Page 60 of The Grumpiest Elf

Once I’m satisfied that I can’t clean or tidy anything else, I settle into the corner of the couch and pick up the cozy mystery I grabbed at the grocery store last week. I haven’t had a lot of time to read, since I’ve been busy with work or hanging with Dylan, but it’s a good way to keep my mind from spinning out right now.

Thisis something I know I want to do—read an enjoyable book that no one expects me to dissect or analyze or write a report on and wait for my boyfriend to come over with dinner. How much more perfect could life get?

* * *

Once Dylan arrives, bags of takeout in hand, I realize that this is even more perfect, actually. Because now he’shere, and I’m not waiting for him anymore.

After relieving him of his bags, he takes off his coat and boots before following me into the kitchen, where he turns me back to face him, kissing me thoroughly against the island in the middle of the kitchen.

When he pulls back, we’re both grinning like idiots.

“Hi,” he says softly.

“Hi,” I say back in the same tone of voice.

“I missed you,” he whispers.

“I missed you too.” Yeah, we saw each other this morning. And yesterday. And the day before. But it’s still true.

That pang hits again—softer this time because he’s here with me—when I think that if I miss him this much after just a few hours, how much worse it’ll be when we go days and weeks between visits. Because as much as I think, oh, we can trade off visiting each other on the weekends, the reality is, that likely won’t be possible. Work schedules, family obligations, school—for Dylan—and just … life will get in the way.

Still. He’s already wanting to make it work, though I think he’s under the hopeful impression it’ll just be for one semester. But then it’s summer, so it’s not like I’ll be in Seattle then, since I’d be home for the summer anyway. And since Dad’s cutting me off, it’s not like I can go back to his house in Tukwila for the summer even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, since Mom’s actually supportive.

Though I suppose if Dad weren’t being like he is, maybe I’d want to visit him.

I miss him. Or at least the version of him I had as a kid—the dad who played catch with me in the back yard, coached my junior high softball team, and quizzed me to help me study for all my tests.

I know he thinks I’m wasting time—and possibly my life—by taking time off from school, that his way of handling this is likely to get me to cave, but he’s wrong. There’s always been this pressure to perform—getting good grades and being the best was the way to get his love and attention—and I’m finally tired of trying to perform for his approval.

I guess with Mom no longer doing it—or maybe shielding me from the full effect of his “encouragement”—I finally feel capable of stopping as well. If Mom can end two decades of a life with someone to pursue her own happiness, why can’t I? And doing it now will save me from looking back in two more decades and wondering why I built my entire life trying to make someone else happy instead of myself.

So no. Even as much as I want to make Dylan happy—and I really do—I can’t. Not until I figure out what makes me happy in the long term.

It’s much easier to know what makes me happy right now, and that’s being here with Dylan, just like this.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

Dylan

Lydia’squiet when I first arrive bearing food, and it seems like something’s going on in her head while we’re in the kitchen, just wrapped around each other, not talking, not moving.

Then her lips hitch in a smile, and she grazes one more kiss across my lips. “I’m starved,” she whispers. “Let’s eat.”

We break apart, and she pulls out plates and cups and silverware while I get the food out of the bags, plating the chicken, rice, and veggies she ordered and the cheeseburger and fries for me. It’s not fancy, maybe, but after working all day, I’m hungry too, and as much as I want to just take her to her room and strip off all her clothes, a meal will help me have the energy to do all the things I know I want to do.

We trade stories about our days as we eat, whatever had her quiet and thoughtful in the kitchen having passed like it never happened. Part of me wants to ask, but I don’t want to ruin the evening if she doesn’t want to talk about whatever’s on her mind. Maybe her dad’s bugging her again. She hasn’t mentioned him since last week, but I’m not sure she would.

Once she pushes her plate away, I quit picking at my last few fries and push mine away too. She gives me a cheeky grin, and I stand, holding out a hand to her. When she takes it, I pull her to her feet, reeling her in and dropping my mouth to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She shivers, goosebumps rising beneath my lips.

“Dylan,” she breathes, and my half-hard cock goes to full mast at the sound of my name on her lips.

“Where’s your bedroom?” I rasp, giving her hips a squeeze as she turns so she can lead the way. She covers one of my hands with hers, keeping it in place as she walks down a short hall off the living room and opens the door to her bedroom.

There’s a lamp casting a warm glow over the space on the bedside table, illuminating the cream color palette punctuated by the dark purple throw blanket folded over the foot of the queen-sized bed and the purple and green floral prints hanging on the walls. It’s pretty and impersonal, which fills me with a certain amount of hope. While the room is certainly comfortable and welcoming enough, it’s clearly notLydia’sspace so much as one she occupies while she visits. The fact that she hasn’t made the space more her own means that maybe she sees her stay here as temporary, even if she hasn’t decided exactly how temporary it’ll be.

Maybe I could convince her to move back to Seattle …

But not now. Not tonight. That’ll keep.

---