Page 50 of Christmas Chemistry


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“Coach brought it by Thursday,” Marley said, walking into the room dressed in the sweater and leggings she’d worn yesterday. “Since this would have been the weekend I’d normally purchase trees, he did me a solid. There’s another one downstairs.”

“It’s unfortunate we had to miss the tree lot and chaperoning the dance. I wonder how everything went.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out in an hour when we get to work.”

“It would have been nice to go to the dance with you. For obvious reasons, I never went to any of mine in high school.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s a little different when you’re a teacher. It’s mostly attempting to keep the kids from grinding up on one another. Funny story—Mr. Bailey used to go around sticking his arm in between the couples and telling them to ‘leave room for Jesus.’ Principal Nadal gave up on getting him to understand why we don’t say that in a public school, and eventually just banned him from chaperoning altogether.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“It’s a shame you never got to go to a dance,” she said, grabbing her phone off the counter. A minute later, Leona Lewis’s “Kiss Me It’s Christmas” came through the sound bar on the bookshelf and Marley stood in front of me with her hand out.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m asking you to dance.”

“Now?”

“James, if there’s a better time to dance than six a.m. on a Monday when we’re half-dressed and haven’t even brushed our teeth yet, I don’t know when it is.”

Her eyes brimmed with amusement, and I couldn’t resist saying yes. We danced cheek-to-chest next to the Christmas tree.

Feeling her against me was a revelation. Cindy used to shy away from my extra flesh when we’d touch. She rarely said anything outright rude, but I always had this knowledge that I disappointed her. In so many ways. She’d always been a fit person, but while I’d been working fifteen-hour days to make The Game Place a success, she’d taken on fitness as a hobby. That I hadn’t shared her enthusiasm had taken its toll on the physical side of our relationship. She’d ended up leaving me for one of her workout buddies.

It made sense. She and I had been a terrible match from the start.

As opposed to Marley, who slotted in perfectly. She shut her eyes and nuzzled into my pecs, getting as close as possible. Her hands around my middle played above the waistband of my pajama bottoms—keeping things decidedly PG while still enjoying the tease. I held her to me firmly with one hand around her back and another buried in her hair as we swayed to the romantic song.

The music ended and I leaned her back into a dip with a flourish, causing her to squeak.

The reality of needing to get ready to leave for work invaded the moment. I kissed her softly before letting go.

“Thank you, James. I’m going to remember that forever,” Marley said, calling dibs on the first shower.

At first, her words didn’t entirely register, but then I blinked. She sounded so detached from the amazing dance we’d just shared. It wasn’t possible that Marley wasn’t in this the way I was, was it?

I thought about last night. When she hadn’t let me tell her I loved her.

Suddenly, that photo of us on her bookshelf took on a new tone. Was I up there because this Christmas season was the start of us? Or was our picture another object providing happy memories of Christmases past?

I looked forclues as to Marley’s true feelings as we drove to work in her truck. I’d been so busy admiring how open and honest she was, but maybe she’d been holding herself back more than I’d thought? There was a vast difference between putting herself out there and letting me in.

Then again, we’d had an amazing weekend together, and last night had been transformative. Whether Marley was second-guessing us, or simply trying to be cautious, I still had plenty to work with.

“What do you want to tell people?” I asked. “About us?”

“Nothing. I’m pretty sure Vivienne and Travis figured it out last night. We don’t need to advertise. It will just get around. Trust me.” She grinned.

We arrived at school and walked through the student parking lot into the main building. Daniel stood near the bike rack talking to some other sophomores. They were including him in their conversation, joking around. I caught his eye, and he gave me a reserved upnod.

Marley noticed too. “That’s a positive sign. I haven’t seen him since that incident with Fel at the tree lot, since I don’t have him this semester.”

The mystery of Daniel’s improved social standing was solved during my first period class. The juniors seemed perfectly happy to put off our discussion on the Magna Carta to fill me in on all the gossip from the weekend.

It sounded like the #colemancreekholiday selfie idea had taken off, with some folks coming from as far as Spokane to get a picture. At the dance, not only had Nan Tourman made a point of dancing with Daniel, she’d also told everyone that the selfie wall had been Daniel’s idea, that he’d asked her to bring the proposal to the student council but had been too shy to take the credit.

I didn’t know if that was true, or if she was just doing Daniel a solid. I only knew that—with a snap of Nan’s magical, manicured fingernails—Daniel was no longer a pariah. He’d been smiling this morning by the bike rack. I couldn’t recall ever having seen him smile before.