Page 456 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
He blinked. “Are you crying?”
“Don’t judge me,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “That was just really beautiful. You’re a natural. I don’t think Henry will ever forget this.”
Chadwick leaned back in his chair and smiled at the little girl making her way toward him. Out of the corner of his mouth he muttered, “I don’t think I will, either.”
CHAPTER 20
CHADWICK
The Christmas Market closed at ten o’clock, and as soon as the last guests were out of the square, the vendors began packing up their items and closing down for the night. I stood from my spot in Santa’s chair, stretched, cracked my back, and rolled my neck. Beside me, Tinsely stifled a yawn behind her hand.
“Are you going to make it through the night?” I asked her. We still had a long shift at Bamford’s to do.
She nodded weakly. “I’ll be fine. Nothing a cat nap in the limo can’t fix.”
We wandered away from the North Pole village, occasionally bumping shoulders as we wove through the vendors as they draped covers over their displays or packed up food items like tins of shortbread, cranberry biscotti, and icing-glazed gingerbread cookies. Tinsely rubbed her hands together in an effort to stave off the cold. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. She shivered against me, and we walked soundlessly the rest of the way out of the market and to the limo.
The back of the car was comfortably warm. Tinsely settled in close to me and rested her cheek on my shoulder.
She’d fallen asleep before we even left the block.
Smiling to myself, I rested my cheek on top of her head and closed my eyes.
This whole Naughty Santa thing definitely wasn’t going how I’d expected. At first, when my father told me what this gig would entail, I’d been under the impression that I was going to hate my life for the entire month of December. This kind of fluff work, for lack of a better word, had always driven me a little crazy, and I was the sort of guy who’d do everything in his power to avoid it. Not to mention, I assumed the velvet and Santa vibes would sort of wreck my sex life.
Now I felt like I owed my father a debt of gratitude, and the literal last thing on my mind was meeting women.
Without this whole Santa shtick, Tinsely would still hate my guts, and I’d still only see her as the cute, uptight Christmas freak who worked at Bamford Office Towers.
Okay, she still was those things, but I had a new appreciation for all those qualities, not to mention a newfound liking for all the other things that made Tinsely who she was. I loved the way she listened when I spoke to her. She let her emotions shine through, but she never made me feel like I had to carry the weight of them whenever we spoke about my mother. In the past, I’d left topics of my mother off the table because people could only confront that sort of thing with two emotions, pity or insufferable optimism, which usually led to comments like, “at least you had her for as long as you did.” Sure, that might have been true, but in times where I really missed my mother, it wasn’t helpful.
Tinsely saw me and I felt like she understood me, too. Better yet? She didn’t make me feel like she wanted to change me.
Women always wanted to change me.
They wanted to pick me up off the ground, dust me off, and clean me up. They wanted to wash away my old identity—the identity of being a playboy—and straighten me out to be the one-woman man they could bring home to their parents. For the longest time, I assumed I could never be that guy. Hell, I didn’t want to be that guy.
But for Tinsely?
The change felt natural. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t asked anything of me. She was a breath of fresh air, and it was starting to feel like maybe she could be mine one day, and I could be hers.
The limo pulled up in front of the original Bamford’s in Manhattan. For a moment, I stayed perfectly still, enjoying the warmth and quiet of the back of the car and the way Tinsely slept so soundly on my shoulder. I didn’t want to wake her. We had a long night ahead of us and sleep would have to wait until the sun came up.
When we didn’t get out of the car, the driver rolled the partition down and told me we had arrived.
“I know,” I said softly. “Give us five more minutes, please.”
He noticed Tinsely sleeping, gave me an understanding nod of his head, closed the partition, and didn’t interrupt again.
Greedily, I took twenty minutes instead of five before I put a hand on Tinsely’s red and white striped knee. “Hey,” I whispered, “we’re here.”
She mumbled something I couldn’t understand and nuzzled in closer to me.
Smiling, I gave her knee a squeeze. “I know you’re tired, but you’ll have fun once we get in there. This is one of your favorite events, isn’t it?”
“I’ll need coffee,” she said, her voice thick and gravelly with fatigue.
“That can be arranged. Let’s go, sleepyhead. We have time to freshen up and have something to eat before the doors open for the shoppers.”
