My Kind of Christmas

here.”
    He couldn’t help but laugh at her. He assumed she would be as adorable in footie pajamas as naked. Okay, not quite, but still… The combination of the warm fire and heavy quilt seemed to be working, since her teeth had stopped chattering. “Are you settled in now?”
    “Oh, I don’t think I’ll move from this spot before morning. Except maybe to feed the fire a log or two.”
    “Angie, there’s heat in the cabin, isn’t there?”
    “Sure. But this is fun. Reminds me…when I was in college a bunch of us rented a cabin for skiing and it was so expensive we just assumed we’d have heat, maybe even catering! We managed the puniest fire and had to sleep snuggled up against one another right in front of it.”
    He settled onto his own couch, chuckling into the phone. “I lived for nights like that. Did you fall in love?”
    “Sadly, no, as I’m straight—it was a girls’ trip.”
    “If only I could’ve helped. Who was your first love?”
    “I think Dick, my junior year in high school, and he wasa dick, as it turns out. We were kind of steady and he asked someone else to the prom. At the last minute. I think he forgot to break up with me first. I should’ve known he was shifty.”
    “Who took you to the prom?”
    “I never went to one. I was a nerd who always envied the cheerleaders, pom-pom girls and stars in the school musicals. I was president of the debate team, a great chess player and went to the scholastic Olympics. I bet you went to proms.”
    “I did.”
    “With cheerleaders and pom-pom girls?” she asked.
    He was embarrassed to say. “It’s different for guys. They don’t feel the same way about proms that girls do. Girls see it as a chance to feel like a princess. Guys see it as a chance to have sex.”
    “Did you? Have sex?”
    “No. I clearly wasted my money.... But you should have gone to proms. You’re pretty.”
    “Aw, that’s nice of you to say. But a lot has changed in a few years. Lasik surgery for one thing—got rid of the big, thick, black-framed specs that kept sliding down my nose. Back in those days when things like clothes and hairstyles just eluded me, I’m pretty sure no one but my dad and uncle Jack found me pretty. I didn’t have that instinct the other girls had about style, about flirting. But, hey, I had great instincts about things like chemistry and astronomy.”
    “Astronomy?”
    “I have a kick-ass telescope. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring it this trip. But the boys were never interested in looking at stars—they wanted to look at boobs. Another advantage I didn’t have. Oh, and did I mention the pimples?” She laughed happily at that. “Oh, God, I’m so glad those days are over. Was there ever anything more painful?”
    “This is coming from the girl who was in a disastrous car accident? Asking the guy who watched his buddy go down in a hornet…”
    “I know, I know, but there was something about the pains we had as kids, the melodrama and agony over things that didn’t really matter but mattered so much just the same.... This other stuff of ours, it’s real . It’s a grown-up challenge and it does mean something and…”
    He listened with his eyes closed. He’d known her for a day. A single day. She was everything he avoided—youth, innocence, inexperience. And she had everything he wanted—guts, wisdom and compassion. He’d seen this personality in certain military women. But there was something about Angie that stood out as unique. They’d each been through the wringer, yet she approached her challenges with relentless optimism. The lynchpin was probably that she had not lost her best friend.
    He thought he was probably headed for trouble here. He wanted her.
    “Angie,” he said. “We have complicated lives....”
    “Oh, very. It’s nice, Patrick, to have a friend who relates.”
    “Listen, Ange—we have things in common. We get along, have fun. You’re young, but you’re still a woman. Women pull this off without too much trouble, being friends with a guy. Men aren’t as good at it. And now I’m holding one of your secrets—your peace corps secret.”
    “Oh, I can fix that,” she mumbled into the phone. He clearly heard her yawn. He could picture her, snuggled under the quilt in her warmest pajamas in front of the fire. They’d spent five hours together and now what were they doing? Talking into the night on the phone, still somehow connected? He hadn’t done this in too many years to