“Tristan came in here a couple weeks ago and wanted a hot chocolate with a little something extra,” Jules explained. “My uncle Roger added a bit of whiskey, and he’s been having it instead of dessert ever since.”

“I think I might give that a try.”

The conversation didn’t flow as easily as it did before Jules had come by. Something was building in the pit of Cosima’s stomach that made it just a little bit harder to laugh at Tristan’s jokes, just a little bit harder to return his banter, just a little bit harder to concentrate.

It was wild how much their night together felt like a first date that was going very, very well. Cosima might have been off the dating market for damn near a decade, but she knew that the easy way between them wasn’t the norm.

“Everything okay?”

His quiet question pulled her out of her thoughts. Cosima smiled at him. “I’m just thinking that the last thing I expected when I came here this evening was this…”

He chuckled. “A weird man invading your space and forcing you to put away the book you planned to read.”

“The first person who has heard my idea about how I plan to spend Christmas and didn’t immediately assume there was something wrong with me.”

“That would’ve been hard to do since I’m doing the exact same thing, just with better movies.”

Cosima placed her hand to her chest and faked offense. “You take that back.”

“I refuse,” he said with a huge grin. He leaned towards Cosima, giving her a whiff of his cologne. She squeezed her thighs together, so her reaction to him didn't show on her face. “You’re going to be watching Home Alone, but This Christmas didn’t make the list. Last Holiday? The Preacher’s Wife? Ma’am, you didn’t even consider Die Hard.”

Cosima had been taking a sip of the hot chocolate Jules returned with and almost spat it back out. “Die Hard? Be for real, Tristan.”

His smile widened, revealing the two dimples Cosima kept looking forward to seeing since they made their first appearance earlier in the conversation. “How much realer can I be? Die Hard is more Christmassy than the first Home Alone movie ever was; in this essay, I will…”

That pulled a deep belly laugh from Cosima. The man was so effortlessly funny that she couldn’t help but be endeared even if he wasn’t making any sense.

“It is not.”

“One day, you’ll see the light,” he teased. “People are always resistant at first, but once I start dropping facts on them, they’ve got no choice but to accept the truth.”

“Oh, really?” Cosima challenged. “What facts?”

He started answering but was interrupted by his phone going off again. He looked at the screen and sighed before signaling Cosima to hold on.