A Very Chunky Monkey Christmas

Excerpt from "A Very Chunky Monkey Christmas" by M.M. Ardagna in Christmas is for Bad Girls from Elm Books: http://elm-books.com

She saw a tall, dark-haired man coming down the side aisle, headed the same way, poised to reach her destination mere steps ahead of her.  He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.  As she caught up to him, she watched in dismay when he reached for—she scanned the shelves—what appeared to be the last carton of her favorite ice cream.  “You can’t have that,” she blurted out.  “It’s mine.”

He turned to face her.  “Pardon me?” 

She stared into silver-gray eyes surrounded by insanely thick black eyelashes.  Him!  Her heart started beating faster.  No wonder she hadn’t quite recognized him.  He’d only come into the restaurant a few times, and that had been more than two years ago.  His dark brown hair was longer now, curling over the collar of his jacket, but he still had the same pale skin and square jaw, and she would recognize those eyes anywhere.  She would have expected gray eyes to be cold, but his had always seemed warm and friendly.

He dropped his hand, leaving the ice cream on the shelf.  Seeing her opportunity, she reached past him and grabbed it.

“Hey!”  He grabbed for it again.  “What are you doing?  I was here first.”

“No.  I mean, yes, you got here first, but I was already on the trajectory toward the freezer when you turned in front of me.  If we were playing basketball, that would be a foul, wouldn’t it?”  She was babbling, and she knew it.  Perhaps she ought to let him have the ice cream. But she really, really wanted it.  In fact—“Please, let me have this ice cream.  I need it.”  She yanked at it to make her point, but his grip didn’t budge.

“You need it?  What if I need it, too?”