6. Adrian

6

ADRIAN

Wednesday, December 13

B ritt climbs into my SUV, bundled up in a puffy coat and thick scarf, phone in hand.

"Okay, I have a list. Let's start with the two big box stores across town." She keeps her eyes fixed on her screen.

I patiently wait for her to make eye contact with me.

Finally, she looks up. Her gaze falters when it meets mine. "Are we going?"

"Yeah, we're going."

"Sorry, that came out rude." Her cheeks pinken.

"When you get into an Uber, please look up and make sure you're in the right car." I smile at her, my eyes roaming her familiar face.

She's only sat in the front seat of my car a few times. The last time—not long before the airport event—she'd had a second drink after we worked out, so I drove her home. She'd sat next to me that night and laughed extra hard at my jokes. She'd let her hand linger on my forearm, and...

Oh, fuck.

How did I never notice?

But it's all ancient history now.

I lift my chin toward the cup holders. "I got us coffee."

The color deepens on her cheeks as she stares for another beat before looking down at the steaming beverages.

"Thank you." Britt picks up a cup and takes a sip, her eyes squinting with pleasure. "Perfect. We're going to need a lot of coffee to get through today."

"I'm looking forward to it. It's a challenge. We're Team Light Finders. Or, uh, Team Light It Up? You're better at the branding stuff. I'm just a numbers guy."

She rolls her head to me and blinks a hundred times, one for each box of lights we need to locate. "We're just looking for lights. Okay?" But there's a twinkle in her eye.

"All business. Got it." I nod.

"Let's go then." She gestures to the road.

We're quiet until we pull up to the first store five minutes later.

"How's Jackson?" I follow her through the parking lot, entering the store side by side through sliding doors.

"He's great." But she crinkles the sides of her face for a brief second, and I'm not sure I believe her. "Oh, this way." Britt directs us to the seasonal displays. "My ex and I are doing well co-parenting. It feels like we finally figured it all out. It only took four years."

I grunt. How long will it be before Reese and I are like that? It doesn't help that at fourteen, Chelsea is a fully functional mini-adult, so Reese and I don't have to exchange a ton of information.

"I'm happy for you."

"Wait, are they really playing Metallica?" Britt steals a glance at me. "That's about as un-Christmasy as you can get."

"Has Metallica not released a holiday album? Surely they've done a remake of Joy to the World ."

"Ha," Britt says, a smile cracking her face as she pivots down an aisle. Then screeches to a halt in front of a whole lot of nothing. "Oh, no."

"Well, this isn't good." I survey the empty shelves.

A few sad extension cords lay abandoned where the lights should be. Not a single box. A small, fuzzy tumbleweed of dust drifts across the shelf. Another heavy metal song roars through the loudspeakers.

Also not Christmas music.

"What are we going to do?" Britt turns to me, face etched with the start of panic.

"We're going to go to the next store, that's what we'll do." I gently pull her arm and direct her away from the vacant shelves.

"But what if there are no lights? And why was that music so angry?"

"We have a billion stores we can check out. Either way, the kids will have a blast at the dance. You know that, right? You are not responsible for ensuring that each individual kid has fun."

She groans. "It feels like I am."

"Come on." We climb into my car and set the navigation for store number two.

Ten minutes later, we're only slightly more successful.

"Three boxes?" Britt turns to me, her face at the second stage of panic as she clutches the lights to her chest like they're the last three cans of black beans in the apocalypse.

I shrug. "We can probably light up one whole doorway."

"You're not funny." A shadow of a grin crosses her face.

"But listen." I gesture above us, where classic holiday tune White Christmas sounds through the store's loudspeakers. "At least the music is better. Although who doesn't love a little eighties hair band?"

"I do not. I'm going to go pay for these."

"Let me see your store list." I accept her phone and follow Britt to the self-checkout. "Oh, I have a good feeling about the next one." I wiggle the phone. "It's a little farther out. But it's bigger."

And according to the map, there's a coffee shop right around the corner.

"You think?" She bags the three boxes of lights.

I need to make this right for her. A surge of energy flows through me. We are going to find enough damn lights if it kills me.

