“I’M NOT BUYING her fucking lingerie,” I say for what feels like the millionth time.
“Hi, can I offer you any help?”
We all turn in search of the polite voice that just interrupted the world’s most pointless argument. The sales assistant looks like she’s seen a ghost, and I suppose we are all a bit intimidating when we’re staring.
Her cheeks are flushed, but she’s doing her best to maintain eye contact, a friendly smile on her lips. I don’t envy anyone who has to work in customer service at this time of year.
“Yeah, you can. Help settle this argument, please,” JJ says, nudging me out of the way. “Is buying your sometimes-fuck-buddy pajamas a terrible fucking idea?” Her eyes widen slightly but she recovers quickly. “Don’t you think she’d prefer something like this?” He holds up the lace corset we’ve been arguing over for fifteen minutes and stares at her, waiting for her to take his side.
I punch him in the bicep as hard as I can. “Don’t call her a fuck buddy. That isn’t what she is.”
“He’s right, Jaiden,” Henry says, with an obnoxious smirk that tells me he’s about to make me pissed. “You can’t call her his fuck buddy when she hasn’t let him anywhere near her in a month. She’s his buddy at this point.”
I obviously haven’t told anybody about last night. Or this morning. Clamping my hand over her mouth to stop her from waking everyone up and feeling her squeeze the shit out of me bare is how I spent my morning. Based on the fact that Henry thinks I’m chilling in the friend zone proves that we’re getting better at being discreet.
After spending all last night—and this morning—making up for the weeks we behaved, I’m surprised I even have the energy to walk around this mall.
The girl snorts loudly, and her hand flies to her mouth in horror. She recovers quickly, though, and puts her customer service smile back on. “I’m sorry, uh, underwear is quite an intimate gift, so maybe if you’re unsure, I would say pajamas might be the safest option for you.”
“What if I buy her lingerie? What then?” JJ teases, picking up the matching panties and holding them against Hen’s body.
Henry has been checking out the sales girl since she floated over here, and now I think she’ll struggle to shake the look of him with lingerie pressed up against him from her memory. He blushes and pushes JJ away, calling him something not very Christmassy under his breath.
I scratch at the stubble on my jaw and huff, mainly because I could be in bed balls deep in Stassie right now, but I’m here, in Maple Hills Mall, with these two jackasses. “I think Faulkner will be even more pissed at me if I rip off all your limbs.”
I look back at the rack of pajamas beside us, and I think the ones I have are the nicest. She specifically said she wanted some nice pajamas that she could wear around the guys. She feels comfortable around the boys in my house, but sometimes when she heads downstairs to get a drink in a T-shirt, some of the other hockey guys she doesn’t know as well are around playing COD, and she feels a little bit awkward.
Plus, if I were going to buy her lingerie, I wouldn’t be doing it with fucking JJ and Henry.
I can hear Henry terrorizing the poor girl, accusing her of flinching or something. “Leave her alone, Hen,” I grumble, picking up some floral pajamas and holding them against the ones I’d already picked.
I leave them all to it as I explore the other nearby options. When I circle back, I hear Henry telling her about our big red door bow and saying his roommates are attention seekers, which makes me snort, but Jaiden looks offended, which makes it even funnier.
She breathes out a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
“Okay, like, see you later?” Henry says in a weirdly cheerful voice. I discreetly look at JJ, who is already looking at me with a surprised expression. Normally we don’t see the magic happen, or even better, we have to sit and watch women throw themselves at Henry.
This girl is pretty, so I can see why he’s interested; tall and lean, long silky brown hair, big brown eyes, full lips, and glowy brown skin. I’d say she’s Henry’s type but I’m not even sure what that is because I’ve never seen him with the same girl twice and they all look different.
“What’s your name?” he shouts as she tries to escape.
“Uh.” Poor girl is probably making it up. “Gen.”
“Bye, Gen!” JJ and I shout, ignoring the weird stares from the other people in the store.
After another ten minutes, I decide I can’t decide so I’m going to buy both, much to JJ’s annoyance. I make the two of them stand outside while I head to the cash register to pay, and as soon as we’re done I’m going home. I’ve already bought her main presents, so I think I’m all set. I step up to the counter and put the items down, immediately getting a shock when Summer is the person serving me.
“Hey, stranger,” she says politely, pulling the pajamas closer to her and scanning the tags. “Sister?”
