Page 15 of How He Got the Girl
My friends chatter excitedly while I focus on the masterpiece before me. I slather yellow icing on the snowman-shaped cookie and add brown hair and blue eyes before squirting red icing over the whole thing. It actually feels cathartic. Ten out of ten would recommend.
I glance up to find all my friends staring at me. Alyssa and Shayna’s eyes are wide as they glance at my creation.
Kelsey looks like she’s holding back a smirk as she leans over and takes the red icing bag from me. “Okay, what gives?”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“You look…stabby.”
“How does one look stabby?”
Alyssa eyes my cookie version of Griffin. “I think the crime scene in front of you is Exhibit A.”
“It’s he-who-must-not-be-named.”
“Voldemort?” Shayna ices the last petal on her flower-themed snowflake cookie.
I shake my head. “Hot Cocoa Man.”
“Who’s Hot Cocoa Man?” Kelsey asks.
“The guy I haven’t told y’all about.” I always tell my friends everything, but I’ve been too embarrassed to bring Griffin up.
“You met a guy and didn’t tell us?” Shayna squeals.
“What did he do to deserve that massacre?” Alyssa gestures to my cookie. “I mean, masterpiece.”
“He took me on the absolute best date of my entire life and then ghosted me.”
“Hedidn’t.” Kelsey presses her lips together, setting down her icing bag and biting off the head of her snowman cookie. “Give us all the details so we can hate him with you.”
So, I do. I tell them everything. From meeting him while caroling with Daisy’s family to plopping change into my cup of hot chocolate and offering to make it up to me the next day with the world’s best cup of hot chocolate.
I share all about our date and how the hours flew by like they were only minutes. How I felt like I could be vulnerable with him because he felt different than all the men I’d ever dated before. How he was handsome and flirty, but still seemed genuine. How he said he couldn’t wait to see me again.
“Then he paid for our dinner and asked for my number. But both of our phones were dead, so I had to write it down for him on a paper napkin. Then Daisy came barging into the restaurant with her brothers like they were security guards.” I laugh at the memory of Griffin’s terrified face as Daisy’s brothers stood intimidatingly over him. “She freaked out after my phone died and she couldn’t get a hold of me. But my text to her had at least gone through, so she knew where to find me. Anyway, we all shared a good laugh about it, and Griffin walked me to their car and gaveme a chaste but sweet goodnight kiss. The last words he said to me were, ‘I’ll talk to you soon, beautiful.’”
“Then what?” Shayna asks.
I shrug. “We left, and I kept checking my phone, waiting to hear from him. Only, I never did.”
“What a jerk,” Kelsey growls.
“He doesn’t deserve you, Mal.” Shayna rises from the table and gives me a hug.
“It’s his loss.” Alyssa sends me a sympathetic look.
“What does he do? I’d love to give his company a bad review on Yelp.” Kelsey’s brow furrows. We all gape at her. She shrugs casually. “What? It’s what Mal would do for us, so I thought I’d return the favor.”
I shake my head at her antics. “You’re the best, but I don’t think it’ll work here. Griffin’s auditioning for a new rom-com movie that he hopes will be his big break. So maybe he was just starting the audition early, seeing if he could convince a girl he was interested when he clearly wasn’t.” I pick a piece of lint off my blanket. “I guess he’s a better actor than he gives himself credit for because he sure played me.”
“Ugh, I hate him already. I hope the casting director throws him out like the trash he is.” Kelsey bites off the head of another snowman.
That almost makes me laugh, but a sigh slips out instead.
“I know it might be a sore subject, but do you want hot chocolate?” Shayna offers with a sad smile.
I grimace. “Y’all go ahead.” The drink didn’t do me wrong, but Hot Cocoa Man did. I’m not sure I can disassociate the two.
