Touch & Go by Mira Lyn Kelly

it would be better than the alternative she’d made every reasonable effort and possibly a few less reasonable efforts to avoid.
    She had to get home in time.
    Deliveries usually came between three thirty and five P.M. And, checking her phone, it was now three forty-seven. Which meant even though Ava had all but feigned appendicitis to get out of her meeting early, there was a chance the truck had already come.
    No.
She couldn’t have that kind of bad luck.
    She just—
oh cripes,
the truck was parked in front of their place.
    Her stomach plummeted.
    And there was Sam—
what the heck was he doing at home?!?
—resting against the stone footing at the front of their walk, long denim-clad legs crossed at the ankles, a small brown box tucked beneath his arm as he signed that little electronic pad.
    That was her package.
    He had it.
    And she was still the better part of a block away.
    Throwing an arm up into a wild wave, she forced her already straining lungs to gasp his name.
    Only it was no good. Some hot rodder was revving his bike and Sam didn’t even look up.
    Winded and sweating through what had been a gorgeous suit when she put it on that morning, she pushed her legs and tried again. “Sam!”
    But he was still chatting it up with the delivery guy. They were laughing about something and maybe that was better anyway, because then she could act all nonchalant when she swept in and snagged her box.
    Except then, Sam was digging in his pocket and pulling out that folding tool thing he always had on him.
    “No. No, no, no no
nonono.
” Her arms were pumping, her lungs raw. “Sam! That’s mine! Don’t open that. It’s my package! Sam!!”
    And that last he must have heard because his head came up and he nodded in her direction with a smile, before looking back at the delivery guy to resume whatever they were talking about.
    His hands were turning the cardboard box over and around in his hands, and then he was prying up the lid. Ava lunged the final distance, stumbling into him as she slammed her hand onto the cardboard, wheezing, “My package…Thanks for signing…I’ve got it…from here.”
    Sam’s chin pulled back as he met her eyes and then turned his attention to the box caught between their hands. “Uh, Ava? This one’s mine. Yours are behind me.”
    Yours?
Like plural, as in more than one box?
    Leaning over Sam to look at the ground behind him she saw that there were in fact three boxes. Two medium-sized and one a little bigger than the box in Sam’s hand. Longer.
    “Oh, right.” Her face, already flushed from that desperation-driven run, burned even hotter. “Of course.”
    How much had she actually ordered?
    “What is all this stuff? I’m usually the one getting the deliveries.”
    Right, because when Sam got bored in the wee hours of the night, the guy tended to get an itchy trigger finger when it came to the “As Seen On TV” offerings. And honestly, Ava was usually the lucky recipient.
    Which gave her an idea.
    “I can’t tell you. They’re presents.”
    Sam’s eyes went wide, and then all that river-washed blue cranked down to the boxes in question.
    She should have known better, because she knew Sam, and while giving presents was really his thing, when he
got
them—
    He had the awkward stack balanced in his arms and was halfway to the front door before Ava realized her mistake and started staggering after all her dirty secrets.
    “Sam, wait!”
    The security door was on its backward swing when she got a hand on it.
    “Sam, stop it. I’m serious,” she called, chasing him up the stairs, her messenger bag slamming with each step. Shoving past her still open door, she gasped, “Don’t open them. They aren’t—”
    Too late.
    Sam was standing at the bar, his utility tool lying beside the three open boxes and an avalanche of popcorn stuffing spilled around his feet. He shook his head, a smacked look on his face as he lifted what might have been her third or possibly fourth impulse