Mistletoe and Fire Glow
A Holiday Romance Short Story
Nicole R. Locker
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Nicole R. Locker
Interior Design by Nicole R. Locker
Cover Design by Nicole R. Locker
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
A Note From the Author
Chapter 1
The smell of spiced cider wafted through the small, sparsely populated and festively decorated diner as a waitress brought over a steaming cup and laid it on the table in front of Cordi. A smile and a nod, and the waitress was off, leaving Cordi to bask in the dim, hanging lights to sip her cider and wait in solitude.
What was she waiting for? The more appropriate question was who, though she really couldn’t answer that, either. Her friend, Marta, had insisted she be set up with a guy she knew through her own boyfriend, Jake. Cordi, as usual, had her doubts. She agreed to the date, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up that Graham was going to be anything short of disappointing.
Now, there was a word she was used to in the dating department. Disappointment seemed to follow her around like a persistent house fly. She was convinced she was a magnet for guys who still lived at home in their parents’ basements or expected her to pay for dinner. If she met one more guy who ghosted her after only a couple of weeks, she thought she would just give up dating altogether. At thirty-two, who needed it?
She watched out the glass door covered in blinking Christmas lights, green garland, and red bows as the agreed meeting time drew closer. The wind howled as it whipped an empty, Styrofoam cup in circles on the sidewalk outside. It sent a chill through Cordi as she looked further past the door and up toward the clouds that held a promise of snow. She cupped her cider in both hands, taking in its warmth as she huddled in her chair.
When a guy matching Graham’s description – dark-brown hair, chiseled jaw, and piercing blue eyes – approached the door and entered, Cordi found her hopes rise ever-so-slightly as she waited to see if her assumption was correct. Could this hottie be her date?
Her eyes followed him as he stepped inside, paused to look around the empty room, and then turned in her direction drawing closer to her. She was just about to stand and greet him when he took a seat at the table next to hers, effectively quashing the hopes that had involuntarily continued to build.
Of course this fine-looking dude wouldn’t be her date. She should be looking for someone a lot less yummy, she had no doubt. It was never her luck to get the guys she was instantly attracted to.
She settled back into her chair as she continued to wait, in the meantime watching the hot guy as he shrugged out of his wool coat and gave his order to the lone waitress, black coffee and buttermilk pie.
Michael Buble sang Feliz Navidad in the background as Cordi stole glance after glance at her watch, wondering what was keeping her date. When she got to the bottom of her cup, the waitress came back around asking if she’d like another, and she agreed. If her date hadn’t arrived by the time the next cider was done, she was out of there.
“You waiting for someone?” the guy asked once the waitress headed off toward the kitchen. His voice was deep and smooth, Cordi noticed.
She looked over to see him looking her way. He was talking to her, she realized, as her heart leapt in her chest. Who else would he be talking to?
“Yes, blind date,” she admitted. Her hands motioned dismissively in the air, aiming for nonchalance. “You?”
“I’m here for the pie,” he said as a grin spread across his face, lighting his handsome features.
Cordi gave a knowing nod. The local diner was known for their pies, and had it not been for the impending snow storm that was scheduled to hit later that night, the place would have been packed as usual. As it was, it seemed everyone in the neighborhood was already settling it in before it got too bad out. Everyone, that is, except for Cordi and this gorgeous lad at the table next to hers.
“The pies are amazing,” Cordi said. “The cider isn’t half bad, either,” she added with a smile as the waitress returned with her second cup.
“I guess that means I’d better try it, then,” the guy said, looking to the waitress to make sure she heard and understood the order.
Cordi nodded, but remained quiet, not wanting to encroach on the gentleman’s time. Another minute passed before he spoke up again.
“Would you like to join me until your date gets here?” he asked, using his foot to push out the chair sitting next to his and motioning to the empty seat as he looked to her for her response. “I could use the company,” he added.
Cordi hesitated for a moment. What would her date think when he walked in to find her sitting there with this insanely attractive guy? If he walked in, she supposed. At this rate, she was beginning to think she had been stood up, anyway, and if not, then Graham was certainly not getting off to a good start being this late.
“Alright,” she agreed. Then she stood, pushing her own chair back as she grabbed her coat hanging from the back of it, along with her cider that she picked up from her table, and moved the few steps over to join him.
“I’m Cordi, by the way,” she said as she held her hand out for a handshake once she sat down beside him.
“Cordi, nice to meet you. My friends call me Russ,” he replied as he returned her handshake.
The heat of his touch radiated through her, warming and comforting her in a way that she hadn’t felt before. She thought how different she expected this night to go. She had been nervous to meet a new guy, a date that she would feel obligated to impress. She had thought she’d be on edge all evening, trying to play the game of getting to know someone new.
