Page 13 of Decked By The Grumpy Golem
Inside, my thoughts are tangled and dizzy, my lips still burning from his kiss.
Am I crazy or did Gideon Flintman just kiss me?
And more importantly, why did I kiss him back?
Chapter Six
Gideon
WhycanIstilltaste her on my lips? It makes no sense.
And yet I can. Lucia Reyes’ taste is like a ghost on my tongue, haunting me with the promise of things that can never be.
I’m relieving the moment in my head over and over, from the moment I close my eyes to the moment I wake up. My dreams are even worse. In my dreams, Lucia doesn’t push me away. She melts into me and we kiss until it’s not her nieces that laugh on the skating rink but our own children. In those dreams, she’s mine and I’m hers. Mated and happy, with a family that laughsand cheers.
The nightmare doesn’t come in my sleep. It comes when I open my eyes and realize I’ve ruined my only chance at happiness.
But it’s too late now. She pushed me away and she was right to do so. I don’t deserve her, even less now than I did back then.
I stride across the town square, my skin burning so hot that snowflakes hiss and steam when they hit my head. The winter market winds down all around me. Vendors pack up their booths, families drift home with shopping bags and sleepy children.
It’s a good thing, because I’m in no shape to be social. Not that I usually am. At least, I finished the invoices that were overdue.
I spot Martha at the Knitters Club booth, surrounded by baskets of colorful yarn and half-folded tables.
"There you are," she says when she sees me approaching, her gray eyes immediately cataloging my appearance. Judging by her expression, I look just as refreshed as I feel. Which is not refreshed at all. I feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of angry reindeer and pulverized by Santa’s sleigh while the jolly man laughed at my misery.
Dramatic, I know.
“I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten lost between home and the town hall,” Martha teases
"Just busy with the last of this year’s invoices," I mutter, grabbing the nearest folding table with enough force to make the metal legs protest. The physical work feels good, something to do with my hands besides remember the silk of Lucia's hair between my fingers.
Martha doesn't comment on my obvious agitation, but I can feel her watching me as I stack chairs and fold tables with sharp, jerky movements that lack my usual calm.
Ugh. I should know better than to act out in front of her. Martha can read me like a book. She knows something happened. She always knows.
" Bernadette Garrington said they saw quite a commotion by the skating rink," she says conversationally, stuffing balls of yarn into a wicker basket. "Something about a Christmas tree taking a tumble?"
And there she goes. Why can’t anyone in this town ever mind their own business?
Heat floods my face. Of course someone saw my spectacular crash into the decorative spruce. In a town this size, gossip travels faster than wildfire, and my mortifying fall will probably be the talk of the coffee shop by tomorrow morning.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s all they saw. I can still escape the story of how I kissed Lucia Reyes out in the open. Like an idiot.
"Tree was unstable," I grunt, which isn't exactly a lie.
"Hmm." Martha's tone suggests she's not buying my explanation, but she doesn't push. Instead, she launches into a story about Mrs. Patterson's new kitten and how it keeps unraveling her knitting projects, chattering away while we pack up the booth.
It doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about the kiss. It just means she’s giving me space. For all her bad habits of volunteering me around, Martha always knows when I need to process things for myself.
Like I said, she reads me like a book.
I try to focus on her words, on the familiar rhythm of closing down another community event, but my attention keeps drifting across the square. I can't help but scan the remaining vendors, the families loading cars, the volunteers cleaning up decorations.
I don’t need anyone to point out that I’m looking for something. That I’m looking for dark hair and a smile that could light up the winter sky. That I’m looking for her.
And just like a kid who wishes upon a star and gets granted some kind of Christmas miracle, I spot Lucia at the animal shelter's adoption booth.
