasy as just that? Why risk ruining a sweet memory?”

      “Now who’s afraid?” he gently teased, his fingers still in her hair.

      “Bwak, bwak,” she said.

      He could feel the slight tremor beneath his fingertips as he traced them along her jaw, then slid them beneath her hair and tilted her head back with the slightest of pressure. “So,” he said, slowly leaning closer, “you really don’t want to know?”

      “Is that all it is?” she asked, her voice husky and soft. “Curiosity?”

      “It’s as good a place to start as any.”

      “Some people—” She had to pause, clear her throat, which made his lips twitch. “Some people get to know each other first, before—”

      “We’re hardly strangers.”

      She shifted back a little. “We’re pretty much exactly strangers.”

      “Okay…so what do you want to know? I know what I want to know.”

      She actually rolled her eyes, which choked a little laugh out of him.

      “I didn’t mean that. Well, not exactly that. Yet, anyway.”

      Her mouth dropped open at that, and it was really almost just too much to take.

      “It’s just a kiss…a hello.”

      “And if it’s just…pleasant?”

      “Then a hello is just a hello. We’re friends, Holly. Or, at least I’d like us to be. It doesn’t have to be more than that.”

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