“No.” What is she? “Anastasia.”
“Oh. I saw that video but I didn’t realize you were together…” she says, tapping away on the register.
“We’re…uh, she’s amazing.” I hand over my credit card, still not sure what I’m supposed to call her to people. “Are you coming to the party later? I think Henry just bullied one of your staff into coming.”
“Not tonight, sorry.” She puts the pajamas in the bag and holds out the handle to me, and it all feels awkward. Not like the Summer I know at all. “We’re going to a service at Cami’s church with her family, and Briar flies to New York tomorrow for Christmas. She’s got an early flight, so we’re not drinking.”
“I thought B was from England?”
“She is. Her parents relocated to New York last year. Two of her siblings go to school there. Her sister Daisy is at Maple Hills, though.”
“Wow. I never realized her family was so big.”
She nods, forcing a smile. “I’ve put your receipt in the bag, I hope she likes them. Have a good Christmas, Nate.”
“You too, Summer.”
Well, that was unnecessarily awkward.
By the time we get back to the house, it looks like Santa threw up on it.
I think Sabrina extra spiked the eggnog because Stassie is extra bouncy as she dances around the den in her elf outfit. She’s calling it an elf outfit but what she’s actually wearing is a tiny green dress with elf shoes she got from a costume store.
Robbie’s had me putting random shot glasses and cups on a Twister mat, and instead of helping, Henry has been chatting away to Stas and Brin. Earlier, I made what I’m now considering a mistake: I told the girls that Henry had hit on a girl while we were Christmas shopping; now they’re obsessed.
Anastasia immediately started asking about someone called Daisy, whom I apparently stopped Hen hooking up with. This was the second time this afternoon I was hearing the name Daisy. Did Henry have a thing with Briar’s sister? I didn’t remember meeting her if he had. Then it hit me that it happened months ago, when Henry threatened to take my girl off me.
JJ appears with the new girl in question, plus a friend, and I can see Stassie trying not to be too obvious with her staring. Rob maneuvers himself to the top of the mat and clears his throat in a very Robbie-esque way to capture everyone’s attention.
Taking a sip of my beer, I kind of love watching him in his element of being the center of attention. “Welcome to the first official drunk Twister game. The rules of the game are very simple: you touch it, you drink.”
Bobby digs me in the ribs and shouts, “Name of your sex tape,” earning a middle finger from Rob.
“The game ends when someone falls, takes their hand or foot off the mat, or they refuse to drink. Stassie, JJ, Joe are playing, we need two more,” Robbie continues.
Henry moves to put his cup on the windowsill beside me. “I’ll do it.”
Stassie points at me and mouths, You, but before I can volunteer myself, JJ shouts up. “Gen is playing!”
The poor girl looks mortified when everyone turns to look at her. I can hear Mattie and Kris whispering about her being hot, but her eyes are on one person, and he’s looking right back at her. I can’t decide if JJ is playing matchmaker or he’s hoping Gen ends up intertwined with him so he can piss off Henry.
Robbie claps his hands and fucking hell, it’s like being at practice with Brady. I’d never noticed until I’ve spent some time away from Faulkner, but Robbie is a mini version of him. He clearly has a little bit of Brady in him too. “Stas, Joe, you two stand at this end. Henry, go over there with JJ and Gen. Everyone take their shoes off and, uh, maybe stretch? I don’t know.”
Stassie bounces over to me with a big drunk grin. She kicks off her elf shoes and wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her mouth to mine and giggling to herself. “Guard my shoes with your life.”
She doesn’t even let me respond before she’s bouncing back over and high-fiving Joe. If anyone didn’t know what was going on between us, they do after tonight. From the minute the party started we’ve been glued to each other one way or another. Our friends don’t care, although, I think some money has changed hands paying bets.
I turn my attention back to Robbie. “Do you know how to not be bossy?”
“Shut the fuck up, Hawkins,” he snaps back, rolling his eyes. Winding Robbie up has been my main source of entertainment for about fifteen years, and I have no plans to stop now.
He eventually stops arguing with me and starts the game. The girls only get feet moves, but Joe and JJ are very, very intertwined.
“Stas, right hand yellow,” Robbie shouts over JJ and Joe arguing with each other. The second she bends over I realize why all my friends started looking at me the second Robbie called out her move.