"I do. Let's go!" I grab her hand and pull her toward the door. We burst out of the sliding doors.

She screeches to a halt on the sidewalk and gasps. "It's starting to snow!"

A few fat white flakes drift down from the sky.

"See? The holiday spirit is with us." I watch Britt close her eyes and turn her face up to the light snow.

She smiles, eyes still shut.

"Ten. That's pretty good!" Britt's pulling the boxes into her arms—we didn't get a cart so as to not jinx the operation—and counting to herself.

"Ten's amazing! Enough for, like, three doorways, and maybe the DJ table." I tilt my head. "Remind me, how many are we looking for?"

She groans. "One hundred. But you knew that."

A chuckle bubbles up in my chest and she gives me a narrow-eyed look.

"What?"

"A hundred is just... a lot," I say. "At the rate of zero, three, or ten a store, we have a long way to go."

She giggles, a pained moan underneath it.

"The next one, we're going to hit the jackpot," I insist. "I can feel it."

Her giggles evolve into laughter, and I can't help but join her. Two of the boxes fall out of her arms and I face her after picking them up. Tears of laughter roll down her cheeks.

This is perfect. This is exactly how I want to spend my day. My days. With Britt. Laughing.

Woah. Hold up.

I check my thoughts and grab boxes from Britt's arms, following her to the front of the store, the occasional chuckle still sounding from her.

Maybe we can do more than smooth things over.

Maybe we can be friends.

Maybe we can be more?

But no. She doesn't want that. And I don't either. I want to be logical, safe, and steady. For Chelsea. Not fall in love with my ex-wife's ex-best friend.

What?

Who is talking love, anyway? Not me. And not Britt. She needed space, and then I abandoned her.

The snow's falling harder now, and when we exit the store, Britt spins in circles and laughs, twirling in the falling flakes. My heart squeezes, and when she inevitably gets dizzy, I step forward and let her lean against me.

"It's so beautiful, don't you think?"

"Sure is." She's watching the snow, but I'm watching her.

The backseat is filling up with bags of lights and Britt's looking hopeful, but inside, I'm in turmoil, right back where I was six months ago, when I was confused about what was going on, both in my marriage and between me and Britt.

Instead of driving to the next store, I turn into the coffee shop I'd seen on the map.

"Where are we going?"

"We need fuel. Quick caffeine break? And a muffin or a cake pop to celebrate?"

"I'm not sure we deserve it yet, with only thirteen boxes." She gestures to the backseat.

"How about we get the most ridiculous holiday drink we can find? Maybe that'll bring us luck." I maneuver my SUV into a spot and turn the car off. "Look how cozy it is in there."

Through falling snow, the glass windows of the coffee shop display holiday decorations. A giant Christmas tree towers in one corner, rainbow lights twinkling. A bookcase adorned with white, silver, and shades of blue lights show off a small menorah.

Britt's eyes shine. "Fine. It does look lovely in there."

I offer her my arm on the snow-covered sidewalk, and she slips her hand through my elbow. Inside, the store is as atmospheric as it looked from the parking lot, and even as a line builds up behind us, the world's happiest baristas take our order for peppermint mochas with extra whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top, adorned with a candy cane and a hand-drawn snowflake instead of a dot above the letter I in our names.

"This is an absolutely ridiculous drink." We settle onto a couch, and even though I'm careful to leave a slight space between us, the worn cushions cave in so we end up with our thighs touching lightly.

"You promised me the most ridiculous holiday beverage." Britt's tongue darts out and wipes a blob of whipped cream off her top lip.

"Is it everything you dreamed of?" I resist the urge to reach out and swipe the bit she missed. She grins and nods, sucking the candy cane in between her lips, having no idea what she's doing to me. Jesus. I look away. A middle-aged couple walks in the door, holding hands and snuggling into each other.

"How are things with you and Reese?"

I take a sharp breath, not intending for it to be so audible.

"Could be worse. Could be better. We're not quite the co-parenting stars that you and your ex are."

"You'll get there," she says.

"I feel like a bad person." The words spill out of my mouth, but they ring true. They're the ones I think all the time but never verbalize.

"No, Adrian . . ."

