They handed the box between them and shrugged off coats, all while elbowing people who didn’t seem to care.
“Lots of beers,” Trevor said, and kissed her on the cheek as she handed him her jacket. She loved Trevor, she did. He was capable and independent. He wasn’t intimidated by a room full of strangers. He even agreed to come to Laramie for a Christmas Eve party.
They were going to try and make it romantic. They had a hotel room in town. Dinner reservations for tomorrow. The deal was they could check their phones and emails three times a day. That was it. That was the deal.
He was perfect. Totally perfect.
Trina made her way through the throngs of people toward the kitchen. Convincing herself it was all the people, the wall of body heat that was making her hands sweat against the cake box.
But that didn’t really explain the butterflies in her stomach.
It had been years since she’d seen Dean, but they’d gotten better about emails. And when he’d emailed and told her about the party, he probably wasn’t expecting her to come. It was undoubtedly just one of those things people say: I’m throwing a Christmas Eve party for some people I work with and friends who aren’t going home. You should come.
She lived in Northern California, for crying out loud.
Stuck between the living room and the kitchen, behind some people who were moving the couch to make a better dance floor, she realized how stupid this was.
She’d travelled hundreds of miles, dragged her boyfriend and brought a freaking cake to some keg party thrown by a guy who probably didn’t even mean the invitation, all because Christmas Eve made her so crazy.
She turned and began to head back. She and Trevor could go back to the hotel by the highway— “Trina?”
The sound of her old friend’s voice made her smile. She turned back around and there he was, a head taller than everyone in the party.
“You came!” His smile did not indicate that she was not welcome, that she’d been stupid to drive. His smile told her this party just got better by her being there. No one—not ever—had looked so glad to see her. And it was shockingly intimate. She wasn’t used to seeing someone’s happiness brought on by her.
“I did!”
He didn’t have the same problem she did cutting through the crowd—people seemed to make way for him. And quite suddenly, he was there. Right in front of her.
“Awesome,” he said, and he leaned down a little and she got up on her tiptoes and they hugged. Hard. They never hugged, not even on graduation night when he got so drunk and wanted to egg his own house and she managed to stop him.
But they were hugging now. He had his arms around her back, lifting her up and into him. She was balancing the cake box behind his head. Totally unexpectedly, she was swept up by some kind of giddy nostalgia, a bright happiness to see him. She’d forgotten how big he was. Or maybe how small she was.
Because in his arms, she suddenly felt very tiny.
He smelled slightly of beer and sweat and deodorant and something that reminded her a little of elementary school. Or maybe that was just some kind of Pavlov’s response, since she’d gone to school with him every year from kindergarten to high school.
The music got cranked up, old Garth Brooks, and someone bumped into them and the hug was over, though Dean kept his hand on her elbow, pulling her and the cake box behind him into the kitchen.
His hand on her skin felt conspicuous, and she tried to ignore it. But the feeling spread, and soon her whole body felt awkward and strange. Not hers.
Finally they stopped in a quiet corner near a pantry door. “I can’t believe you came,” he said, smiling down at her.
“I guess it is a little crazy.”
“The best kind of crazy,” he said. “What’s in the box?”
“Something really crazy. Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking—”
“Is it for me?”
“Yes. I mean, I guess it was for the party. But it’s clearly not that kind of party.”
He broke the tape on the sides of the box and lifted it.
Stupid. Such a stupid idea. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“This isn’t for me!” He laughed, that fond teasing laugh she’d forgotten about. “It’s for you.”
“No! It’s—”
“Awesome,” he said. “I haven’t had a yule log in years. I’ll hide it behind the milk in the fridge so no one will find it.”
Someone walked past with a full cup of beer from the keg in the corner, and Dean grabbed it from the guy and gave it to her.
“Dean?” the guy yelled.
“There’s plenty, Mo. Be gone.”
Mo was gone. Trina took a sip of beer. And then another.
Dean went to hide the cake in the fridge and came right back.
“How have you been?” Dean asked, his dark eyes bright. “How is law school?”
“Good. Busy. It’s hard, you know. Sometimes harder than I thought. And sometimes harder than I think I can handle, but I just keep going.”
“You’re not thinking about quitting, are you?”