Charming Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’d like to make it home alive.”
    â€œAlive, but not really living.” He swung onto the bike and lifted the kickstand. “Think about it, Rocky.”
    â€œWould you stop calling me that?” I yelled over the grumble of the engine, but ZZ was already balancing the bike, then roaring off, his beard blowing back over one shoulder as the Harley cruised off toward Fells Point.
    Enough with the sage Santa. Like I needed advice from a dude on a Harley. I don’t know why I even talked to him, anyway, something about the neighborliness of Baltimoreans. In New York people sat shoulder to shoulder with total strangers for a forty-minute subway ride and never made eye contact, but here, if someone made a comment and you didn’t answer, they would keep on you until you acknowledged them. I wasn’t sure which social code was preferable.
    As the sun had melted the chill in the air and warmed the brick paving stones underfoot, I stood in front of the new Rossman’s building and decided to check my messages. If one of my friends was available for lunch, it wasn’t worth the bus trip home right now. The pitfalls of not having a car in Baltimore, a city where most residents owned a car, sometimes two.
    There was one message—my mother, telling me she had some library books due this week. Due Friday. Hoped she wasn’t inconveniencing me by asking for a favor, but those late fees did add up. In fact, she received a late notice on the Janet Evanovich novel I was supposed to return for her two weeks ago.
    With a pang of frustration I turned away from the building and focused on a figure in a dark coat striding purposefully toward the entrance. Something struck a familiar chord. Was it the broad shoulders that seemed so heavy on his small frame, or the way he moved, hesitantly, as if considering each step? This was someone I knew, but as I took in his face, the pinched nose and dark eyes, I couldn’t make the connection. Was he a former neighbor, a classmate, a waiter at a favorite restaurant?
    He was starting up the tiered marble steps—my chance. “Hey,” I called, “how’s it going?”
    He turned to me and paused, as if nothing were so important as the message passing between us. Then I knew him, my seventh-grade sweetie. That halting look was the tip-off for me.
    â€œWoody? Wood Man Cruise!”
    â€œLivvy . . .” He threw out his arms and I joined in the hug, feeling stiff in my winter coat.
    â€œGreat to see you, Woody.”
    â€œActually, I go by Sherwood now.”
    â€œReally? Sounds very . . . nerdy.”
    He sucked in a breath. “You wound me.”
    â€œOr artistic . . . That’s what I meant.”
    â€œSorry, but I can’t let that one go. You haven’t changed, have you? Still hurting me after all these years.”
    â€œDon’t say that,” I said, focusing on his eyes, familiar eyes, the brown of brandy. I will never forget the bursts of emotion I have witnessed in those eyes. The first time I’d ever seen the dreamy, tortured facets of romantic love, I was allowing myself a glimpse into his dark eyes before a kiss in a game of spin the bottle. Such a small moment, really, but important in my adolescent mind in that it revealed the consequences and depth of an adult relationship—the simple fact that boys had feelings, too.
    There had been other snapshots, too: the competitive shot sent to other boys on the playground during a tackle game of football; the monastic respect he paid the nuns in our school; and the pained, sorrowful disappointment I’d caused him when I’d been suddenly hit by the notion that seventh-grade girls were too mature to date seventh-grade guys.
    â€œSo tell me . . .” His eyes softened as if he was relieved to see me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    â€œHome for a while,” I lied. “How about you?”
    â€œI’m crazed today. Chasing