Page 76 of The Mistletoe Bluff
I found myself wanting to find another way to bring such a smile to his face.
What is happening to me?
“Wait here,” Oliver said before disappearing up the stairs. When he reappeared holding something behind his back, he said, “close your eyes.”
I gave him a skeptical look but did as he said. A moment later, his body heat smothered me as he stepped close, putting something in my hands.
“Part one of Maya and Oliver’s Christmas Eve,” he explained, and I opened my eyes to find a small bundle wrapped in pink tissue paper with a little twine bow holding it together.
“What a nice bow.”
Oliver chuckled. “Just open it, feisty pants.”
My lips curled into a smile as I ripped the tissue paper open. It fell to the floor as I stared at a pair of striped flannel pajamas.
I cocked my head.Why would he give me pajamas? How did he even know my size?
Oliver laughed at the expression on my face. “Don’t worry. Elsie picked them out for you.”
“Come again?”
“I asked her at Friendsmas what kind of pajamas you’d like. I have a matching pair too,” he explained, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at his bedroom.
“How’d you know I’d come to your house tonight?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t, but I hoped you would.”
I smiled. Who was this sweet, tenderhearted, thoughtful man, and where did the sassy, snarky, and rude guy I hated disappear to?
“You have a matching pair?” I couldn’t keep the amusement from my voice.
His smile was shy—the first time I’d ever seen such a look from him. He pushed up his glasses.
“It’s a tradition I used to do with my mum as a child. We’d pick out matching pajamas and wear them all day long on Christmas Eve. It’s been at least a decade since I’ve done this, but it always felt like Christmas magic to me, and I thought maybe we could recreate it with some magic of our own.”
I almost bit out that Christmas magic didn’t exist again, but the sincerity, the genuineness in his eyes stopped me. This tradition meant a lot to him.
And he wanted to share it with me.
Swoon!
“I’ll go change,” I said, heading toward the bathroom.
A few minutes later I emerged wearing the pajamas and found Oliver lounging on the couch in his own pair.
How was it possible for a pair of pajamas to fit someone so well? If he were a marble statue, he would have been namedAdonis in Flannel.
I giggled to myself at the image in my head and Oliver smiled at me.
“What’s so funny?”
I shook my head. “You’re too handsome for your own good.” I gasped as soon as the words slipped out—my filter once again failing—and put a hand over my mouth.
Oliver pushed to his feet and approached me with an amused glint in his eyes. “You think I’m handsome?”
My heart and brain had two different responses as I shook my head at the same time I blurted, “Yes.”
His fingers wrapped around my wrist, lowering it before he brushed my hair behind an ear.
