Get Lit

By Kim Fielding

Uri Kessler is a bit of a klutz. Recently divorced from a guy he married too quickly and yearning to have a holiday that feels special, he decides to make Hanukkah candles. The results are literally a blazing disaster. But Uri’s mishap helps him get to know Oscar Cortez, his sexy new neighbor, and the two men instantly hit it off. While Uri finds himself drawn to Oscar, he’s also afraid to make a mess of their budding relationship. It’ll take a small miracle to make things work between them.

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2019 Advent Calendar "Homemade for the Holidays."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644057841

Kim Fielding

Kim Fielding is pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. Her books span a variety of genres, but all include authentic voices and unconventional heroes. She’s a Rainbow Award and SARA Emma Merritt winner, a LAMBDA finalist, and a two-time Foreword INDIE finalist. She has migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States and currently lives in California, where she long ago ran out of bookshelf space. A university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full-time, she also dreams of having two daughters who occasionally get off their phones, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a cat who doesn’t wake her up at 4:00 a.m. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others. Blogs: kfieldingwrites.com and www.goodreads.com/author/show/4105707.Kim_Fielding/blog Facebook: www.facebook.com/KFieldingWrites Email: [e-mail] Twitter: @KFieldingWrites

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Get Lit

By Kim Fielding

Uri Kessler is a bit of a klutz. Recently divorced from a guy he married too quickly and yearning to have a holiday that feels special, he decides to make Hanukkah candles. The results are literally a blazing disaster. But Uri’s mishap helps him get to know Oscar Cortez, his sexy new neighbor, and the two men instantly hit it off. While Uri finds himself drawn to Oscar, he’s also afraid to make a mess of their budding relationship. It’ll take a small miracle to make things work between them.

GLITTER.

It covered Uri Kessler’s hoodie front, jeans, and shoes and spread around his feet in an incriminating pool of sparkles. Appalled, he wanted to run away, but he knew he’d leave an indelible trail. So he stayed put until the scowling craft-store employee in the red vest appeared.

Glitter bomb in aisle eight, she said into her two-way radio. The response was too staticky to understand, but Uri thought it sounded annoyed.

I’m really sorry, he said. I was reaching for a bag of scented pinecones, and the jar—I must have hit it with my sleeve.

The clerk gave him a long-suffering look that said she’d heard this before. Cleanup will be here in a sec. She hurried away, leaving Uri stranded.

He wasn’t even supposed to be in this red-and-green aisle to begin with. He didn’t celebrate Christmas and had no desire to make a wreath or Santa ornaments or reindeer-shaped candy baskets. But he’d taken a wrong turn as he wandered. The shelf sign below the pinecones said they came in cinnamon and balsam scents, and since he didn’t know what balsam smelled like, he thought he’d give a quick sniff. And then disaster struck.

The next employee appeared, wielding a handheld vacuum and a jaded expression. Just stay still, please. She turned the vacuum on and, holding the nozzle relatively close to Uri, gave him a few cursory passes. Then she waved him out of the way so she could clean the floor.

Uri was still clutching his shopping list, now speckled with glitter. Excuse me? he said loudly, over the sound of the vacuum. Where are the candle-making supplies?

Aisle seventeen.

He made his way past rows of paper and stickers, fake flowers and weird wicker shapes, miniature stucco churches and tiny trees. When he was in fourth grade, he’d bought craft supplies to make a tiny model of a nineteenth-century Illinois farm. However, there had been a glue-gun mishap with his diorama, and when he’d tearfully told his teacher about it the next day, she’d sighed and allowed him to write a report instead. He’d gotten a B-plus.

He found aisle seventeen and gathered the items on his list: a hunk of wax, a bag of wicks, a vial of blue dye, and a cheap metal pot. He regretted that he hadn’t grabbed a shopping basket on his way in but was relieved to make it across the store to the cash registers without dropping anything.

The cashier turned out to be the same clerk who’d done the vacuuming. "I’m