Free Fireworks and Resolutions by Leandra Dohman Page A

Instead, he was locked in here with an attractive coworker in front of whom he had completely embarrassed himself at a Christmas party his firm had held ten days ago.
    At last Joseph’s brows shot up: “I… no. I didn’t kiss you. I think?”
    Carter chuckled.
    Memory like Swiss cheese. Fucking alcohol.
    “You kissed me.”
    “Did not!”
    “You sure?”
    “No.”
    “Then I’m telling you—you kissed me.”
    Joseph kept quiet, gnawing at his underlip. It didn’t seem all that impossible. It would be just like him to go ahead and try something. He had been in a heavy drunken haze that entire night and not entirely aware of what was real and what was a product of his imagination.
     
     
    H E TRIED recalling everything that had happened that evening, but certain details were hard to get a grasp of. He remembered arriving at the party, and then the champagne glasses never seemed to leave his hand. But at some point he had switched over to eggnog because it was absolutely delicious, and there was no such thing as a Christmas party without eggnog. He kept on telling everyone how wonderful and heavenly the eggnog was. Someone’s boyfriend even nicknamed him “the eggnog man.”
    Then at some point, he was standing next to Mike, and Mike was telling him about… broccoli? About… something? But he hadn’t been listening to him at all because his eyes had gotten glued on six feet and three inches of pure male hotness. Carter Jensen. A moment later he was already on the move; he’d strutted across the room and didn’t stop until he was standing right in front of him. He remembered Carter looking at him in surprise and his eyes flickering down to the half-empty glass in Joseph’s hand.
    “You look incredible tonight,” he had said back then, instead of a proper greeting. He’d placed his hand on Carter’s shoulder to stop himself from losing his balance and toppling over. And because he wanted to touch the guy and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
    After that it was a whole bunch of gibberish and his revelations. He’d said a lot of things—that he liked him, that his ass was divine, that he sometimes looked for excuses just to stop by his office, and that he’d been nurturing the biggest crush on him. But the kiss? He could hark back to the last moment before a complete blackout of memory. He was pretty much gawking at Carter’s lips and thinking how his dark, scruffy beard would feel underneath his fingertips. Then… then he had moved his hand to the back of Carter’s neck and pulled him closer while he leaned in.
     
     
    F UCK . I T really had happened. He couldn’t remember anything beyond that, but…. Fuck. Holy fuck, he’d kissed Carter Jensen. Was it good? Did Carter like it? Fuck… did Carter even kiss him back?
    “I have to say I’m disappointed that you don’t even remember it. This observation is based on the perplexed and confused expression on your face.”
    Carter’s words shook him out of the trance, and his knees went weak and wobbly, and the room seemed to be without a droplet of air. He didn’t often find himself in such a situation—at a point where he was filled with deep shame and utterly self-conscious. Yes, he was the firm’s IT guy. Yes, he worked better with computers than with people. But no, he wasn’t shy and awkward or a klutz in spite of his unfortunate accident earlier this evening. Or that time when he’d spilled coffee on himself when Carter had entered the office. Or… when he’d bumped his green succulent off the office table when Carter had appeared—that had happened only once.
    The mutual factor of all those minor blunders was the guy in front of him. Joseph just happened to transform into a tremendous lummox whenever Carter was around. It had all started back in September when Carter began working for the same firm. When Joseph got called into his office on the guy’s second day at work, he had not been prepared to find a fucking GQ model sitting