Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
And he hasn’t replied.
He saw it.
That little message under the text clearly says read.
But he hasn’t replied.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
I need to leave.
I need to go get a cabin in the woods for the rest of the Christmas season, possibly well into January, and stay the hell away from Meg.
And apologize to Jude.
Claim I was drunk, that someone else stole my phone, whatever it takes, no matter the lies I have to tell.
He’s been the most constant friend in my life for my entire career.
And I just fucked it up.
Worse?
I still want to kiss Meg.
I do.
I want to kiss her.
Her insistence that I’d be great on the Fireballs’ staff? Her belief in me when I’ve been nothing but an ass the past few weeks?
I believed her. She made me want to go back to baseball as a coach.
And I want to kiss her.
She’s a grown-ass woman. I don’t need her brother’s permission. Neither does she.
But the fact that getting involved with her could ruin the longest friendship I’ve ever had if it doesn’t work out—yeah, I’m sweating.
I take longer than necessary in the shower, and not because I’m jerking off.
That part doesn’t take long.
And not taking long is a solid reminder why I shouldn’t kiss Meg.
If I kiss her, and she kisses me back, and we end up in bed, and I come as fast as I did in the shower as soon as her face popped into my head, she’ll be all that’s okay, I know it’s been a while and you’d be better if we did it a second time, which I’m probably not in for, because this was just a pity fuck for both of us, but I won’t say anything bad about you to anyone.
That would basically destroy the little bit of ego I have left.
But if I kiss her and she kisses me back and then we both have the best sex of our lives with each other, and then I want to finish decorating a tree with her, and fantasize about fireplaces and hot chocolate and gingerbread men…
I shake my head, tweak my shoulder, stifle a grunt, and then I pull my head out of my ass and decide to be a grown man who owns this house and can handle having an attractive but off-limits, cheerful, holiday-loving woman making herself happy in my kitchen.
And now I’m imagining Meg naked, with her hands between her thighs, and didn’t I just get rid of this boner?
“Head in the game, Stafford. Head. In. The. Game.”
I text Jude an apology—a very sincere, I would never do anything to fuck up our friendship, and I promise not to make Meg uncomfortable and will probably just head up to visit some friends in the mountains for a few days to get my head back on straight apology. Then I make myself think about my career in the toilet. And follow it up with that one Christmas when I was little and unfortunately watched a snowman ice sculpture get taken down by an angry chef with a kitchen torch, and my junk gets itself under control.
Good thing too, because I think it would break if it was already hard when I walk out of my bedroom and down the short hall to the kitchen.
Meg has her back to me as she’s bent over the counter, shaking her heart-shaped ass, which is wrapped in tight denim. She’s still using the reindeer towels and the multi-colored light rays are coming from a miniature tree on the counter. Even from this angle, I can tell she covered her tight red sweater with an apron dotted with candy canes.
And she’s making cinnamon rolls.
Cinnamon rolls.
“Hey, Trev! Happy morning. That’s not a new baby Christmas tree in the corner. It’s an unfortunate superstition that’s necessary when I work with yeast. And these are not Christmas cinnamon rolls. They’re birthday cinnamon rolls.”
“It’s your birthday?” Dammit. Why didn’t someone tell me that?
“No, it’s someone’s birthday. I have no idea whose. I just know that I wanted them, they seemed Christmasy, but also, I’m respecting your Christmas boundaries, so we’re celebrating a random stranger’s birthday. Surely someone named Jennifer is turning some year older today. That’s why it says Happy Birthday, Jennifer on that pan over there.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m not avoiding Christmas on your behalf. I’m meeting you halfway.”
I open my mouth to answer, and that’s when I hear it.
“Carol of the Bells” is playing.
But those are not traditional words.
It sounds like—
No.
No way.
Meg is not playing corrupted Christmas tunes.
I lift a finger in the air. “Is that—”
“‘Penis of the Bells’? Yes. Yes, it is. If you stick around long enough, you’ll hear ‘Penis Bell Rock’ and ‘Joy to the Penis’ too. Also, I have all of the Avengers movies ready to run, so since you don’t have PT today, and I don’t have to be anywhere, we can watch bad guys try to annihilate the world by the light of our wimpy-ass but beautiful pasta tree while I build a fire in your fireplace.”