“I bet,” he says, stepping closer.
I look up into his eyes and my breath catches in his throat. His eyes are heated, filled with something that I’ve only seen right before we kiss.
“Eli,” I whisper, stepping closer to him.
My lips start to tingle and it feels like we’re two magnets being drawn closer to each other. It feels like us kissing is inevitable.
Eli steps closer, closing the distance between us and I tilt my chin up, offering my lips to him. He leans down and then leans down some more. Our lips are a breath away from meeting when Brennan comes back into the kitchen.
“Can I carry the bread in, Hartley?” he asks and Eli and I jerk apart.
“Of course you can,” I tell him, passing him the bread basket and watching as he skips into the dining room.
“We should go eat,” Eli says, his voice a little gruff and I can only nod as he turns and heads into the kitchen.
What the hell was that about?
I follow Eli into the dining room and take the seat next to him.
“This looks so good,” Susan gushes to Brennan and I smile when I see the way the little boy perks up.
I help Brennan fill his plate with food and compliment him on how good everything turned out.
“You’ll have to ask for some more cooking stuff for your birthday or Christmas,” Susan says with a wink.
Brennan looks to Patrick and I have a feeling that Brennan will be getting more kitchen stuff before then. I think Patrick would do anything to make Brennan happy.
“What did you get for Christmas this year?” Susan asks him and I listen as he tells us about some toy from a kid’s show that I’ve never even heard of before.
“Did you have lots of family come in?” she asks him, leaning closer to his chair.
Brennan gets a sad look on his face and stares down at his plate.
“It’s just us, Mrs. Grove,” Patrick says quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Well, you can join us for all of the holidays then. You too of course, Hartley.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Grove. That sounds really nice,” I say with a smile.
Eli gets a weird look on his face when I say that, like he’s wondering if I’m being honest.
Should I not have said that? Maybe he doesn’t want his mom to get her hopes up for something that is close to a year away?
“We’ll have to buy the biggest ham we can find. And we can make mashed potatoes and yams, green bean casserole of course and what else? What did you usually make, Hartley? Any special traditions?” Susan asks and Eli reaches under the table, squeezing my hand.
I know that he’s worried that I’ll be upset since I lost Grams right before Christmas. I wait to see if the familiar sharp stab of grief that comes whenever I think of Grams to come, but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s more like a dull ache.
“We used to make soup. It was just my grams and me and she always said that she was so sick of making turkey and ham and all of the fixings, so we would make a bunch of different kinds of soup. We’d have to borrow crockpots and ladles from all of our neighbors,” I tell Susan with a soft smile.
“Most of our neighbors were older and all alone so we’d invite them over to eat and say that it was the least we could do to pay them back. We used to make bread and rolls and a whole table full of desserts and we’d all crowd into our tiny living room to eat. It was a mess,” I say, struggling to hold in the laugh. “But it was fun. Plus, this way everyone got to go home with some leftovers and no one was alone.”
“That sounds lovely! I’m always so sick of turkey and ham by then too. We should try that this year. What do you think, honey?” Susan asks, turning to look at her husband.
“What kind of soup?” Frank asks, a doubtful look on his face.
I laugh and start telling them about all of the kinds that we could make. Brennan is hanging off my every word and I have a feeling that Patrick is going to be eating nothing but soup for the next couple of weeks.
As we finish up dinner, a thought hits me.
I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with all of these people.