Page 29 of Mistletoe Mistake
“I don’t want to know.” I pull a face. “Maybe we can have breakfast before you go to work and discuss it?”
“I’m taking tomorrow off.” He leans down and kisses my forehead. “I’m not working on anything urgent, so I thought we could spend the day together.”
Nodding, I bite back a smile. “That sounds nice.” He nuzzles down into my neck, and I curse out loud when the doorbell sounds just as his teeth find my earlobe.
“That’s my cue.” He chuckles, pushing away from me. “I’ll let whoever it is in and I’ll see you tonight.” He comes back for one last kiss but before I get the chance to deepen it, he pulls away and is gone.
* * *
“I definitely see what you’re saying, Owen,” April agrees. “I think the bully trope is a hard one for men to understand because it goes against everything you’ve ever been told.”
“Right. I was reading it, thinking why didn’t she just punch him in the junk and tell him to fuck off?” He throws back a handful of cashews. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Carrie would do to me if I tried to pull any of that shit.”
“It’s the fantasy of it, though.” Tessa’s face peers out at us from the laptop screen. “You’re right, if a guy was ever as much of a dick to me in real life as Vicious is to Emilia, I would want nothing to do with him. Truth be told, and this is no offense to the male population as a whole, Owen, the majority of you are quite decent human beings, but most women have come across enough dickheads that we have a top ten list.”
“Hear hear!” Billie holds her soda up in a mock salute causing Tessa to giggle and April to roll her eyes.
“I just think that there is something kind of empowering in being the one to tame—for lack of a better word—an asshole. Vicious is as much of a bastard at the end of the book as he is at the start, except with Emilia. I think that notion of being the exception for someone is quite intoxicating.”
“In fiction,” April adds with a wry smile as we all take in Tessa’s dreamy expression.
“Well, I love bully romance. Reading about the worst kind of prick being brought to his knees by the woman he loves? I eat that shit up,” Billie declares.
“Yeah, I can kind of understand that, I guess. But I don’t think the bully thing is really for me. I did enjoy—” He glances down at his paperback. “LJ Shen’s writing style, I found it pretty addictive, so I’m happy for us to keep reading the series.”
Billie, Tessa, and April agree and I practically bounce in my seat with excitement.
“Good, because Dean and Rosie are next and, ugh, they are going to rip your heart apart.”
“Christ, Hols,” April grumbles. “You’re a little too excited about our emotional destruction.”
“Yes.” I rub my hands together gleefully. “Yes, I am.”
“All right, well, thanks for tonight ladies, but I’m going to head out. I promised Carrie I would pick her up a pint of cookie dough ice cream on my way home.”
“Ooooh, craving?” April asks.
“Yeah, she’s going through a pint a day since she hit the third trimester. I’m thinking about buying shares in Ben & Jerry’s.”
“Having a baby must be so weird,” she counters. “It’s like you have no control over your body, you hand it all over to a tiny little alien that has squatter’s rights.”
“April!” Tessa chides.
“What?” April looks at us wide-eyed until her gaze lands on Owen, when it turns sympathetic. “I mean, it’s amagicallittle alien.”
“And on that note.” Owen starts gathering his things and April quickly follows suit.
“Yeah, I better be on my way too. I have to drive to my sister’s tomorrow.”
“I’ll say goodnight too,” Tessa pipes up. “I have an early flight tomorrow.”
Twenty minutes later, it’s only Billie and I left and we settle back on the sofa with a bowl of Reese’s Pieces between us.
“So tomorrows the big day, huh? Do you know how you’re going to tell Brandon?”
“No,” I sigh. “But I think the best thing is to just sit him down and tell him straight out. No fuss, no muss. I really don’t think he’ll be upset. Probably shocked, but he’ll get over that.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
