“Well,” Jack said, giving a nod to what they were doing together, “I am very grateful that your gran-gran sent them to you.” The look on his face was sweet and playful but also had something more, hiding just below the surface. A longing, maybe?
Whatever it was, it was beautiful and made her stomach flutter.
eight
JACK
“So,these cards that your gran-gran sent you. Was shopping on one of them?”
She glanced at him as she led him toward a toy store. “It was.”
He shouldn’t ask. But hearing more about these cards helped him know her better, and he desperately wanted to know her better. It was a need that he knew was dangerous, but they were here, and she seemed to really enjoy talking about her gran-gran. So he wanted her to keep talking, knowing full well that the more he got to know her, the harder it would be for him to be around her and not pursue a relationship.
“What were your traditions around that? Because if your gran-gran wanted you to do that, maybe we should.”
He was expecting a quick response, so when it didn’t come, he glanced over at her. She seemed hesitant. He didn’t know if it was painful or because she didn’t want to do it with him. Maybe she needed to do it with her own family. He shouldn’t have asked.
But then she said, “Are you sure?” like she didn’t think he would want to.
“Of course.”
He shouldn’t have worked so hard to talk her into doing any Christmas activities with Aiden. He had his own issues with Christmas, so he should’ve respected that she had hers. He probably wouldn’t have pushed if he hadn’t already been so drawn to her. But he’d been drawn to her for so long and had kept it all in check for a year and a half. Why could he not seem to now?
They stepped just inside Taheny’s Toys, and she picked up a bucket of slime that was big enough that it took both hands. And that was when he noticed that her cheeks were a bit pink. Was she embarrassed?
“Do you promise not to laugh?”
So shewasembarrassed. He nodded, a smile already tugging at his lips.
“As we shopped, we wrote bad ad copy hooks for the items we saw.”
His eyebrows rose, and a chuckle of disbelief escaped his mouth before he could stop it. “As a kid, you did this?”
“Yep. The dorkier the ad copy, the better. Gran-gran had a job in marketing, and writing bad ad copy made me want to become a copywriter. Growing up, no one else my age even knew what ad copy was or what the job of a copywriter entailed, so it was kind of a special thing only between Gran-gran and me.”
“Huh. So that’s why you’re so good at it.”
She turned the bucket of slime around in her hands. “Are you saying that writing bad ad copy made me good at my job?”
“Don’t tell me it didn’t help you recognize good ad copy.” He nodded at the slime. “What would you write for that?”
She studied it for a moment, then, in a voice he could only describe as an announcer’s, said, “It’s ooey. It’s gooey. It’s stretchy. It’s slimy. And if you get this for your kid thisChristmas, then by New Year’s you’ll know just how many objects in your house a three-pound bucket can stretch to cover.”
He laughed, and they went into the store and started walking down the aisles. They made their way through the store, getting the things Rachel had asked him to pick up. He also found a few toys that he wanted to give to Aiden and got those, too.
All along the way, one of them would pick up a toy and say some bad ad copy in the same announcer voice that Noelle had first used. He held up a bin of Legos and said, “We could target parents and say, ‘Want to level-up your ability to find sharp pieces while barefooted in the dark? Get the one thousand piece set for your overly-enthusiastic child.’”
Noelle found a stuffed elf that looked more like he belonged in a horror movie than on a shelf. “Think you’ve been getting too much sleep lately? Put this creepy toy in your kid’s room, and you’ll never have that problem again.”
He laughed and pointed out an electronic drum set that was on display and fully worked, much to the thrill of all the kids in the store. “Did your brother buy your kid a xylophone last Christmas? Buy his kid these drums. It’s the ultimate one-up he’ll never be able to top.”
“Oh, and then we could do an ad with all the noisy toys on it, and the ad copy could say, ‘Think you might want noise-canceling headphones for Christmas? Trust us: you do.’”
He was pretty sure he had never had as much fun in a toy store before, not even as a kid. He definitely knew it was worlds above every other Christmas shopping experience he’d ever had.
She picked up a toy doll. “Do you want kids?”
“I like Aiden. I wouldn’t mind having some kids for myself sometime. I just haven’t found ‘the one’ yet.” Not that he’d been looking. But he was suddenly curious about her. “You?”
