The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Andi James & Lila Wilde

Author:Andi James & Lila Wilde [James, Andi & Wilde, Lila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Aiden wiped a tear from his eye. “Stop! You’re killing me.” He looked up at Liam’s wicked smile and couldn’t remember the last time his abdominal muscles actually hurt from laughing. “There is no way that actually happened.”

Liam grinned widely. “Hand to god,” he said, lifting his left arm.

Aiden reached for another bottle cap and added it to his garland. When he’d arrived, Liam had been hard at work assembling decorations for the beautiful, but naked, Christmas tree standing to one side of the bar. Looking at it, Aiden couldn’t help but smile. It hadn’t been the coldest night they’d had so far, but Aiden chuckled at the memory of Liam’s pink nose and cheeks and the way the bright lights of the lot had sparkled in his eyes while they’d shopped together.

The decoration-making station had been set up on the bar so Liam could put things together between serving customers, but Liam had looked so lost, Aiden had offered to help when he’d arrived.

“I can’t believe you’ve been saving these all year,” Aiden said, motioning to the bowls of bottle caps and corks in front of him.

“Well, you can’t beat free, right?” Liam chuckled. “And, store bought decorations are great, but it doesn’t really feel like Christmas to me without something I’ve made hanging on the tree.”

Aiden thought about Justin’s perfectly decorated trees, covered in expensive ornaments. They were always absolutely stunning but had never given Aiden the same feeling of the holiday as he felt at that moment, crafting garland from beer caps and watching Liam make reindeer out of wine corks.

Liam’s smile faded a bit as he looked at his watch. “I think we might be safe to assume he’s not coming.”

“Who?” Aiden straightened, and Liam gave him a quizzical look. “Oh! My date.”

Aiden looked at the time on his phone and did the math. Had it really been forty minutes already? He felt like he’d just sat down.

Aiden sighed. “I think you might be right.” Which made sense since this date actually seemed promising. Chelsea had finally listened to his requests and seemed to have found someone closer to Aiden’s own age and with some genuine interests in common. Not that those were the only defining characteristics for a successful date, but he hadn’t really been batting a thousand lately.

Yet, even though the possibility of an actual good date was slipping through his fingers, Aiden couldn’t find it in himself to be heartbroken about it. It definitely didn’t feel great to be ditched, but as he looked up at Liam and his bright smile, Aiden realized he would have been content to spend the rest of the evening laughing with him, snagging his few free moments as Liam served his customers.

“So, then what happened?” Aiden asked, the pain of being stood up slowly dissipating. “Did you actually go to the circus?”

Liam chuckled and looked down at his hands. “Hey, Aiden, I know this is random, but would you want to—”

“Aiden?”

The deep voice behind him caught his attention, and Aiden turned to see a very handsome, pink-cheeked man.

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