During my three hours of sitting around the Seattle airport, I manage to update my LinkedIn account – mostly because I need a new job ASAP. I can’t answer phones forever when what I really want to be doing is helping people promote their businesses.

After that, I sit in an airport bar nursing a Chardonnay and reading a Christmas romance on my Kindle. It may not be the most glamorous way to spend Christmas Eve, but at least I’ve had a little fun getting tipsy and fantasizing about a mountain man who is unable to keep his hands off of me.

Eventually, I slide off the barstool and head towards the gate. It’s a relief to find that the earlier hustle and bustle at the airport has dissipated. At this point, everyone left is just tired.

No one is fighting -- not even the sexy guy who was an asshole about the standby seat earlier. We all just get in line to board the plane while staring at our smartphones, jealous of the Facebook feeds that mention marshmallows and hot cocoa and cute kids in matching Christmas pajamas.

Maybe next Christmas will be different. Maybe next Christmas I’ll have someone who cares about me, who wants to share a life with me. Maybe next Christmas I will have a life that I am excited about.

This is not how I expected my life to be just a few years out of college.

After boarding the plane, I stow my carry-on overhead and find my seat by the window. Before tucking my purse at my feet, I pull out my Kindle once again and begin where I left off.

Snowflakes. Kissing. Mistletoe.

Sigh.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I look up and see the sexy-yet-argumentative-man from earlier looking at his boarding pass and then the seat numbers. Then he shakes his head and sits down in the aisle seat, leaving one seat between us.

Of course, that’s my luck.

I smile -- very tightly -- and look back at my screen. Determined not to say anything to this guy.

Yes, he may have a beard that reminds me of the mountain man I’m reading about, and he is wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing scrolling tattoos across his forearms. Which do turn me on; and yes, does make me all fluttery in my belly. Against all better judgment, I have the urge to press my face against his chest and inhale. Wanting to know if he smells like fresh air and pine trees and firewood.

Which is ridiculous.

He is not a mountain man carrying an axe that I’m reading about. He’s just a guy, carrying a grudge.

Against me.

He must have the same ignore-me idea because he doesn’t even give me a second glance. He sits down, pulls out a paperback novel. A classic.

He’s reading A Christmas Carol.

Which, okay. That’s pretty damn sexy to be reading that on Christmas Eve.

But he is not sexy. He wanted some flight attendant to suck his candy cane.

His words, not mine.

Just when I think the plane has finished boarding, a mom and her screaming kids walk on.

“Sorry. Timmy, get back here. Walk, please. No running.” The woman shakes her head, carrying an infant in her arms and has a five-year-old barreling down the aisle.

I feel bad for her and am reminded that I am pretty much the ultimate self-centered bitch.

All day I’ve been thinking about myself and how hard it is to be traveling on Christmas Eve. And here’s this woman with her two kids, all alone.

The mystery lumberjack must have the same thoughts because our eyes meet and we exchange soft smiles, as if both realizing we have nothing to complain about.

The woman shakes her head, looking at the empty seat, as she catches up with Timmy.

“Excuse me,” the woman grimaces. “Is there any way you could scoot over so my son could sit on the aisle? I’m just gonna be right here on the other side. He’s never flown before.”

“Of course, no worries.” The man picks up his backpack and moves it under the seat next to mine. He smiles at the woman, who looks slightly relieved and who is now helping her son get buckled up before finding her own seat.

A while later, the plane is in the air, and my elbow keeps knocking against the guy’s.

“Fuck. Sorry,” I tell him. “It’s just tight quarters.”

“Still wanting to fight, is that it?” He’s joking though, because a smile spreads across his face and he earmarks his page in the book before looking at me.

“I’m done fighting.” I exhale, shaking my head, running my hands through my hair. “It’s just been a long day. I get that I was pretty fucking nasty back there.”

“Me too. It’s Christmas, right? And fuck, the last thing anyone needs is bickering on what should be the happiest days of the year.”

“I know. I was being ridiculous,” I admit. “I was all, this day is the fucking worst! And then I realized it’s not actually true. I sat in a warm airport, drinking cold wine, and reading a book. Definitely first world problems.”

“Fuck yeah.” He shakes his head. “In the grand scheme of things, not much to bitch about.”

The woman with the baby and child leans over and glowers at us. Her friendly demeanor from earlier is gone. “Language, there are children present.”

The mystery guy and I both raise eyebrows, nervously apologizing.

“Guess my language isn’t PG,” he says.

“Mine either, I swear, I say fuck every other – –” The woman, with one eyebrow raised, catches my eye. “Sorry,” I say biting my bottom lip, trying to fight a laugh. “That was so inappropriate,” I tell him.

“I think we need a code word for the F-word.”

“Agreed. Something cheerful. “

“Not candy cane,” he says, which gets a laugh out of me.

“And not Santa’s lap.”

“How about Merry Christmas?” He shrugs. “That work?”

“Merry Christmas is perfect.”

“Well then, Merry Christmas, this day has been long. We need a drink.”

“Merry Christmas, I know,” I moan. “I nearly quit my job, got locked out of my place, and missed a flight.”

“And I’m opening a bar in a week and haven’t sold more than two dozen tickets to the grand opening New Year’s Eve party. Merry Christmas.”

We talk about his bar and my PR degree. I immediately have about a hundred ideas for his launch, but try to not overwhelm him. Soon enough we’re chatting about our lives in Seattle, and find out we only live a few blocks away from one another.

I can’t help but think that the more he talks, the cuter he is. He has dimples in his right cheek, bright blue eyes -- eyes that keep lingering at the V-neck of the shirt I’m wearing. At one point our hands brush against one another, and we both laugh nervously.

“What are you reading?” he asks.

I explain the mountain man romance novel, and he smiles, not judging, which is a surprise.

“So you like those rough and rugged types of men?” he asks.

I bite back a smile. “Yeah, I mean, I like the idea of a man who knows who he is and what he wants. No apologies. He meets the woman he wants and doesn’t hold back.”

He takes a deep breath. “Girl,” he says. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

I laugh. “No one ever says that to me.”

“You fight, you know what you want -- it’s sexy as fu… as Merry Christmas.”

I feel heat rising in my cheeks.

“It makes me wanna go build a cabin in the woods if you’ll come with me.”

I laugh. “You are so full of it.”

Guys never hit on me like this. Not to say I don’t date or hook-up with men I meet….

But a man who flirts so openly, with so much sex appeal? It’s a first.

“Not full of it,” he says. “I mean it. I’d build that log house with my own two hands.”

I can’t help but laugh, but honestly, my whole body is tingling with the pleasure of his compliments.

When the drink cart arrives, we both order shots of whiskey.

“I’d toast to us,” I say. “But I don’t even know your name.”

“Bradley. And yours?”

“I’m CeeCee.” I lift my plastic glass. “To less Merry Christmas-ed up days in the future.”

“I’ll drink to that.”