In Love Before Christmas Read Online Free PDF

shining in her silver hair came up to their table.
     
    “What a lovely couple,” she smiled.
     
    “Oh we’re not…no,” Lani laughed and Matt chuckled nervously which told her he was not thinking of her in that regards anyway so friends is where they should be and stay.
     
    “Lovely couple,” she nodded as she smiled and walked away.
     
    “I think maybe she’s deaf or something,” Lani twisted her mouth and Matt nodded.
     
    “Or something,” he grinned. “Lani, how did I end up with the bigger half of the muffin?”
     
    She laughed. “You paid.” He frowned and she giggled even more.
     
    “We usually do a fifty-fifty split.”
     
    “I know, but well…usually you’re the one who does the cutting remember.”
     
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
     
    She shook her head. “To be my best friend you surely don’t notice much about me sometimes.” She picked up the butter knife. “I’m going to cut my piece in half,” she said as she sliced into the soft, moist muffin.
     
    “Um…you said half. That’s like…butchered.”
     
    “Exactly,” she nodded. “I can’t cut straight, Matt. Haven’t you ever noticed that I never cut the cake, the pie, the bread or anything else at any of the holiday parties?”
     
    She noticed when the light went on in his head and he realized she was right. Nobody in their right mind put a knife in her hand and asked her to cut anything at a party—not unless they didn’t care what the cut looked like.
     
    “What’s so hard about cutting straight?”
     
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. I start off just fine, but then I go…” she waved her hand around and made a “whoosh,” sound as she did it. “I try, Matt. I really do, but I just can’t.”
     
    He laughed. “Well then I’ll be the knife barer so you don’t butcher the muffin, cake, pie…”
     
    “I get the point,” she wrinkled her nose and tried to feign anger with him, but she couldn’t. She could never be angry with him. “After we finish do you want to walk down Lake and see the Christmas lights, maybe go past the outdoor ice rink too?”
     
    “That sounds nice.”
     
    “And the shops on Pine…we could do that unless you have something else to do.”
     
    “I don’t have anything else to do, Lani. Let’s do Pine first and then Lake.”
     
    “Sounds like a plan to me my good man.” She patted his hand before picking up her oversized cup of hot chocolate. That drink had to be a good eight, maybe nine, hundred calories. She wondered how many, but at the same time she didn’t care. She ate relatively healthy and she worked out, plus she walked almost everywhere so in her mind a cup of high calorie cocoa with a mountain of whipped cream atop it was perfectly okay.
     
    By the time they finished at Noel’s the sun was already setting. She loved this time of day because the lights brightened the streets, the people of the town came out and merrily shopped, walked, and interacted with each other, and on top of that, the chill in the night air was heavy but somehow invigorating. “Maybe we’ll get snow this year,” she said.
     
    “Maybe. Last year was a bust.”
     
    “I know. People were so not happy. The ski resorts to the north suffered too. That was the mildest winter we have ever had. Being born and raised here I think it’s safe for me to say that with full truthfulness.”
     
    He laughed. “Yeah, I’m a transplant from Cleveland so I can’t say for sure.”
     
    “Oh please. You know you’re a native,” she nudged him. “You have been here long enough to just blend. Just look at how everybody smiles and speaks to you. Everybody knows you’re one of us.” She winked and he laughed.
     
    “One of you pod people,” he said in his eerie science fiction movie voice that made her laugh so often.
     
    “Oh please my big strong man, save me; save me.” She slapped the back of her hand to her forehead and faked fainting. She knew he would catch