Page 50 of What Happens This Christmas
Who knew she had started to possess such a sick sense of humor? Surely not me. I supposed it added up, though. First Swinging Santas and now this…
My jaw hardened, and I pulled at the beard. “Didn’t you say you two needed to get in line for wristbands or something?” Wristbands, like this was an amusement park. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
Gingerbread shrugged, and Santa laughed. Was that all he knew how to do? “You’re right, that we do. Maybe I’ll find Mrs. Claus on stilts in line, waiting for me.”
I would say that seemed highly unlikely, but I wasn’t ruling it out completely. “You’ll never know until you go there and find out, and we wouldn’t want to hold you up.” I moved to rid myself of the scratchy beard that was making me want to pound my fist into a wall. “Here. You should probably take this with you.”
“No,” Santa responded, that boom back in his voice. “It’s yours now. He who wears the beard shall keep the beard.”
If I had taken a shot every time one of them said something that made no sense out of context, considering it barely made sense in context, I would have been drunk. And I was by no means a lightweight. Candy, yes. Me, no. “Fine,” I agreed, hoping it put an immediate end to this exchange.
Gingerbread put two thumbs up. “Good on you.” Then he saluted me. “We’ll just be on our way. Maybe the lady can get some garb, and we’ll see you in a bar later.”
Pigs would fly first.I nodded curtly and turned on my heel, watching as they walked away, far away, from us. If there was anything I needed, it was distance between us and them.
“Come on,” I coaxed Candy, placing a hand on the small of her back. I gritted my teeth. “We should probably table the Fifth Avenue thing. It’ll be here tomorrow or another day.” Any other day that wasn’t the day of a Santa convention.
She quirked a brow, and it looked like she had no idea how to reply. Then she waved a hand between us and stepped away from my touch, picking up the pace. “That’s unnecessary. You forget that I lived in the city before I met you.” She pulled her white scarf tighter around her neck.
Ignoring my quickening pulse, I casually put my hands in my pockets, unsure what else to do with them. I sure as shit couldn’t do what I actually wanted to do. “Are you trying to tell me you partook in these…festivities?” That seemed like the nicest way to put it.
Her brows furrowed. “What? No, of course not. But I didn’t just hole up in my apartment either, you know?”
I offered her a devilish smirk. “I can’t say that I do.”
She looked away, staring into the windows of the department stores we started passing. I never took Candy for the window-shopping type, especially when I’d seen our bank statements, but I’d also never seen us separating. “At least your mother is in Jersey, visiting friends,” she noted, obviously trying to make small talk and change the subject. Not that I had an interest in discussing my mother. “Otherwise, she would have a few things to say when she got back home.”
“You’re not wrong. She wouldn’t care for adults dressing up like Santa or Christmas characters.” She wasn’t a grinch, she just wasn’t exactly not either.
Candy’s face lit up, putting the oversized tree in Town Square to shame. Her eyes held a pair of black heels with excessive straps and some sort of pearl design hanging off the back. I’d seen her shoe closet, so I was well aware she didn’t need another pair, but I found myself wanting to encourage her to go inside and buy them. Not that she needed encouraging either. Candy had a mind of her own and tended to do as she pleased most times. But I also knew that she probably didn’t want totake me shopping with her, understanding I wasn’t the most enthusiastic shopper. Unlike her.
What she would have failed to account for, though, was that she came first. Always.
My chest tightened, and it felt like someone was twisting my heart. “Why don’t we go inside?” I asked, causing her to jump slightly at the sound of my voice. Apparently, she was deep in thought and didn’t think I’d noticed the way she looked at those shoes. But I did. I noticed everything about her. Especially the way her eyes glittered when she found an item she wanted to add to her personal collection.
“We don’t have to do that,” she responded stiffly.
I groaned. “Candy cane.”
“Well, all right, if you mean it.” No, I said it for no reason. “While we’re inside, we should look into new bedding. I was researching Egyptian cotton sheets, and supposedly, they’re all the rage right now.”
Sure, Egyptian cotton sheets. Those definitely had my dick growing. That was sarcasm, by the way. I didn’t actually care. “The sheets we have do the job.” Giving us something to sleep on, in, whatever. “Plus, it’s not like we’ll be sharing sheets for long anyway. Might be a waste.” If I could have, I would have kicked myself, but it was the truth. The truth that served as a reminder, less for her and more to myself.
She shut her eyes before snapping them back open. “Have you no heart?”
“Are you serious?” Was she really calling me heartless?
Trying not to draw attention to us as we walked through the department store to the bedding section, she whispered, “You’re the one who insisted on that mistletoe kiss.”
“You wanted it to happen too,” I said, slamming my teeth as I thought back on it. She had been all in on that kiss. No way was she going to play it off like it was one-sided.
A fake chuckle escaped her for the public. There was hardly anyone around. I was going to strangle myself. This fake crap. This fucking phony bullshit. I was sick of it.
“Look at me,” I demanded, my voice rough with emotion and serious, very serious.
She turned, her gaze finding mine. In the depths of her eyes was frustration, confusion, and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Could it be desire? It was softer than the other two emotions. “What do you want from me, Nick?”
What I’ve always wanted.
