“You know, there are online classes that you can take to earn a graphic design degree,” Chet informed me as we turned a corner and found ourselves at Rockefeller Center. I’d been so enchanted with my walking companion and the window displays that I’d not realized where we’d even been. The ice skating rink was packed with people making lazy circles as flags whipped madly in the strong wind. My gaze roamed over the golden statue of Prometheus then up to where the massive Norway spruce stood guard over the rink. They were always towering things, easily a hundred feet tall. Soon the scaffolding around it would be taken down and we’d all see it in its glory, wrapped with thousands of multi-colored lights. At its tip top would be a Swarovski star. I wished it had been lit now. We’d fallen into one of those comfortable silences as we watched the skaters down below.
“Maybe I’ll look into that. I could do an online course depending on what they cost. I live with my Mom. Dad’s been back in Bronx since they divorced when I was just a baby. It’s kind of tight although Mom has a good job with the electric company.”
“I think you’d do well. You certainly have an eye for design, and with a degree you’d move through the ranks faster. Not to sound snobby but manager’s do like degrees on resumes.”
I nodded, knowing that all too well. He turned to look at me, resting his hip against the railing as the music from the rink vied with the sounds of New York City. I studied the bodies below as “Carols of the Bells” floated upward from the ice below. I chanced a sly peek his way and his smile pulled at me in a subtle yet incredibly powerful way. I pushed back from the rail and turned to look up at him, my now chilled coffee in my hand. His eyes caressed my windburned face then slipped downward to rest on my lips. Then I yawned. Like this huge yawn where he’d be able to see my tonsils. I quickly slapped a hand over my mouth to try to catch it but it out there now. Chet then yawned. We both snickered.
“I guess we should both be getting home,” he said. The sun was well over our heads now, shining down through a brief break in the snow clouds. There was little warmth in that winter sun but there was plenty of heat in Chet’s brown eyes. “This day has been unlike any that I’ve had in many a year.”
I sketched a curtsy. “I try my best to make sure I bring chaos with me wherever I go.”
“Oh, I’m not sure I’d call it chaos. A zest for life perhaps.”
“Well sure, that does sound better,” I confessed, my gaze locked with his.
“If you’d like we could do this again,” he offered with a half-cocked little awkward smile. “I mean we could avoid the police involvement and the snow down the back of my shirt, but everything else has been…well, pretty enchanting.”
“Are you saying you’d like to have coffee with me sometime in the near future?” I did want to clarify. After all lots of men had different ideas of dating than I did.
“Yes, coffee served with a meal. Maybe a movie. A date. I’m asking you out on a date. My God, I sound so old.” He rolled his eyes to the flags snapping like starter’s pistols above us. “Do men your age even date anymore? Or is it called something else? Hooking up I guess. I’m not really into hooking up, I mean, I would love to hook up with you because you’re adorable but I’m not in this just for sex. Not that I think that you’re not sexy because you are! And funny, and hardworking and have good aim and—”
“Chet?”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking and kiss me.”
His eyes flared. He gave the crowded area a fast look as if he were trying to gauge if anyone would see us. Which, yeah, lots of people would. But who cared? Such a backward sort of man he was. It was cute and made me yearn to kiss him even more. I waited for another few seconds, huffed, and puckered up, eyes wide open. The hesitation fell from his face right before he leaned down to brush my lips with his. Every light on that hundred foot tree behind us could have been lit up by the electricity his mouth on mine generated. My lashes fell to my cold cheeks as Mariah belting out “All I Want for Christmas is You” rose up from the ice rink below us.
When his lips left mine, I blinked a few times before fully opening my eyes. Chet was watching me, his mouth twitching at the corners.
“Wow,” I whispered, that one word a puff of steam that lingered for just a second before evaporating.
“Yeah, wow.”
“I’m suddenly not as tired as I was,” I confessed.
“Funny, me either.”
“What now?”
He looked around the crowded street then back at me, his eyes twinkling and bright.
“Want to find some mistletoe somewhere so we have a seasonal reason to keep kissing?”
I nodded enthusiastically as I got lost in his gaze.
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. At that moment on that wintry day, on a festive New York street, I saw my future in his gaze.
It was as twinkling and bright and as beautiful as the season that had brought us together.
The End
Meet V.L. Locey
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.)
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
Website: vllocey.com
Newsletter: vllocey.com/newsletter
A road trip, snow storm, and only one big bed at the Inn…
Stranded at the motorway services wasn’t how Jared planned to start his Christmas holidays, but then neither was running into his ex-best mate Tom. They’d gone four months without talking, what was a three hour trip home?
Driving Home For Christmas
Editor: Boho Edits
Driving Home For Christmas ©2020 Annabelle Jacobs
Driving Home For Christmas
“Bollocks!” I kicked the kerb and watched Mike’s car disappear out of the car park and back out onto the motorway. I let out a resigned sigh. As glad as I was to see the back of that patronising wanker, what the fuck was I supposed to do now?
Maybe the services on the M5 hadn’t been the best place to start an argument I’d known would only end one way. At least he hadn’t pissed off with my stuff still in his car. I glanced down at the small suitcase and two bags of Christmas presents sitting at my feet. Small mercies, I supposed.
Unfortunately, I’d splashed out a bit on this year’s presents and, as a result, was down to my last twenty quid until I got paid. Getting back to my mum’s up north was going to be a bit of a challenge.
“Fuck’s sake.” Ignoring the damp pavement, I sank onto the edge of the kerb and considered my options. My mum was a nurse, and I knew for a fact she’d managed to swap a few shifts to get Christmas day off because we’d all be there this year. As a result, she was working the four days leading up to it. I couldn’t ask her to come get me, and my brother wouldn’t be home until tomorrow.