Page 53 of Bad Boy Bachelor Christmas
He wasn’t wrong.
Outside our window, about six feet away, a giant white Clydesdale tossed his head and shook snowflakes from his honey-colored mane. A few feet past him, a smaller female whinnied and approached. They bowed their heads in greeting, and even through the window, I heard the jingle of bells braided into their tails with every swish.
Dreamily, I watched them with my chin in my hand as North ordered us wine and bread to the table.
“My dad took me to a horse farm like this when I was little,” I said, recalling that winter when I was eight years old and doe-eyed for ponies. “It was the closest he could get to actually buying me a horse. You know how every little girl goes through a phase of wanting a pony? My phase lasted about eight years.”
North chuckled. “I went through a phase of wanting an elephant, so I hear you.”
“An elephant?” I laughed and tore my eyes from the beautiful horses outside. “What brought that on?”
“Beats me. I guess I just wanted the biggest baddest animal I could think of. I doubled down and started asking for a tiger, after which my mother launched into a speech about ethical animal ownership and why tigers were not and would never be something I could own.”
“Wise woman.”
“Hurt my feelings,” he said.
I snickered. “Poor little North.”
I wondered what he would have been like as a kid. Had he always been outlandishly tall? Had he outgrown his poor mother by the time he was six? Could he roughhouse with his dad when he was fourteen? Perhaps his father was just as large.
“Although,” I added, “I guess you’d look ridiculous on a horse thatwasn’ta Clydesdale, so maybe the elephant things makes sense.”
“Big boys need big toys.”
I arched an eyebrow.
He rocked back in his chair and laughed.
Smiling so big it hurt my cheeks, I soaked in the sound of his joyous laughter and the way his surrender to humor pressed dimples into his cheeks. I hadn’t noticed them before.
Our server brought out our meals, and North and I talked about our childhoods and all the ridiculous things we used to have on our Christmas lists. He shared how he’d settled for a ride-on truck instead of an elephant, and I revealed that I got one of those spring-mounted horses to bounce on in the basement of my parents’ house. It used to stay in the living room, but it needed to be oiled with WD40 every other night. The squeaking drove my mother insane, so she banished it downstairs to the playroom, which was also my dad’s man cave, where he sometimes hosted poker nights with his brother and some of their old friends from college.
“Okay, okay,” North grinned, “best Christmas present you ever got. Go.”
“It’s going to sound silly.”
“Try me.”
Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned forward like I was divulging a secret. “A set of cutting boards.”
North frowned. “Huh. Cutting boards. Really? Do you cook?”
“Not really.”
“Why cutting boards then?”
Good question.
I picked at a loose thread at the wrist of my sweater. “Well, I live in a small dorm room on campus, and I share a kitchenette of sorts with my roommate. Basically, we have a mini fridge, a microwave, and a toaster oven. And about this much counter space.” I showed him a small box shape with my hands, barely a foot wide and a foot deep. “For my first semester I practically only ate ramen because I could just heat it up in the microwave, but my brain power suffered for it, and I needed more nutritious food. But I didn’t have any way to prepare it. I told my dad over the phone one day in November two years ago that I needed to go out and get some kitchen stuff. That year for Christmas, I unwrapped a set of four small cutting boards he’d hand carved and finished with our last name carved in them. They have small handles with a hole in them so I could hang them on the wall, and they wouldn’t eat up precious counter space.”
“Do you use them every day?”
I blushed. “Actually, I only use one of them.”
“What?” He paused to sip his wine with an arched eyebrow before setting it down and leaving his hand on the base, turning it in slow circles. “Why?”
I bit my bottom lip. “I have this thing about holding on to stuff and being hyper aware of losing things. And people.”