"Wait, let me finish. Not because of you." I turn my body toward hers, and she does the same. We're so close. "You know how my parents were. I'm sure your brother told you stories. They were always fighting, making up, then cheating again. It was horrible. And after they got divorced, it was worse. They didn't talk to each other, but just communicated through me and my brother. To this day, they haven't spoken since their divorce—including at my wedding."

"I'm so sorry." Britt's now fully facing me.

"Don't be. I just want Reese and I to have the best chance at co-parenting. And I haven't done a good job so far. She won't really talk to me outside of text messages."

"It's all my fault. I tried to remove myself from the situation, but I'd already screwed things up." Britt's face crumples and she bites her lower lip. "I'm just sorry, A."

Her old nickname for me slips out of her mouth so easily, and it's natural for me to reach for her hand. She takes it without hesitation, linking our fingers together.

"Don't be sorry." I want to say more, but we're on dangerous ground here. Holding hands, spending the day together, dancing around what happened, talking about it, but also not really at all.

How do I feel about her? I want to kiss her—I know that. I want to pull her to me and peel that heavy jacket off.

She rubs her thumb against the inside of my wrist and there's a stirring in my groin. This is lust. Not love. Maybe she was confused as well. She thought she was developing real feelings for me, but they weren't.

The thing is, this doesn't feel like just lust.

She pulls her hand away. "Let's get going. We have eighty-six more boxes to find."

I laugh. "Eighty-seven. Doable, I'd think." We toss our empty drinks—a serious sugar high is coming—and climb back into the car. "My phone says the next store is twenty minutes away." I start the navigation.

"This better be the one."

"It will be. I promised you we'd hit the jackpot, remember?"

"I remember." A smile is in her voice, and I match it on my face.

We walk into the next store, hands no longer linked, but arms brushing against each other. Britt leads us directly to the aisle where the lights would be.

"Holy shit!" she screeches. An employee, wearing a Santa hat and struggling to fit boxes of lights from his cart onto the shelves, jumps back at her yelp.

"Sorry," I say to him. But I can't keep my eyes off of Britt as she surveys what we've found.

There are so many boxes of lights, they fill the shelves from top to bottom. She turns to me, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, hands in the air, pure joy on her face.

"Think this will be enough?" I ask.

The employee skitters away, terrified.

"Yes!" Britt jumps up and throws her arms around my neck in a celebratory hug, then stills and keeps her body against mine, head nuzzled in my chest. Warmth explodes in my body. Our hearts are beating in rhythm, our open jackets keeping only two layers of fabric between us.

Britt is in my arms.

I place my hands around her waist on the outside of her jacket.

"Congrats," I whisper in her ear.

She turns her face up to me and our lips are mere inches away. I want nothing more than to bring our mouths together, to see if I can remember how it feels to kiss Britt, to test how soft her lips are, to see if I can taste the coffee we just drank.

She slides her arms down from my neck and leans back. I lean forward and kiss her forehead, pausing for a beat with my lips on her skin before releasing her from my embrace. She steps back and crosses her arms on her chest.

Did that cross a boundary? Probably. But I'm not sure I care anymore.

"Thank you for your help today." Her voice is almost a whisper.

"I'm not done helping. Let's count these puppies and make sure we don't need anything else. When do we decorate?"

Her face contorts, going through several emotions, but landing on one that I can't quite identify.

It's a good one. That much I know.

"Friday afternoon?"

"Of course." I'd do anything for her. I'll take off the rest of the week if it means spending time with her again.

"We need a cart."

"Let me get it. You count the goods." I stride down the aisle to the front of the store with a bounce in my step. My heart is beating wildly and I feel Britt in every cell of my body.

A minute later, I race back to the aisle with a cart, pausing for a second to watch her touch the boxes, one by one. Her forehead crinkles, eyes laser focused. She turns and catches me watching her.

It doesn't faze her. A giant smile crosses her face. "Eighty-seven boxes. This is it. We're done!"

I grin at her, starting to understand how deep my feelings for this woman run. Something inside me shifts.

Ah, fuck.

We're friends, and I'm attracted to her. That's where it has to stop.

Even though we have all the boxes we need, I know we're not done.

And I have a feeling we never will be.