Henry huffs as soon as her hand lands on yellow. “Anastasia, please get your ass out of my face.”
“It isn’t even in your face!”
Her ass is definitely in his face. To make it worse, her dress is only just covering her ass; if it rises any more, the whole hockey team, plus anyone else watching, is going to see all the hickeys I’ve left on the inside of her thighs.
“Nathan,” he shouts, twisting his neck to search me out in the crowd of onlookers. “What’s your blood pressure like right now?”
Yeah, the kid knows me. “Pretty high, buddy.”
“See! Because your ass is in my face. You’re going to kill him.”
The game goes on until Henry lifts his hand off the mat to flirt with Gen, and Anastasia immediately bounces back over to me, reclaiming her shoes.
She creeps onto her tiptoes, brushing her lips against mine lightly and lowering her voice. “Between my legs is aching, but I want you so badly.”
Yeah, Henry’s right. She’s going to kill me.
I’VE LOST MY ELF.
While I was in the bathroom, the guys snooped on Henry, who had mysteriously disappeared into our laundry room with Gen. Their indiscreet lurking scared the poor girl off and ruined Henry’s chances, and he has vowed to get revenge on them all. I’ve never been so relieved to not be involved.
I haven’t got what it takes to go head to head with Henry over Anastasia. If I had been there when they cockblocked him taking Gen upstairs and I now couldn’t find Stas, the first place I’d be checking is Henry’s room.
There is nothing sexual about their relationship, but I genuinely think Anastasia would be perfectly happy having a platonic marriage with him.
Catching up with some people whom I haven’t seen in a while, I try my best to fend off the questions about me not playing, all while keeping an eye out for my girl.
She eventually appears on the bottom step of the stairs, her eyes scanning around the room. Her green dress isn’t visible anymore because she’s wearing a Titans T-shirt that drowns her body.
I feel weird watching her from across the room, but she’s so fucking beautiful, I couldn’t take my eyes off her even if I wanted to. She eventually spots me in the kitchen, cracking a breathtaking smile, and the satisfaction I feel when I realize she was looking for me is unmatched.
She’s halfway across the living room when arms wrap around her, stopping her in her tracks, and an uncomfortable feeling settles in my stomach.
His head buries in her neck, and my blood pressure is back on the up. Do I have a right to be jealous? I mean, she’s not my girlfriend, but she’s my something. Will I always be a bit jealous of Ryan Rothwell? Maybe, but I hope not.
I know Olivia broke things off with him. Anastasia had a coffee date with him yesterday, and he told her Olivia has baggage and always had one foot out of the door. Does he think that he’s going to get Anastasia back now?
I’m trying not to interrupt but it’s hard to stay put. Fighting my instincts is hard, but nothing good has ever come for me trying to force exclusivity on her. I think he was talking in her ear, because she unravels his arms and takes a big step away from him.
I can’t hear because of the music but I can see that he’s drunk as hell, touching her at every chance he can get. She gives him a friendly hug, hopefully because she’s ending the conversation, and he bends down to kiss the crown of her head. When she takes another step back, he looks up to see me staring right at them; his hand scratches at his jaw awkwardly and he gives me a sheepish smile.
I’m still watching Ryan shuffle about, looking uncomfortable, when I feel her arms wrap around my waist. “So you could see me then. Why didn’t you save me?” she grumbles, creeping onto her tiptoes to kiss the corner of my mouth.
“I didn’t know you needed saving.” Her big blue eyes are staring up at me, and her eyebrows pinch together. “I know he’s a good friend. I didn’t want you to think I was interfering.”
“Uh, okay, Mr. Diplomatic.” Her arms link around my neck. “Next time, save me. I love Ryan, he’s a great friend, but the only man I want wrapped around me is you.”
Shit. “Noted.”
“He’s a touchy person and he’s drunk, but I put him straight. Don’t hold it against him; I think he’s sad about Liv.”
I feel relieved right now. I could have stormed off the second he touched her, or worse, stormed over there and started some drama. I could have jumped to conclusions and fucked everything up. Brushing the hair away from her face, I tuck it behind her ears, resting my hands on each side of her neck, rubbing gently as she looks up at me. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him I’m with you and he couldn’t be all over me because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Is that okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to say.”
She bounces about nervously, the elf shoes still on her feet. I lean down to press my lips against hers, savoring the way her tongue moves against mine. “Sounds perfect to me.”
