Page 11 of Christmas in Comets Valley
Elliot might’ve startled the shit out of me, but I had to admit seeing someone else suffering made my night thetiniestbit better, even if it was a little sadistic. Extending my measly friendship to him was the least I could do.
Well, unless I accidentally befriended a stalker. I wondered how that would hold up if I had to take him to court. Probably not well… not well at all.
“Cool. So, do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Want to have a one-night stand then?”
“Also, no.” I passed the now half-empty bottle back to him.
Now listen, the guy was hot. That was a simple fact. But I wasn’tquitedrunk enough to fuck a stranger who I thought was going to murder me twenty minutes ago.
“Understandable.” He sighed, taking a long gulp from the bottle. “Want to watch a movie instead?”
“Sure, but you have to be the one to touch the remote.”
“Mr. Whiskers's newest conquest?” Elliot asked with a popped brow, to which I nodded my response.
Me and this weird stranger, who I hoped really was Juliet’s brother—I made a mental note to check his ID once he fell asleep—sat on the couch together and watchedA Dog's Purposewhile he cried on my shoulder for two hours straight.
Somewhere around four in the morning, I slipped my shoulder out from under Elliot’s limp head and replaced it with a pillow, hoping he was too deep in his drunken sleep to notice the difference. I threw a fuzzy accent blanket over top of him, then tilted his head to the side so he didn’t choke in case he regurgitated the contents of his stomach.
Quietly creeping up the stairs, I walked down the hall toward the guest bedroom and crawled underneath the sheets, ready to sleep off the last few hours of emotional overload. On the bright side, I wouldn’t be needing any sleeping pills.
If the past twenty hours were any sign as to what the rest of my trip would be like, then the next “relaxing vacation” I had would be when I walked through the pearly gates.
As I rode the brink between wakefulness and deep, divine slumber, the sound of Mr. Whiskers making love to a Staples Easy Button woke me again.
“That was easy. That was easy. That was easy.” Sounded from down the hall incessantly.
Groaning, I decided that once the sun rose, I would whip my car out of the driveway so speedily my tires would screech, waking the whole town.
This vacation wasover,and no amount of convincing would prevent me from leaving.
4
ELLIOT
My brain poundedagainst my skull as sunlight made its way through the slim opening in the curtains and memories from last night slowly flooded to the forefront of my brain.
Robin calling. Booze, lots of booze. Drunkenly stumbling to Juliet’s place instead of my parents’ house. The most stunning girl I’d ever seen opening the door. Me asking her to have a one-night stand…
I winced at the last one.
In my normal headspace, I never would’ve asked a woman such a crude question. That was especially true for the women of Comets Valley, most of whom I’d known since kindergarten.
Comets Valley was a small, incestuous town where everyone knew everyone and nothing—not one thing—out of the ordinary went undiscussed byallthe townspeople.
It was an odd place, really.
Had I not grown up here, I would’ve despised the place with my entire being. At eighteen, I swore I’d never come back. Yet anytime I had extra vacation time or a major holiday was approaching, I’d always find myself sitting behind my desk with a browser tab open, perusing flights while I was supposed to be on a conference call.
I’d spent the last eighteen years living in New York, building the fastest growing real estate empire in the city. An empire that I had no intention of leaving until the Banks brothers offered an obscene amount of money to acquire the business.
I might’ve had hundreds of millions in my bank account, but that didn’t negate the fact that I was still the jobless loser who got wasted at my hometown's only bar before passing out on my sister's couch.
Aside from the centurion black card in my wallet, my life wasn’t that different from the townies who only left this place for their once-a-year beach vacation.
