Grady gathered himself and turned around. “Agreed.”

“You want to shower?” she said, a bowl in each hand. “And I’ll serve up?”

“Suzanne…” He frowned, trying to figure her the hell out. Why was she trying to play house like they were the real deal? “What are you doing? Why are you acting all Suzy Homemaker?”

She put the bowls down with exaggerated patience. “My parents will be here tomorrow. We need to at least look like we’ve spent some time in each other’s company. Plus, the more I dig into this, the more I realize I don’t really know how to do Christmas. Not a full-on big fat Christmas Christmas, you know? The hokey kind that I implied to my mom you were into.”

Yeah, he really wished she hadn’t done that. The only thing Grady really knew about Christmas was how to avoid it altogether. Sure, he’d had almost seventeen years of perfect family Christmases, but that was a long time ago.

“Don’t look at me.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the first thing about it, either.”

“Right. So I bought some Christmas movie DVDs at that place in Denver because, no offense, but you don’t strike me as the kind of guy with a Netflix account.”

“I’m not.” Grady watched football on TV and that was it.

She nodded, clearly unsurprised. “I was thinking we should watch them together to get an idea of some of the hokey stuff we should be doing, and I thought you might be hungry after a long day out in the cold and we both have to eat. So yeah, I thought it’d be right neighborly of me, even if that word’s not in your vocabulary, and I’m sorry if it’s too Suzy Homemaker for you.”

She was pissed. Her eyes glowered at him; her chest rose and fell a little faster. He sighed. “No, I’m sorry…you’re right.” He held his hands up in a placatory manner. “Thank you, it smells very good, and I appreciate it. I’ll be ten minutes.”

“Fine.” She nodded, barely mollified. “But I’m starting without you.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting on the two-seater couch in front of the television deciding on which movie to watch as they ate their chili. Unlike the fireplace area that had several different seating choices, the corner nook where the television resided only had the one couch option and not a very generous one at that. It was usually just him watching football, so it hadn’t ever mattered. But sitting this close to Suzanne had him reassessing his furniture.

It didn’t help that she was slouched down against the back of the couch, her knees bent, her bare feet anchored on the edge of the couch cushion to stop her sliding off, the almost empty bowl of chili balanced on her stomach and supported by her thighs. It was distracting to see her so casual and at ease in his home, sitting next to him with barely a hand span between them like they did it every night.