Just then, the door opens, nearly hitting me in the face. “Oh!”
“Holy shit!” says Jasper, stumbling slightly across the threshold as he tries to keep hold of the various brightly colored tote bags in his hand while catching the door. “I’m sorry!”
I step back, reaching a hand out to stop him dropping his haul. “What—?”
He steadies himself, pulling the bags slightly closer to his body, like he’s trying to hide something. His cheeks are reddened—maybe from the cold, maybe from embarrassment, and my lips press together in an effort to suppress my smile.
“I was at the house. Gil and Romina’s house, I mean.”
“Yes. I figured that.”
He’s got snow all up the shins of his jeans, and he lowers the bags to the floor gently and then turns back to the open door, reaching outside to haul in a box. When it’s in, he closes out the cold, the wind, the world—and for a second we stand there in the quiet. Me in a wrinkled skirt and blouse, stockinged feet and day-old hair and makeup; Jasper in jeans and boots, a thermal and a heavy coat, like he’s natural to this place.
“I called your sister,” he says.
I blink at him.
“She sent me the recipe for the cookies.” He looks down at the stack of bags. “Romina didn’t have everything, but she had most of it, and the oven here is small, but she said there’s a cookie sheet in here that’ll fit.” He crouches down, pulls the box between us, and opens the lid. “She gave us this tree. It’s small and fake but it’s got lights on it already.”
“Jasper, is this . . .” I trail off, my throat thick with emotion.
He stands, and he is holding the ugliest artificial tree I have ever seen. It’s not plugged in, obviously, but I can see that the lights he referred to are, in fact, fiber-optic threads imitating pine needles. I love this hideous, slightly crooked tree. I love that he got it for me.
“It’s not going to be like home,” he says. “But just in case you can’t get out tomorrow, I don’t want you to miss—”
“Christmas.”
He shrugs. The red on his cheeks isn’t from the cold. “Yeah.”
The smile I was holding in, it’s irrepressible now. Probably my crooked bottom teeth are showing. “I need to put on my pajamas!” I blurt.
Jasper frowns at me, confused. “You just woke up.”
“I know, but on Christmas, it’s pajamas all day. Baking in pajamas, movies in pajamas.” I bend down, unzip my bag.
“I don’t have pajamas.”
I laugh distractedly, pushing past a couple of sweaters to what I’m looking for. “What do you mean, you—oh.”
His mouth curves up again on one side, his expression sheepish.
“You can just wear that, then.” I gesture at his current attire, which is absurd. Like I’m a schoolmarm granting permission. All I can think about is Jasper, no pajamas, and that bed. The holiday bell is ringing somewhere different at the moment.
“Thanks,” he says, his smile fuller now. “How about you change, and I’ll get us set up?”
I mutter a flustered agreement and grab my bag of toiletries before ducking into the small bathroom.
When I come out twenty minutes later—the quick shower and teeth-brushing doing wonders to make me feel more human and less embarrassed—Jasper’s put the tree in the center of a small café table to the side of the kitchen, has set out ingredients and cooking supplies over the small counter space. He’s staring down at the screen of his phone, reading something.
“Ta-da!” I say, throwing my arms wide. It’s silly, but now I’m determined to be silly. I promised Jasper we’d have fun, and he’s made an effort, too. We’re doing this thing, a friendly snowed-in Christmas at our lost recruit’s guest cottage, so I might as well go for broke.
He looks up and for a second he only stares, lips parted and eyebrows raised. “Are those—”
“Snowmen? Yes! Yes, they are.” I point to a spot on my thigh. “Frosty, right here.”
“Wow. Did Carol give you those?”
“No, my mom did. But my mom’s a lot like Carol. Is there coffee?”
I step into the kitchen area, and Jasper points to a Keurig hidden behind a stack of mixing bowls, a cup of steaming brew already prepared. Despite the fact that I’m wearing flannel pants and an oversize sweatshirt, and that I’m pretty sure Jasper is reading my grandmother’s cookie recipe rather than his usual news feed, this moment is familiar, like mornings in the office where we meet up to go over our days.
“Says here we have to start with the sour cream mixture,” he says, brow furrowed. I sip my coffee, peek over his shoulder to read the e-mail my sister’s sent, and this is familiar, too—me and Jasper, working on a project together. Within minutes we’re swept up in the rhythm that’s been absent from our interactions lately. He’s arranging tools and ingredients, I’m doing assembly; he scoops balls of batter onto a cookie sheet while I start on the icing.
And all the while, we talk easily. Some about work and some about life—Ben’s recent proposal to Kit, my eldest niece’s ballet class, the new high-rise that’s being built not far from our office, the burger place we ate at a few months ago that neither of us can remember the name of. It’s the kind of conversation that’s made it feel, for years, like Jasper is, truly, one of my best friends. That it’s not just work that brings us together.
“I don’t think these are right,” he says. I look up from stirring more powdered sugar into my buttercream. Beside me, Jasper is bent over, peering through the glass door of the apartment-size oven. “Look how much they’re growing. They’re gonna stick together.”
I shift, crouching beside him. “They’re not. That’s just what happens when they bake. They’ll slow down.”
He frowns. “I don’t like it.”
I laugh, returning
