She glanced down at the foil-covered plate she carried. Connor was carrying its identical twin. She swallowed.
She knew the food would be cold by the time she ate it. She didn’t care. Connor had made it. For her. She’d love every last freaking bite.
He nudged her arm with his elbow and she looked over at him, stomach flipping with the familiarity of the gesture. It was what he had always done when she disappeared down a rabbit trail in her own mind. It was his gentle way of teasing her back to the present moment.
“Hey,” he said, looking into her eyes, the corner of his mouth crinkling.
“Hey, yourself,” she replied softly, all three symptoms of the trifecta hitting her full strength.
"You know, I think I just realized why I keep thinking so much about how long you’re going to stay. Because that’s the question I keep asking, both to you, and in my head. But it’s not the question I actually want the answer to.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She was almost too afraid to speak, and when she did, it came out as a whisper.
“What is the question?”
Connor stopped in his tracks and so did she. They turned to each other and he gently brushed her hair away from her forehead, studying her face like he hadn’t seen it in a million years, and was afraid he wouldn’t see it again for a million more.
Fog swirled around them, making Luna feel like the two of them were encased in an impenetrable cocoon. The only two people in their own little world.
When he answered her, his voice was low and intimate, which did absolutely nothing to break the spell that had been cast around them. In fact, it only strengthened it. “What I really want to know,” he rasped, “is not when you’re leaving. It’s what’s going to happen between us after you do.”
Oh, God. Well, that was the big question, wasn’t it? Too bad she didn’t have a very good answer.
She opened her mouth to speak...to say something, anything, that might let him know that she wondered that, too. That it kept popping into her mind, the same as it did to his.
But nothing came out. No words, no sound.
She snapped her mouth closed. She could do nothing but heave a huge sigh, which was exactly what she did.
Stepping forward, she leaned her head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.
“Sorry,” he said wryly. “I was pushing. I get it. Which was maybe what scared you away the first time?”
His self-deprecating comment brought back her power of speech. “No,” she corrected him with a bitter little chuckle. “It wasn’t that you put on too much pressure. I was just too scared of disappointing my grandparents to stand up for what I really wanted. So…basically, I was chickenshit.”
He laughed. “I’d argue with that, but I can’t lie. I kind of like the sound of it.”
She stood on tiptoe to give him a soft kiss on the lips.
They started walking again, but this time he slid his arm around her shoulder as they did. “I tell you what. Let’s do this: just focus on the time between now and Christmas. Let’s pretend there is no future. The future doesn’t exist. It’s just us, here, together, enjoying the holiday season.”
“I like that idea,” she agreed. “It’s sort of a Christmas Miracle kind of a thing.”
“Well, it’s no virgin birth, but it’s a plan,” he teased, and she gave him a playful smack.
“It is a plan,” she agreed. “A great plan, in fact. And I predict that we’ll be having a pretty merry Christmas this year."
Chapter 12
Connor
Three sharp knocks sounded on Connor’s front door, and his heart sped up.
Fuck. He was like Pavlov’s dog lately, except he had physical reactions to so many more things than just a dinner bell. A knock at his door. A text chime. His phone ringing. Any of those set his heart racing.
Of course, he knew the reason. You didn’t have to be Sherlock freaking Holmes to figure it out. It was because every time he heard one of those sounds, his brain became consumed by one thought: It could be Luna!
When he opened the door, though, it wasn’t Luna’s beautiful face he saw. It was Gavin’s serious one.
“Hey, dude. Come on in.”
Gavin crossed to his couch and settled himself on it. This wasn’t totally unusual. Just like Connor had stopped by to work on the Mustang a few mornings ago and had walked into Gavin’s kitchen without waiting for a response to his knock. That was how it was between them—informal.
Still, this time seemed different, and Connor didn’t have a hard time putting his finger on why. “Dude, Gavin. Why the scowl, man? You look like somebody kicked your dog or something.”
Gavin gave a small shake of his head. He wasn’t the most outwardly expressive person, so Connor couldn’t count on reading his face or gestures. He was going to have to wait for his friend to actually fill him in.
Finally, Gavin spoke, his voice gruff. “Look, I don’t want to be here. Gen sent me.”
Normally, Connor would’ve made some kind of smartass comment, accusing his friend of being whipped. But with the way things were going, he saw some real potential for similar comments to be thrown up in his face in the future, so he decided it was smarter to keep his mouth shut and just wait for Gavin to spit out in his own time whatever he was here to say.
What he forgot, though, was that Gavin was a man of few words, and guys like that typically had a pretty high tolerance for extended silences. Gavin was no exception.
Finally, Connor turned and headed toward the kitchen. “Beer?”
Gavin glanced at his watch. “It’s 9 a.m.”
Connor grinned. “Hey, it must be 10 a.m. somewhere, right?”
When he returned from the kitchen, he tossed a cold can to Gavin and popped the lid on the one he’d brought for himself.
Gavin set his aside and said, “Look. Gen’s organizing this big event for Christmas, to benefit the pediatric ward at the hospital. You know about it.”
“Sure. I’ve heard some people talking.”
“Right. So, she wants you to volunteer. She sent me to tell you.”
Connor’s brows drew together. “Why didn’t she come over and ask me herself?”
Gavin shrugged. “Guess she thought I’d have a better shot.”
Connor barked out a laugh. “Right. Because of your eloquent powers of persuasion.”
Gavin shrugged again.
A small suspicion grew in the back of Connor’s mind. “Does this have anything to do with Luna? With pushing me and Luna together, somehow?”
Another shrug. “I’m staying out of it.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“That’s an ‘I’m staying out of it.’”
Connor grinned. “Well, tell Genevieve that if that’s what it’s about, she didn’t need to be all secret agent about it. That’s a plus to me, not a minus.”
Gavin stood. “So, you’ll do it?”
“Damn, dude, do you have somewhere to be?”
It was Gavin’s turn to furrow his brow. “I’m not into asking people to do things.”
“Well, tell Gen I’ll help however she needs me to. And that in the future, she doesn’t need to torture you by sending you out to do the sales pitch. If that’s what you could call this.”