Tinsel in a Tangle by Ainslie Paton

Author:Ainslie Paton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Escape Publishing

Shelby: Now

She’d ask Adam when he got back from being stitched up. What’s the worst that could happen? It was lunch. If he said no, it’s not like her whole world would spin in the other direction. It’s not like she’d spent a year inappropriately focusing on how much she liked his work ethic.

Oh, stuff his work ethic, she’d mostly been inappropriately focused on how he smiled a little crookedly and made her want to lie in a pile of puppies. How much she wanted to see what he’d look like with his hair loose, and whether he really did smell like green trees after a thunderstorm or if she’d imagined that from their near collision events.

She’d learned something else about herself tonight. She wasn’t that great at creating fantasies. To think she’d never tuned in to his incredible forearms when she’d imagined what his hugs might be like. She’d never be able to look at his arms again without feeling swirly inside in all the best ways.

It wasn’t just lunch she wanted to invite Adam to. It wasn’t just touch she wanted, a kiss she was secretly desperate to have. It was the idea of exploring what they might be like together as friends, as more than friends, outside work. It was the outrageous idea they might enjoy spending time together and sharing their lives.

But Adam had never done anything to encourage her to think this way, other than treat her with the same courtesy he treated everyone with. Filled water jugs weren’t a declaration of undying affection. Steadying hands and words weren’t invitations to anything beyond collegiality, much as she might want them to mean more. And especially after Dave and Christina’s flame out, she’d been hyper wary of stepping over the boundary lines to attempt an office romance. It simply wouldn’t do. Lunch was the compromise her dislocated heart could handle. She could be satisfied with that.

Liar, liar, Santa pants on fire.

He’d never done anything to encourage her and she’d never signalled she wanted to be encouraged. But this buzzing current of awareness she had, the one that let her know when he was near, even when she’d yet to catch sight of him, the cosmic room tilt that brought them close, surely meant something.

She loved her job. She’d loved it all the more this year, despite how awful Felix was, because seeing Adam, hearing his voice, sitting in meetings he attended where she could enjoy his thinking, even pouring water from the jug he’d filled, was a secret thrill, a twitch that ran under her skin, quickened her pulse and lightened her day.

So she was asking him when he got back from being fixed up because after tonight she might not have an excuse to see him again.

And that wasn’t all she was doing.

She had to deal with her forgiveness problem, put it into perspective. Some people didn’t do anything to deserve forgiveness, especially if they kept on making the same damn mistake. She was telling

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