Page 53 of The Best Christmas Choir Ever

“Anything I can help with?”

Charlie stood, gathering up the sheet music she’d been looking at. “It’s all good. I just didn’t realize that the charity Gram’s donating her furniture to won’t actually move said furniture out of the basement. And I get it, they’re run by volunteers who are pushing sixty-five, and they don’t want them having to trip through people’s houses. I guess I only now realized that all this furniture is trapped in Gram’s basement, and I am only one person—”

“Charlie?” he interrupted.

“What?”

“This sounds like exactly the kind of thing I can help with.”

Her pulse skipped, the thought of having Julian around to help with all sorts of things, of being alone with him, a little too enticing. “No, no. I’ll figure something out.”

“By tonight? Who else do you know that’s going to help you drag furniture out of Doris’s basement?”

“Well, no one, but—”

“Exactly. So why don’t you ask me?” he teased.

She let out a heavy sigh. Because she was still trying to keep a lid on her feelings, and the closer Julian got…the more she thought about his hands on her, his voice rumbling in her ear, the heat of his breath on her neck. Bad things. Complicated things. “I wasn’t trying to trick you into offering up your help.”

“I know that. I’m the one who crashed your phone call.”

Charlie studied his expression. She really could use his muscles. Purely for furniture-moving purposes. Nothing more. Her gaze dropped to his hands, to his long fingers, to those ropy forearms, and heat surged through her veins.

Julian’s lips twitched, and she wondered if he suspected exactly what she was thinking. “Ask me,” he said.

“No.”

“Charlie, just ask me.”

She didn’t want to be a burden. She didn’t want to make Gram’s house his problem. She didn’t want to be alone with him in the house. Actually, she did. And that was the real problem.

“C’mon,” Julian said. “I’ve been looking for a way to pay you back for getting roped into volunteering. You’ve surprisingly complained very little. Let me do this one thing for you.”

Well, when he put it like that… Besides, what other option did she have? These things needed to get done. “Fine. Can you come over tonight and help me move Gram’s really heavy furniture to the porch?”

“I’d be delighted.”

Charlie snorted. “You might be less delighted when you see it. It’s very old and very heavy.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Just don’t blame me if you hurt yourself.”

“You mean if I pull one of my many muscles?” He flexed a bit.

“That’s not what I said.” Charlie’s gaze drifted against her will. She was very interested in getting acquainted with those muscles again. The little taste she’d had at the community center had only been enough to awaken her desires, not to sate them.

Julian winked playfully. “But it’s what you were thinking.”

“You don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I bet it was that you should get me to sign a waiver before doing this very dangerous task.”

“Hmm… That’s actually a good idea. To release myself from all liability.”

“I’m more interested in what the job pays.”

Oh, now he wanted payment? “I thought you were doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”