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“I was just messing with you, Chels.”
Messing with me? Mason is not a man whomesses.
I blink at him, wondering if I should cross the room and feel his forehead. But he just keeps smiling, and if I keep staring, it’s going to leave me fully incapacitated.
“Right. Good one. Um, I’d better go shower. Hopefully I can wash off some of the smell.”
“Let me know if you need help.”
My mouth flaps open, and I quickly close it. Because there is literally no response for this.
Color rises in Mason’s cheeks. “I didn’t mean, like, help in the shower. Just, you know, with the smell or whatever. I can research the best methods of dealing with skunk spray?Thatkind of help. Not …”
Mason trails off. I have to wonder if he knows how horrified he looks.
Or how weirdly hurtful it is that he’s so horrified. It’s not like I’d ask him to hop into the shower with me or anything—not when I don’t even kiss on first dates—but am I SO repulsive?
That’s when I notice something—a tree stand.
“Did you … buy a stand for my tree?” I ask. And then I see what I should have noticedbeforeI saw the stand. “Wait—that’s not my tree.”
It can’t be. Not unless Mason has some magical green thumb and managed to resuscitate my sickly, needle-dropping clearance tree. This one is taller. Huge, even, reaching almost to the high ceiling. Much fuller too—not like it was divested of its needles in transit. It’s gorgeous. Better than Mom’s tree.
“I bought a new tree,” he says. “And a stand.”
“You did?”
Mason nods. “I did. And some new ornaments.”
Only then do I see the new boxes on the coffee table. Multiple boxes.
“I wasn’t sure how many to get. Or”—Mason rubs the back of his neck, then drops his gaze—“even if you’d want to, but I thought we could decorate the tree together after I get back from work.”
If I’dwantto? Is the man bananas? Any woman in the world would probably say yes to decorating a Christmas tree with Mason. But none so much as me.
“I’d love to,” I say, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
“Yeah?” His gaze snaps back to mine, and my Field Guide to his face tells me that’s relief and happiness I see.
This almost—almost—sounds like a date. Or maybe that’s just my very active imagination joining forces with my also active wishful thinking.
“Definitely. And in the meantime, I’ll try to stop smelling like skunk.”
CHAPTER5
Chelsea
“Why doyou keep going out with losers?” John demands.
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have called to tell my brother about the skunk incident. Or my date with Chase. Overprotective older brother mode has been fully activated, and John sounds about ready to board a plane back to Texas from Spain.
But I needed to talk to someone, and even with his overbearingness, I miss John. He’s always been my person, overbearingness and all.
“You’re a smart girl, Chels,” he continues, not quite done with his lecture.
Maybe … I miss him a little less than I thought.
Then again, the fact that he still thinks I’m smart after hearing I tried to pet a skunk makes me smile. I tell him I did something idiotic, and he blames the guy I went on one date with.
