Page 125 of My Merry Mistake
She frowns. “You want to watch a cartoon?” She opens the car door and gets out, so I shut off the car and do the same.
“Six of my top ten movies are animated,” I say.
She muses. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Okay, but have you seenLego Batman?” I reach up to start untying the twine from around the tree, and once it’s loose, I heave it down, then up over my shoulder.
“Absolutely not.”
“We need to fix that.” I walk up to the porch and find Raya standing there with the door only slightly ajar.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she says, pointing at me. “It’s just pizza and you know, Christmas . . . things.”
“Message received,” I say.
“No flirting and no”—she waves her hands around, like she’s swatting gnats—“reading into it.”
“Got it,” I say, shifting the tree. It’s not exactly small. “Strictly platonic.”
She starts to open the door then freezes, and I stop short. The front of the tree tips forward, and I lose my balance.
I shoot out a hand to the top of the door frame to stop myself from falling and as the tree dips inside the doorway, and my face ends up about an inch from hers.
Her breath hitches. “Strictly platonic.”
I nod.
She goes still.
“Hart?” I say.
“Yeah?”
“This is really heavy.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Raya
Strictly platonic.
This should be easy.
It’s not. Not by a long shot.
While Finn deals with the tree, I walk into the house and set the pizza on the kitchen counter. Thankfully, he had the forethought to convince me to buy a tree stand, but I don’t have a single ornament to decorate this thing with.
I never tried to win Christmas, I guess.
Once the tree is stable, I rush into the bathroom where I spend at least three straight minutes telling myself this is a terrible idea. Earlier today I’d decided not to let myself be alone with him, and now here we are—about to eat pizza together.
Very much alone.
But it’s fine. My willpower is strong. And I can make and follow rules with the best of them.
Never mind that I spent the day watching him make kids laugh. Or that he learned sign language so he could talk to my dad. Or that I still have memories of that almost-kiss floating around in the back of my mind.
I splash some water on my face and walk out to the kitchen where he’s dishing up slices of pizza. There’s a crumpled piece of paper on the counter. “What’s this?” I pick it up.
