Page 38 of The Grump Who Stole Christmas
“We are not! There is no sex in Christmas.”
Paul came into the office and instantly it felt that much smaller. He filled the space with his shoulders and his flannel shirt and his beard. He leaned a hip against the table and thoughtfully stroked his bearded chin.
“Hmm. That’s not a bad idea. Maybe you could make sexy elf costumes and leave them in the closets for customers to find. You know, instead of those big soft robes.”
“Nothing cuter than a sexy elf,” Jasmine giggled.
Like a freaking sexy elf.
“For the last time. We’re not doing sex-themed cabins. I was thinking of using the reindeer.”
“Sexy reindeer? I don’t know if that would work,” Jasmine offered.
“They’re not sexy reindeer. They’re just reindeer. You know Donner. Blitzen. Dasher. Pantser.”
“Pantser?” Paul laughed. “I’m sure that’s not right.”
“Oooh, Cupid,” Jasmine said. “That can be a sexy cabin. I’m just not sure how you would make Blitzen sexy.”
I was going to kill her.
“You,” I said, pointing at Jasmine. “Go do more PRing. You, Paul Bunyan, go to the market and buy things to make pasta carbonara. The two of you leave now, so I can actually get some thinking done.”
“You really are intimidating,” Jasmine said as she got up. “I mean that in the best possible way!”
She left, but Paul was still leaning on the edge of my table smiling at me.
“What are you smiling at me for?”
“I don’t know, maybe I think it’s kind of hot the way you boss people around.”
I was not going to react to that. Okay, I was going to react to it if the feeling in the pit of my stomach was any indication, but I wasn’t going to let him see my reaction.
“Shame though,” he said, releasing a long sigh. “I don’t mess around with corporate types anymore.”
“Is that because of your ex-fiancé?”
It was like the question just popped out of my mouth. As if I had absolutely no control over it.
“You’ve been reading up on me?”
He didn’t seem angry or upset. More like bemused.
“I’m someone who likes to do her research,” I said.
“Did you see the article where they called me a farming heartthrob?” He wiggled his eyebrows after saying this.
“I thought it was a slight exaggeration,” I said with a straight face.
“Carol and I didn’t break up because she was a high-powered executive. We broke up because we wanted different things in life.”
“Like children?” It seemed like the obvious reason. He wanted a family. The cabin he was building was nothing if not a testament to that.
“No. We both wanted kids. In fact, she has since married someone and I believe is pregnant, last I heard. No, it was the lifestyle. Carol always wanted to be on the move. I wanted to stay in one place. She wanted to be at a party. I wanted to be home on my couch watching Netflix. In the beginning, I told myself none of those differences mattered because I really liked her. But two months into living with her, I knew that some of those things mattered big time. Because she could never sit still. She couldn’t just be. Nothing she had was ever enough, and in the end, she reminded me too much of my dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged it off. “Don’t be. Like I said, she found someone else. She’s happy. That’s all I wanted for her.”
