Trading with the Boys

BROCK

She was absolutely gorgeous, top to bottom. Sloane had silky brown hair — long, just the way I liked it — that danced teasingly around a perfect, angelic face. On top of that she was curvaceous and pretty, with caramel brown eyes and lips that were naturally plump and beautiful.

And Kade had brought her to us like he was delivering a pizza.

“You said you wanted to go big, right?”

I turned for her reaction, and saw her smile widen into a smirk. She wasn’t offended. She was playing the game.

“Well bigger is better,” she acknowledged.

“Uh huh,” I grinned back. “As long as you’ve got the, you know, room for it.”

“Oh, I do.”

She was still holding my hand, and that was something. It felt wonderful in my palm, beneath her woven cotton gloves.

“How big are we talking?” I asked.

“Well the first tree I had this year was fourteen feet.”

Valerio whistled low, just behind us. “Fourteen. Wow!”

Sloane paused to look his way, arching a well-manicured eyebrow at him. “You boys got anything that big?”

My eyes went wide at the double-entendre. Whoever she was, she was definitely a fun one.

“Actually yes,” said Valerio. “But he’s taking you the wrong way.”

He reached out and snatched her other hand, pulling her in a different direction. Caught between us for a moment, both arms outstretched, she giggled.

“Easy… you’re going to pull me apart.”

“He’s right though,” I acknowledged, finally letting go. “I was going to show you the scotch pines, but the only thing that big would be a douglas fir.”

We walked swiftly down a long row of shorter trees, the breath from our exertion showing as little puffs of white smoke. Sloane looked just as amazing from the back as she did from the front. As a red-blooded American male, I couldn’t help but notice it.

“What did you mean by ‘first tree this year’?” I asked.

I saw her expression change. It looked like she was deciding something.

“Well I had a tree about a week ago,” she admitted. “But that one got kicked to the curb.”

“Along with an ex-boyfriend?” I theorized.

Her face lit up with a smile. “Yes!” she swore excitedly. “How’d you know?”

“It happens,” I shrugged back at her. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first.”

“Well that’s a relief,” she declared with a laugh. “It’s good to know I’m not the only psycho dragging a fully-decorated tree — stand and everything — out to the curb a few weeks before Christmas.”

Valerio laughed with her. “Wow. Ornaments, tree-stand and all?”

“Yup.”

“That’s dedication!”

“Yeah, well my fellow tenants must think I’m a lunatic,” she lamented.