Page 10 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

“Hi,” I breathe, clutching his gift closer with my sweaty hands. Maybe he won’t notice the damp spots on the wrapping paper.

He blinks down at me with surprise. “Juniper?”

“Uh, yes. Hi.”

He leans against the doorframe, folding his arms and looking skeptical. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

“Of course not,” I say. I force my words to sound casual, unaffected. “She’s passed out on the couch.”

Aiden’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything. So I rally the part of my brain that’s in charge of conversing and say, “I just wanted to bring you your Christmas present.”

Aiden’s eyebrows hitch up his forehead. “My…present?”

“Here,” I say, shoving the little box into his hands. “For you.”

He holds it up, looking warily at it. I see his eyes find the sliver of visible cardboard where I ran out of wrapping paper because I only had scraps; I see him take in the wonky bow that refused to cooperate, even after I tried to make it look nice three different times. I put myself in his shoes for a second and then look down at the gift I’ve handed him, and suddenly my cheeks burn with humiliation.

This is so stupid. What am I thinking? I can’t give him a present that looks like this. I reach out to take the box back. I should have had Bonnie help me wrap it—

But he doesn’t let me take it; he lifts the box above his head just as I’m about to grab it.

“No,” he says gruffly. “You said it was for me.”

“I—fine,” I say. “Open it, then.” I swallow as his fingers begin pulling delicately at the wrapping paper. “I didn’t have a lot of paper to wrap it,” I say. “And I know the bow looks dumb—”

“It looks nice, Juniper.”

It might not sound like glowing praise, but from Aiden, that’s a massive compliment. So I shut my mouth and watch anxiously as he pulls off the wrapping paper, crumpling it up and shoving it into his pocket. Then he takes the lid off the little box.

I watch his forehead for the little v-shaped wrinkle that’s going to show up—and sure enough, there it is. It comes out when he’s confused and his brows furrow, drawing together.

“Open it,” I say, pointing to the tightly folded piece of paper that’s on top.

He glances at me for a second, then pulls the paper out. He passes me the little box and then uses both hands to unfold.

“Eighty-eight percent,” I say, my smile breaking free.

“On your English final?” he says quickly, looking at me again and picking up the pace with his unfolding. “So that means you got—”

“I got a B in the class.” I nod, beaming as he scans the print-out of my English grades for the semester.

He smiles then, a real, true smile, and my heart squeezes almost painfully. His teeth are sowhite,and his eyes are so gorgeous when he’s looking at me, and I want to marry him and live happily ever after.

“And now this,” I say, holding the box up in front of his face.

This is it. This is my moment. That heart in my chest that was squeezing painfully now starts to pound, an uncomfortablethump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

I can hear my heartbeat whooshing in my ears, and my smile is wavering out of pure nerves. The mistletoe has wilted a bit, I notice when Aiden holds it up, but I’m not taking that as a bad omen.

Although the look on his face as he stares at the little plant…well,thatmight be a bad omen. Only one way to find out.

So I go up, up, up on my tiptoes, place my hands on his broad shoulders to steady myself, and then kiss him straight on the lips.

Or I try to, anyway.

I’m maybe one centimeter away from the most perfect lips in all of existence when Aiden grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me away, gentle but absolutely firm. I stumble back, wrenching out of his grasp and letting out an unladylike yelp of surprise when I trip and then fall, right onto my bum.

“Are you insane?” Aiden says. “What do you think you’re doing?”

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