Page 49 of Miss Humbug
But this wasn’t merely any kiss from a Blane or a guy from grad school. This was Ethan.MyEthan.
This kiss changed everything.
He leaned in and landed a soft peck to my cheek. Sweet and chaste, but it rocked my insides like a hurricane.
“Okay,” I said again. “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow came, and Ethan texted first.
Ethan:Good morning, sweet lips
No. Absolutely not. I could not handle this so early in the morning.
Ethan:That was a joke. Ready to talk?
He wanted to talk about the kiss already? It was—well, it was after nine a.m. I’d slept in. No job, no volunteering, and no holiday shenanigans to start the day.
Okay, I needed to woman up here. I hadn’t been ready for this as a teenager. I’d needed to move and experience life apart from what I knew. But now? Now I was ready. Maybe.
As kids, ours was an innocent, friend-centered love. But my love for him grew warmer, deeper, as I’d aged. Only pushing my family away meant by default pushing Ethan away too.
Just because I’d pushed him away didn’t mean those embers hadn’t been smoldering all that time. I was a messy, untended fire with a momentary spritz of gasoline tossed on it. Thanks a lot,Crazy Rich Asians.
Ethan:I’m ready to talk when you’re ready
Me:Okay
I needed to say more thanokay.
Me:I’ll make plans for us after work. Dinner. Probably not a movie (lol)
Ethan:I hope it’s a movie
I grabbed a nearby receipt from my bedside table and fanned myself. It did nothing to cool me off. He hoped it was a movie…did this mean Ethan might feel the same way as me? This was like high school all over again. Except worse because as an adult with a graduate degree who paid taxes, I should not have been reduced to a melting puddle over the potential ofmaybe kissing while watching a movie with my crush.
Ethan:After all, we need to get through the newJurassic Parkmovies
Oh. Right. The movie list. Ethan teasing me yet again.
Perhaps best to lay low from the tree farm today to give us space. Okay, to givemespace. We had Holly Days festivities this weekend (ugh) plus the gingerbread house to plan, so plenty of prep work needed to be done. Whatever that prep involved. I also needed to do laundry. Lastly, one more task: figure out my life.
See? What a busy schedule. No time to hang out at the tree farm deciphering Ethan’s thoughts as he stretched the limits of plaid cotton with his working man’s biceps.
Who knew tree hauling was sexy?
“Probably a lot of people, Marlowe,” I told myself out loud. “Probably that’s why sexy lumberjack calendars exist.”
I texted Ethan I’d come by at closing. Which left all day for my supremely busy schedule.
I managed the laundry and an inventory of baking ingredients. A lot of scrolling on the internet. Curious about the history of our family’s land, I delved deeper into when and how the area had been settled and which Indigenous tribes had originally lived on the land.
If I ended up with the house, I needed to do something worthwhile with it. I knew in my bones it wasn’t enough to simply get the house and land and just hang onto it. What if I could build a park? Or protect the land somehow?
A phone call interrupted my pondering. An unexpected one.
That evening, I arrived at the farm, nervous but antsy to see Ethan. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Did we kiss now as a greeting? Cheek or lips? Maybe a simple hug until we talked about the parameters of our kissing. Did we even need to set parameters?
Thankfully, a recent development offered the perfect distraction.
