Page 61 of Jingle Bell Jilt
I bite my cheek to keep from laughing out loud as Evan looks a bit like a deer caught in headlights. He can’t seem to answer the question.
“A little town in Bavaria,” I say in a horrendous German accent.
“Oh?” her brow furrows and I’m worried she might actually be from Bavaria. What are the chances? Thankfully, she just smiles. “What brings you to America?”
I have no idea what makes me do it, but I snuggle up to Evan and smile. “We’re on our honeymoon, actually.” I mean, that’s true for me, so it’s only a half-lie. But this lady is already looking at us like she thinks we may be unstable. I really don’t need to burden her with my tale of jilt and misadventure.
Evan looks at me with amused eyes and I think he might not play along. But then he snakes his hand around my waist and rests it on my hip as he pulls me closer. “Yah,” he says. It’s the most German-sounding thing either of us has said. He presses a kiss to my temple. “It’s our turn to order, my little Strudel.”
My lips are twitching like crazy and when I look up at him, he’s a bit fuzzy due to the tears in my eyes.
“Congratulations,” the woman smiles warmly at us. “I wondered if you were newlyweds. I could tell the moment I saw you look at each other. You make an adorable couple.”
“Zank you,” Evan says sounding much more French than German. He turns to the lady behind the counter and holds up two fingers. “Deux Butterbeer cones,s’il vous plaît.”
I snort as I glance behind us at the woman’s furrowed brow. She’s apparently quite baffled. Maybe she’ll just think we’re trilingual?
The girl behind the counter ignores our terrible accents and just hands us our cones. “Gracias,” I say as Evan pays. Then we hurry out of the shop before anyone can ask us any more questions.
As the door closes behind me, I burst out laughing. “You totally switched to French in there.”
He’s laughing, too, in between licking his cone. “I know. I realized when I got to the counter I had no idea the German words for ‘two’ or ‘please.’”
We disappear around a corner, lest we bump into the ice cream lady as she leaves the shop.
I run my tongue around the cone, trying to catch it before it starts dripping. “Hey, this is really good,” I say and look up, only then noticing Evan watching my every move. I suck in a breath. Ice cream. Who knew it could be so alluring? Granted, it can lead to nothing because, hello, dairy breath.
“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?” he asks in a low voice.
“I shall never doubt you again,” I glance away. The look in his eyes makes me nervous because it mirrors the way I’m feeling. “I can’t believe tomorrow is supposed to be my last full day here.” If ever there was ice-cold water dumped on us, that’s it. It’s way worse than falling in the Atlantic.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a bummer.”
I look at him from the corner of my eye. “We had discussed extending our vacations?” It comes out as more of a question than a statement. I’m not sure if that conversation was serious.
“Do you want to extend our vacations?” he asks.
Does his tone say he wants me to extend or that he’s trying to be nice? “I’m open to the idea. What about you?”
He nods, again watching me as I lick around the cone. “I’m open to it.”
I run my tongue over my lips to erase any ice cream traces. “Okay, when we get back to the house tonight, I’ll look and see what my options are.” Did I just call it ‘the house’? Like we live there together as a couple or something?
I must be completely crazy. My mom’s going to think I am. Maggie’ll be on my side, but I’m not one hundred percent that’s a plus. But maybe Mags can help talk my mom off the ledge after I tell her.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
EVAN
New Year’s Eve at Universal Studios in Orlando is nothing short of chaos. There are people everywhere. But tonight I don’t really mind them. Shay is with me, and I have a firm grip on her hand so we don’t get separated. Loud music blares all over the park, which makes it hard to carry on a conversation while we walk. Not to mention the sheer volume of the crowd.
But it’s all worth it because not only do I have someone to kiss to usher in the new year, but that someone is Shay. We checked out flights, and she was able to rebook a flight for a week from now. We’ll be spending our first day together moving our stuff into the unfinished, formerly flooded townhouse. The people who have rented it will be arriving the day after tomorrow and will now stay in my house. We’ll have a busy day, but I can hardly wait.
We go on a few rides and then we head over to Diagon Alley before the Hogwarts Express shuts down for the day. Shay says she can’t leave Florida without having at least one more Butterbeer ice cream. I was happy to oblige her.
“What are we going to do next week? I mean after we finish moving our stuff and cleaning the house?” I love the way she makes it sound like it’s our place. And that makes me nervous on so many levels. I’m already seeing her as a permanent fixture in my life. And I don’t seem to care that someone else is taking possession of my stuff…my house. That’s crazy.
I shrug. “We can go back to Cocoa Beach for a few days. I also thought that maybe it’d be fun to visit Cape Canaveral. There’s supposed to be a launch next week.”