Sitting there with Russ felt different. She felt at ease without the added pressure of expectations, and she found herself hoping Graham really had stood her up after a half hour of easy and light-hearted conversation.
The snow began falling around a half past nine, and Cordi decided she had better get going if she was going to get home before it really started coming down. She lived in an apartment just up the block, and it was going to be a cold walk home.
Even though Graham had never shown up, she couldn’t help but feel a giddy sense of contentment at the direction the night had taken. She figured those warm thoughts would get her through the cold, the wind, and the falling snow on her way home.
“It was nice to meet you, Russ. I’d better get going. Maybe you should, too, if you don’t want to get caught in the storm,” she suggested, pulling on her coat.
He insisted on paying for her ciders before offering to walk her out, and she wasn’t going to protest to either. She really hated for this evening to end.
Once they got outside, Cordi began heading down the block toward her apartment as Russ went to open the driver side door of his har
d-top Jeep. He turned to look back at her and noticed her walking onward down the block in the freezing cold.
“You’re not walking home, are you?” Russ called to her through the biting wind.
She pulled her collar up around her neck and wrapped her arms tight around her as she stopped and turned to look back. “Yes,” she called back to him.
He motioned for her to come back. “Get in. I’ll drive you home.”
She thought about declining the offer. It wasn’t that far, after all. The wind whipped past her once again, chilling her to the bone. The warmth in his eyes was all the convincing she needed, and before she knew it, she was climbing into the passenger seat next to him.
“Where to?” he asked her with a wide smile.
“Thirty-fourth and Main.”
Chapter 2
When Cordi booted up her laptop to work from home the following morning, having been snowed in from the overnight snow storm, her thoughts kept wandering to the night before, to Russ and his infectious smile. It put her in a good mood, and she hummed along with Christina Aguilera crooning on her living room Bluetooth speakers, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, as she logged into her company’s network.
It wasn’t long before a notification popped up at the bottom of her screen, a video chat request from Marta. She clicked Accept, and her friend’s expectant expression immediately appeared.
“Well? How did it go last night?” Marta asked.
“It went fairly well, considering your guy never showed up,” Cordi answered, crinkling the skin between her eyebrows.
“What? That’s not right. Jake talked to Graham last night and he said he had just gotten home from his date. He said he really hit it off,” Marta explained in a defensive tone, shaking her head.
“I don’t know who he hit it off with, but it wasn’t me. Graham never showed up to the diner last night. I sat there alone for a while, and ended up chatting with another guy who came in by himself to eat some pie. He still wasn’t there when I left around nine-thirty.” Cordi shrugged, matter-of-factly.
“That’s crazy. I just can’t believe Graham would stand you up. He always seemed like a pretty nice guy from all the times he’s hung around Jake and me. I wonder if he just lied about it, or if he went out with someone else.” Marta was looking down and away from the computer screen, and it seemed like she was talking more to herself than to Cordi at that point.
“Hey, Marta, it’s really not a big deal. Besides, the guy with the pie was great company,” she admitted, not realizing she was smiling at the memory of Russ and their playful banter.
“I know that smile! Tell me more about this pie guy,” Marta urged, eager to get the scoop.
“There’s nothing to tell, really. He came in, sat at a table next to mine, ordered pie, and offered for me to join him while I waited on my blind date to show up. We just kind of talked and laughed until it got late and the snow storm started moving in. Then he offered to drive me home so I wouldn’t have to walk in the cold,” Cordi recounted with nonchalance.
“He drove you home?” Marta asked, digging for more details.
“Hey, I wasn’t going to turn down a warm ride! It was snowing already, and the wind was freezing,” Cordi said.
“So, then what? Did you invite him up?”
Cordi laughed at her nosey friend. “Uh, no! I just met the guy. Anyway, I’ll probably never even see him again. He was just a nice stranger who kept me company while I was being stood up by your so-called nice-guy friend,” she said in an accusatory tone.
Marta’s face contorted in a cringe. “You didn’t even get his number? Seriously, nothing?”
Cordi shook her head no. “Marta, how could I ask for his number when he knew I was waiting on a date when we met? I mean, what would that have looked like? I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong. I just… it wouldn’t have been right.”
Marta wasn’t sure who, between the two of them, Cordi was trying to convince.
“I guess,” was Marta’s response, though it was clear that she didn’t agree.
“I’ve got to get to work. Call me later,” Cordi said as she reached her hand toward the mousepad, ready to end the video chat, but waiting for Marta’s goodbye before she hit End and got back to work.
When she came to a lull in her duties after a couple of hours, she decided to get up and grab a snack from the kitchen. Again, her thoughts went to Russ and the previous night.
