He’d been so proud of their tree when they presented it. With as overwhelmed as he’d felt by the task, it had turned out well. Of course, Hope’s family had turned theirs into a “family tree,” with each family member hand-drawn by their kids, and had taken home the trophy. Still, though, he’d been impressed by the tree he and Noelle had made.
There had been a lot more laughter—and plenty of"Eww!" and “Gross!” and even a few people said “Yum!” as they ate the creations from the two teams who had pulled “Dinner” from Santa’s hat.
Julianne, along with her husband and two kids, had made chicken tortilla soup that definitely had chicken in it, and he guessed some taco seasoning, but the rest of the soup looked like it was maybe four different kinds of canned soup mixedtogether. Their dessert was an Oreo cookie topped with a dollop of Cool Whip, topped with a single blueberry. It was kind of weird, but not too bad.
Noelle’s parents had made a stir fry with a strange collection of vegetables and a meat that was definitelynotchicken. His guess was canned tuna. They’d made an apple crisp that was pretty impressive, especially considering that the topping seemed to be made out of a mix of crushed potato chips, Fritos, and Doritos.
And he’d experienced it all with Noelle by his side. During it all, things were slightly awkward between them and didn’t have the same easiness they had gained during their previous activities. He knew it was all coming from him because grief at the impending loss battled with contented happiness all night long. Yet, he still longed to spend every moment with her. Even knowing that every minute spent with her was going to make calling it all off even more difficult.
He stood up and paced in his office, trying to come to terms with what he needed to do, especially when such a large part of him was fighting every bit of it.
But if Saturday night hadn’t let him know that he needed to end things, Sunday night did. He’d gone over to Rachel’s for dinner and to check on them, and Aiden couldn’t stop talking about how Noelle had come over and played with him and how much fun he had.
Somehow, he hadn’t thought through how much hiring Noelle would affect his nephew. Of course he’d get attached to her. Who wouldn’t? How could he not have realized that?
He was in deep. They all were. He needed to end things before it got any worse.
thirteen
NOELLE
Noelle’s workloadof last-minute ad copy changes for the final days of Christmas advertising was huge. She spent all morning intensely focused on them, then hit it again hard after lunch. By two, her brain was mush, so she leaned back in her chair and ran her hands over her face.
Then she opened her desk drawer and pulled out the tin of cards from Gran-gran. She ran the tips of her fingers over the scene Gran-gran had painted of the two of them standing in front of the little tree they’d decorated with balloon snow globes, half of them popped, holding their stomachs from laughing so hard.
It was a great memory.
So was Saturday night’s.
If Gran-gran had been there, she would’ve been hooting and slapping her knee and wiping tears from her eyes from laughing so hard at the skits. During the dinner, she would’ve been giving commentary on the meal like she was a food critic at a Michelin-starred restaurant, saying how delectable everything was. And she would’ve said that the tree she and Jack decorated should be on display in the White House.
She carefully placed the card back in the tin and put the one with the pet costume parade leaning against her monitor. The painting on it was of when they had dressed Gran-gran’s dog, Daisy, up as a Christmas tree with a star on her head. They were going to do something similar tonight with Aiden’s dog, Bailey. She had already dropped off at Rachel’s and Aiden’s house a big piece of green felt, colored pom-poms, ribbon that looked like it could be used as a garland, and her hot glue gun.
Bridget rolled her chair over to Noelle’s desk. “Remember how I didn’t have a clue what to get my mom for Christmas? Well, her little dog apparently decided she was mad about something and took it out on my mom’s favorite lap blanket. So I went to that store in the mall with all the comfort items and got her the softest blanket I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh! Jack got his sister one of those blankets! I couldn’t believe how soft it was.”
Bridget cocked her head to the side, a mix of confusion and something else on her face. Suspicion? “You went shopping with Jack?” She paused a moment, then added, “Is that the after-hours job he was asking for a volunteer to take in the meeting a couple of weeks ago?”
Noelle nodded. “Well, actually, it was all about doing Christmassy things with his five-year-old nephew, Aiden. His sister is sick and can’t do it herself. But since he hates Christmas, he wanted help.”
Bridget nodded slowly.
She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret from her coworkers. They just hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t thought to bring it up. But she fully intended to keep the kiss a secret. But even though she would’ve had no problem talking about it last week or the week before, she felt weird talking with Bridget about it now, especially because of all the feelings she was having about him.
“How’s that going?”
“Good!” Her voice came out bright, just like she’d hoped. She hoped it came out with zero guilt, too. “He’s a super cute kid. He’s helped me to reconnect with Gran-gran.”
“Aww. That’s so sweet. Then I’m glad it was you who agreed to help.”
Noelle really didn’t want the conversation to continue, just in case she asked any tough questions. So she said, “Have you created the images yet for the Ducasse account? I’m having trouble coming up with ad copy for them and could use some inspiration.” The topic change totally worked, and she did a mental fist pump.
By the timeshe got everything together that she needed for their staff meeting, most of her coworkers had already headed to the conference room. Arms full of papers, notebooks, and her tablet, she headed down the hall leading to the meeting. Jack stood outside of the door, greeting people as they entered, like he always did, standing tall and looking so incredible and professional in his navy suit. It was such a different look than what she saw him wear outside of work, yet he was every bit as attractive both ways.
A wide smile spread across her face at seeing him. She expected a similar return smile from him, but instead, he just gave a nod and said, “Noelle.”
She walked into the meeting and found a seat, wondering if he was losing interest or if he was just so much better at hiding their relationship at work than she was. She hoped it was the latter because a forbidden relationship was kind of exciting. That, and it made her heart hurt to even think that he wasn’t interested.
