Page 26 of Coming for Her Grumpy Boss

She glances over her shoulder, eyes catching mine, and for one suspended beat, the house is a snow globe. Everything feels picture-perfect.

Then she grins, wicked and sweet, and deliberately loops the lights around my forearm.

“Trapped,” I observe.

“Seasonal capture.” She flicks the plug—warm light spills across her face, across the room. “Oh,” she says softly. “That’s⁠—”

“Good,” I finish for her, because it is. The tree glows like it means it.

We tackle ornaments next. I open the FRAGILE bin, find the individual cubbies with tissue-wrapped ornaments. There are classic glass balls in deep greens and smoked golds, a handful of pewter brewhouse charms a vendor sent me, a tiny silver treble clef I pretend not to care about, and—Mia’s hand darts in—one lopsided macaroni star spray-painted an enthusiastic gold.

She looks from the star to me like she’s been handed state secrets. “You made this.”

“I was five. My fine motor skills weren’t… fully functional.”

Her smile is sweet, wistful. “It’s perfect.” She moves to hang it front-and-center.

“Back-left,” I say automatically. “The lighting is kinder to… artisanals.”

She faces me squarely. “Front. Center. I’m staging a union action.”

I surrender, because she’s right and because she looks so absurdly pleased I’d buy a second tree to watch her do it again. “Front center,” I say. “But we’re bracing.”

“Architecturally sound,” she echoes, and we both pretend we’re only talking about a star made of pasta.

She finds the treble clef next and holds it up, eyebrows lifted toward my ink. “Explain.”

“My mother taught piano,” I say, hooking a simple glass ball while I look anywhere but her face. “I took lessons until the teacher threatened to quit. I was better at counting than feeling.”

“Numbers have feelings,” she says thoughtfully, and hangs the clef at eye level. “They just hide them.”

“That’s projection.”

“Obviously.”

We work in comfortable silence for a while, punctuated by her commentary—“This one looks like it belongs in a Dickens novel,” “This one is aggressively jingle-bell,”—and my faux-serious coaching—“Even distribution, Morales,” “You are violating the candy-cane zoning ordinance.”

“I do not accept your cane tyranny,” she says, and hooks three in a row where I will absolutely move two as soon as she turns away. Her body shifts, and I reach for the canes, then catch myself and leave them as is. She watches me not do it and pretends not to see, which somehow feels like the most intimate thing we’ve done all night.

By the time we reach the last bin, the room smells like pine and cocoa and the faint ghost of her shampoo. I open TREE TOPPERS (CONTROVERSIAL) and reveal an angel with a slightly crooked halo and a simple metal star.

She gives me a look that says she knows exactly which one I expect her to choose, and then chooses the opposite. “Angel,” she declares. “And before you argue, look—she’s a little off-center. Like me.”

“Incorrect,” I say, but I’m already lifting her. “Ready?”

She sets her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t drop me.”

“Never,” I say it without thinking, and we both feel it.

I raise her easily; she braces a knee against the lower branches, careful as a cat, and perches the angel on the top spike. The lights catch the gilt of the crooked halo. Mia wobbles just enough that I grip her tighter, palms warm on her thighs.

“Gingerbread,” she teases breathlessly.

“Abusing the safe word,” I mutter, lowering her slowly. “HR calling.”

“HR can send an email,” she says, close now, the angel glowing over her shoulder, the tree throwing soft light across her mouth.

I kiss her. Not the earlier brand of frantic; something quieter and somehow louder. When we part, she presses her forehead to mine and whispers, “This is dangerously domestic.”