Why hadn’t she asked for his number? She would like to see him again, but it wasn’t like he had asked her for her number, either. He was probably just a nice guy, and she would’ve looked like a desperate clinger if she had assumed his friendliness was anything more than that.
But would it have been so wrong to ask?
No, she did the right thing, she thought. She didn’t want to look desperate. At least, not any more than she must have already, considering she was sitting there all alone, waiting on a date who never bothered to show up, when they had met.
When Last Christmas by Wham! came on over the Bluetooth speakers, she couldn’t help a slow nod of her head, relating to the message of the song. She sang along, coming to terms with her utterly-single status, and vowing that the next guy she decided to give her heart to would, undoubtedly, have to be someone special.
As she sat back down to her laptop to get back to work, she felt hopeful. After all, she thought, it was the season for miracles. She was completely clueless to the fact that her luck was about to change.
Chapter 3
Russell “Russ” Graham had known from the moment he walked into that diner that the girl with the supple lips and rose-tinted cheeks was Cordi, the girl his buddy Jake’s girlfriend had insisted he go out with. Had he known she would be that pretty, he would have agreed to it much sooner.
Russ knew from experience that everyone always had somebody he just had to be set up with, especially this time of year. What was it about mistletoe and fire glow that put everyone under some kind of holiday love trance?
At his age, rounding on thirty five, most of his friends were married, and some even had kids by now. Jake and Marta were the closest thing he had to single friends, since they weren’t married yet, and he joined them out-and-about often enough. For the past few months now, Marta had persistently gone on and on about her single friend from work, hoping Russ would give in and go out with her.
Maybe it was an unfair stereotype, but Russ was sure that single women who had to have their work pals set them up always came with a huge but. No, not butt. That, he wouldn’t have minded. This was the kind that negated the assets of said women. She was great, but…
Of course, he never found out about the but until he was smack-dab in the middle of an awkward date, or worse, and third or fourth date. He wasn’t taking any chances this time around, even if she was a sight for sore eyes.
He knew that Marta would have introduced him by his last name, Graham. It’s what all the guys in their group called him, and he wasn’t sure Marta even knew his first name, since it was never used, even in mixed company.
“My friends call me Russ,” he had told Cordi, and it was true enough. Maybe not all of his friends, but this gave him a chance to tell the truth without giving too much away too soon. He needed to get to know her a little bit and somehow set up a scenario where she would show him the real her that he knew wouldn’t come out if she was nervous or trying too hard to impress, as anyone admittedly tended to do on a first date.
He hadn’t counted on her being amazing. She was funny, easy to talk to, and wasn’t afraid to dig into a slice of buttermilk pie. When he took her home, it was almost like he was seeing stars as she thanked him and got out without even giving him a chance to ask if he could call her sometime. Maybe the stars had been the twinkling Christmas lights that lit a path to her apartment entrance doorway, but even those paled in comparison to the brightness of her eyes as she smiled and waved before closing the
Jeep door.
Now, as he passed all the shops and buildings that lined the streets, each decked with lights that shimmered their reds, greens, blues, and silvers against the snow-covered ground below, he drove himself home from a long day of work. He just nearly caught himself pulling the Jeep over outside her apartment building, wanting to drop in just to see her again. He decided against it, partly because he didn’t know which apartment she lived in. Also, what kind of creep stalker would he look like if he just showed up on her doorstep? He thought better of it and carried on down the icy street in four-wheel-drive.
He turned down the radio playing The Piano Guys’ rendition of Angels We Have Heard On High as he pressed the Bluetooth button on the steering column and stated his command, “Call Jake.”
The sound of the phone ringing filled the cab of the Jeep, and Jake’s voice came over the speakers. “Graham, what’s up, buddy?”
“Hey, did Marta invite Cordi to your Christmas get-together this Friday?” Russ asked, getting straight to the point.
“I’m guessing so. Why? You want me to ask her?” Jake suggested.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Russ could hear Jake’s muffled voice calling out to Marta. “Hey, babe? … Graham wants to know if you invited Cordi to our get-together this Friday…”
Then Jake answered back into the phone, “Hold on. She wants to talk to you.”
Russ groaned internally, rolling his eyes up to the hardtop of the Jeep, but greeted Marta cheerfully when she got on the phone.
“Graham?” she said.
“Hey Marta.”
“What the heck, Graham? Cordi said you never showed up last night. What gives?” she admonished.
“I’m sorry. You must think I’m a jerk,” Russ admitted. He couldn’t tell her the real story yet without risking her telling Cordi.
“I think you probably have a darn good reason, but if you don’t, then yeah, I’m going to think you’re a jerk.”
“That’s why I called. I was hoping I could have a do-over. Is she coming to your party this weekend?” Russ asked, trying to come across as casual and not too eager.