Page 47 of What Happens This Christmas
Never mind. It wasn’t important.
Candy flashed me a look that sent daggers. “What is it, Eloise? This party isn’t going to coordinate itself, and I have many details that need confirming.”
Yes, she must dot those i’s and cross those t’s. We wouldn’t want a nutcracker to be out of place, or heaven forbid, a ceramic polar bear to come parading in here like it owned the damn penthouse. “Isn’t that why you have a planner?” In other words, wasn’t that why we were paying forthe best of the best, as Candy had so eloquently put it?
“I have to do my part. I can’t trust that everything will be done, so I get involved. Sue me,” Candy said, her tone serious and her cheeks growing red. Beets weren’t my favorite thing to eat, but the color suited her.
“How lazy are you?” Eloise asked, placing a hand on her jutted hip.
Candy, lazy? No. Stubborn? The very definition of the word.
“I’m not lazy,” Candy insisted, finally giving in and getting up, but not taking Eloise’s hand. “Is this something Nick should also be privy to?”
I waved a hand in the air. “You ladies have fun. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your…sister time.” Only, I knew my wife, and she didn’t care about sister time or any other time besides alone time.
Eloise turned on her heel and shook her head, tsk tsking. “My last boyfriend didn’t like to go places with me, and do you know what happened?”
“You broke up?” I asked.
“Bingo!” Eloise shouted, and there went my hearing again. Almost, anyway. It was at risk today, that was all I was going to say. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” I’m a fucking genius, that was how. Oh, and she wasn’t with him for the holidays, so it was either they were headed for a breakup or they had already gone down the slippery slope. Either way, I didn’t want to talk about this any longer, so I got up, if for no other reason than to kill this conversation.
She bit down on her lower lip. “Except that wasn’t actually the reason why we broke up, but it was definitely a factor. I gravitate more toward people who want to shake their bums and feel the fresh breeze on them.”
I’d learned a long time ago never to ask questions where Eloise was concerned, so I wouldn’t, but was she trying to say that she wanted them to be naked? Because, if so, there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to erase this moment in time from my memory.
Candy crossed her arms and nudged her chin. “Aren’t you supposed to be leading the way to wherever you’re dragging us?”
Eloise nodded and snapped her fingers. “Yes, follow me.”
We did, and Candy mumbled under her breath. She wasn’t the greatest whisperer of all time, so I heard her say, “I regret wanting to change the subject.”
Yeah, I bet she would have rather talked about my mother, and that was saying a lot considering their fraught relationship.
As we walked, Eloise filled the air with idle chit-chat. “You two had absolutely no dung-on-a-twig. Did you know that?”
I stuck my hands in my pockets and thanked God that was true. “I believe we do.”
“She means mistletoe. That’s the literal meaning in Anglo-Saxon,” Candy supplied, clearing things up for me.
“I just refer to it as mistletoe.”
“Boring, BIL,” Eloise spat back at me, tossing her head over her shoulder as she led us to the foyer.Yes, this is the very last place I want to be, so thank you for taking me here.
I leaned against a wall. “We don’t need mistletoe.”
“What do you mean?” Eloise asked, her eyes flitting from Candy to me and going back again.Don’t give yourself a headache there, sis.
Candy rolled her lips, and I could smell the fumes from her brain working on overdrive all the way over here. “We don’t need a reason to kiss.”
Hmm. That was one way of putting it.
She walked over to me and stared down at my arm before petting it.For Christ’s sake.I uncrossed my arms and wrapped them around her waist, standing behind her. “You know your sister. She’s not big on PDA, but we don’t need dung or mistletoe or whatever people are calling it.” I looked up at the mistletoe she’d hung in our foyer.
Eloise brushed us off and pointed to it.Yep, saw it already, thanks.“Well, the season practically calls for it, so get on board.” When neither of us flinched, she pushed, “Kiss for Kris Kringle’s sake!”
Silence.
