The next few boxes I opened might have been influenced by teenage Tim. There was enough lingerie to fill two dressers, all vacuum packed. It was kind of funny to think of Tim being shown a lingerie catalogue by his desperate mother.
And then there was a box labeled “mixed footwear.” It had chunky boots with wooden heels, chunky sandals with wooden heels, and wooden clogs with flowers painted on them.Did anyone still wear clogs nowadays? Or were these supposed to be decorative?The shoes were heavy. This had to have been the last box I’d tried to lift. I pushed it to one side and mentally marked it as “Return to Sender.”
Mom poked her head in the store. She glanced around nervously, grimacing. “Do I want to know the verdict?”
“I’m still forming a vision, Mom. Go back to your dry cleaning.” I had a feeling it would be better this way.
Shoulders slumped, Mom retreated.
I opened another box. It had plastic-wrapped, vacuum-sealed, ugly Christmas sweaters.
“At least people are in the market for these now,” I muttered. That is, if I could get Mom to open soon.
I’d only gone through a third of the first truckload of boxes before the second truckload arrived.
Dad and Nick made quick work unloading the truck with the dolly.
“Do you want me to send Mom over to help you?” Dad asked, standing uncertainly in the doorway.
I shook my head.
“I’ll stay and help get the boxes open and contents sorted.” That was Nick, my hero. “Here. You left your coffee in the truck.”
Yes, the man was a saint.
Which only reminded me that I was trying to be a better friend to him.
“While you open those tall boxes, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you?” I checked the time on my phone. “I have an hour before I need to change and open the dance studio.”
While I stared dejectedly at a box of faux fur coats – because it was a box of twenty and I doubted there were twenty faux fur coat buyers in all of Christmas Mountain – Nick opened a dozen boxes and shared a whole lotta nothing about himself personally. And by that, I mean, he didn’t speak. Not at all.
Meanwhile, I was peeking into box after box of merchandise that wouldn’t entice me into a store. Glow in the dark T-shirts, cheap bangles, false eyelashes, mom jeans. What had my mother been thinking?
I have to say, it wasn’t a good moment for me. Why? Because my image of what the store could be didn’t jive with the items she’d purchased.
Frustration about the store collected in my chest. It built and built, rising from my chest into my throat. It demanded I say something. To someone. About anything and everything negative. How toxic.
I needed Nick and his distraction. His words. His smile. But he was lost in his own thoughts.
To keep from snapping at him for no reason other than he was here, I made a loud groan.
“What’s wrong?” Nick was immediately at my side. “Are you hurt?” He examined my hands, arms, and face. He glanced down at my feet.
“I’m fine,” I reassured him. “It’s just that this task is harder on me emotionally than I thought it would be. I mean, I don’t know what I thought I’d find, exactly. But it wasn’t…this.” What I considered box after box of unsellable merchandise.
“What can I do?”
I tilted my face up to his, planted my palms on his cheeks, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Either talk to me or kiss me, ‘cuz I am about to – ”
He kissed me.
It was one of those kisses that included a crush-your-body-against-mine element.
And good golly, Miss Molly. It was one of those five-star kisses that weakened the knees and stole your breath.
“There,” he said when he unlocked those hot lips from mine. He smoothed my hair away from my forehead. “All better?” And then he left me standing there.
I sagged against the cardboard box full of faux fur coats and wondered why in the world I had never considered kissing my best friend before this holiday season.