They both looked up, then back at each other, then shrugged. "It is tradition," Lee said. "I think Zak went a little overboard and hung them everywhere."
The kiss was nearly chaste, at first, just a firm press of the lips that hung on perhaps a touch too long before they both pulled away. Then their lips returned to each other, as if drawn by magnets under the skin.
A gentle press, then firmer, more sumptuous. Mouths open a little bit, tongues tentative. Then, conflagration.
It was all about the kissing, though. Kara had grabbed Lee's biceps firmly, and Lee had one hand on the back of her head, gently holding her in place, and the other very low on her back, definitely not holding her tenderly, but not roaming, either.
Kara and Lee were still kissing under the mistletoe twenty-five minutes later when Zak came back from dropping packages at the shipping center. Neither of them noticed his return, and he stood in the shadows on the stairs watching them for several minutes.
When the kissing slowed down and Lee and Kara just looked at each other for a moment, Zak made a production out of lightly slamming the door and calling out to them, "I'm back! Traffic was worse than I thought it would be." By the time he hit the bottom of the stairs, Lee was in the kitchen and Kara was setting the table.
He never mentioned it to them, and they pretended not to notice that every year after that, Zak hung at least one sprig of mistletoe in a secluded corner or on the back porch. Though the quality of the kisses changed over the years - friendly, tender, passionate, avuncular and back again - Zak noted that they never failed to take advantage of that mistletoe mysteriously hung right where no one (Zak!) would see them kissing.