Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) Read Online Free PDF

shy.”
    My face heated in the confines of the car, and I wished I could have stuck my head out the window like a big yellow dog.
    “You say that, and now I’m all embarrassed,” I told him, and his laugh was a soft sound blown away by the wind.
    After about an hour of driving out in the mostly rural country off Jackson Highway, I stopped at a gas station to fill up. Oliver trotted inside and came out with two frosties in cups, mine with lots of caramel and nuts.
    He waited until I was done pumping gas and said, “Pull over to the back of the station. You can savor it then.”
    I looked at him quick and saw that he was laughing a little at the idea of savoring gas station ice cream, and I laughed too. But behind the gas station, there was miles and miles of nothing. Far off in the distance, you could see the lights that meant the urban sprawl of Sacramento was starting, but there wasn’t even one light behind the store.
    Oliver and I both leaned against the Toyota and “savored” our sweating ice cream. A breeze blew across all of that dried nothing and I found I was scooting up against Oliver a little for warmth. He didn’t seem to mind.
    For a few moments, we didn’t say a word, and the world was perfect.
    Then, into the quiet, Oliver said, “Rusty, if I try something, do you promise to still call me if it doesn’t work?”
    God, I’m dumb.
    “Try something like what? That thing with the computer so we can see each other? Because I can do that already.”
    Oliver laughed into his empty ice-cream cup and talked about something else. “Rusty, who was the last girl you dated?”
    “Jennifer Brukholtz—you remember, I told you about her?”
    “No dick before dinner,” Oliver said dryly. “Yeah. Not easy to forget.”
    I sulked and scooped out the last of the ice cream with my spoon, and then sucked the spoon upside down on my tongue, creating a perfect seal. Oliver turned toward me, looking up at me with those eyes that said I was all that. My tongue got sucked in around the spoon and for a minute I was stuck, Oliver laughing at me, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth like every bad dream I’d ever had about public speaking, except I wasn’t naked.
    I had a sudden thought then, of me naked, and Oliver in front of me the same way.
    I stopped breathing, and the spoon loosened from the top of my mouth and started to slide out. Oliver caught it before it could stop dangling off my lips and put it in his ice-cream cup. Very deliberately, he took the cup from me, put it in his own, and set them both on top of the car behind me.
    “You just thought about it, didn’t you?” he asked quietly.
    I’m dumb, remember? No lying. I nodded my head and swallowed. “Yeah.”
    There was just enough light from behind us to see it dancing in the brown of his eyes.
    “I’ve thought about it a lot,” he said quietly. “And you’re leaving tomorrow. Which means if this doesn’t work out, it’ll be okay. We’ll be friends and we’ll text and—”
    “If what doesn’t work out?” I asked, and his lips quirked upwards, leaving perfect apostrophes on either side of his brown mouth.
    “Just close your eyes,” he said softly, and I did.
    He moved slowly, reaching behind my head and pulling it down, and when I was right where he needed to be, he raised up a little. I could feel puffs of breath against my mouth, and then a tickle against my lips. And another, harder. And one more, warmer.
    I gasped, opening my mouth, and his tongue swept in, teasing a little, until I teased back.
    He sighed into my mouth, and for a moment it felt like he was going to pull away, but I wasn’t ready. I reached behind him and pulled him closer to me, and his tongue went deeper. Ohhh . . . this was kissing. I sighed back at him, and he pulled away, leaving me to suck on his tongue until the last minute, because I wanted him some more.
    And then it hit me.
    Oliver had kissed me, and I’d kissed him back.
    I dropped my arms and jerked