Page 1 of Better Not Pout
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Rosalie
Santa, Baby
“Hellllooooooo,sexy Santa.”
My brow pulls together as I squint down at Kennedy’s phone in my hand, the glowing screen slightly blurry. Likely from a mixture of both the fact that my best friend showed up at the front door of my apartment with a fantastic red wine for our girls’ night and that I’m wearing my glasses instead of contacts.
The lenses are so ridiculously thick they’re basically bifocals.
Poor-vision girls unite.
“Rosalie Sullivan, that isnotsexy! My God. Ew.” She groans from her spot in the corner of my couch, a fluffy blanket tucked over her legs, the remaining wine in her glass sloshing around as she pushes off the cushions and ambles over to where I’m sitting. “Who sends unsolicited nudes to a girl they metonceat a Trader freakin’ Joe’s?”
I lift a shoulder. “Happy Holidays, I guess? I mean, honestly though, I’m kind of impressed at his dedication to the cause. He even put a little Santa hat on the tip of his di?—”
Suddenly, her free hand shoots up, clamping over my mouth and cutting my words off, as she stares down at me with wide eyes. “Please, it’s bad enough that it’s going to be burned into my mind for…forever.We do not need to discuss the painful details out loud.”
I’m still giggling behind her hand, and when it drops from my mouth, the first words that spill out are “Oooookay, but he is hot. I think? I can’t tell if he’sactuallyhot or if it’s the wine that’s making him hot. Hence, the reason that no rash decisions should ever be made during girls’ night. He could be the one, Ken. His execution could just use a little… work?”
“A little? That’s absolutely the wine talking right now. You have lost your mind,” she scoffs, plopping back down onto the cushion beside me, draining the last of her wine. Penny, my long-haired mini dachshund and built-in bestie, lifts her head from the couch to look at Kennedy—a look that says,Why are you interrupting my nap—then promptly lays her head down and goes right back to sleep. “This guy could literally not be any further from my type, and this just goes to show how exhausting it is to be in the dating world in today’s day and age. It’s truly a tragedy. God, Rosalie, what happened torealromance? Guys who woo you and sweep you off your feet?”
I wouldn’t know because I’ve never really experienced that.
Romance. Someone sweeping me off my feet, making my heart race, making me feel a flutter of butterflies in my stomach.
If I’m being honest, I’m not even sure it exists.
I’ve only had a handful of relationships. The longest being with my ex Bradley, and after the way we ended things, I have absolutely zero desire to have a repeat.
He broke up with me after getting a job at his dream firm in Los Angeles and basically said that he was only with me because it was convenient. Comfortable. I was his fallback. His constant comments about my body were damaging in and of themselves, and then he droppedthatbombshell on me as a parting goodbye.
Talk about a fracture to my already fragile confidence. I always thought that he was far too hot to be with a girl like me, something that remained constant in the back of my mind for the entirety of our relationship.
So, I do my best to not think about Bradley or what he’s doing. The last time I allowed myself to look at his social media, I saw that he’s dating some influencer who is so gorgeous that it makes me feel even more terrible about myself.
“But here I am, the hopeless romanticper usual, believing that somewhere out there, there’s a fairy-tale love story waiting for me,” Kennedy adds with a sigh when I don’t answer her rhetorical question, petting Penny’s head and twirling the little bows tied along her cream-colored ears.
Pretty deep red, velvet Christmas ones, of course.
I’m not anti-love or anti-relationship per se. I’m just far more… realistic than my best friend, who perpetually lives with her head in the clouds. I’m firmly planted on the ground and much more skeptical. Especially when it comes to men.
“I think you’ve been reading too many of your romance books, babe.” I lift my brows, waggling them suggestively, and her eyes roll. It’s not that I think love isn’t real, but maybe it’s just not as whimsical as it seems between the pages of a book about a man, written by a woman.
For a second, she’s quiet, chewing the tip of her fingernail, something she does when she’s lost in thought. A habit I’m not sure she even realizes she has but, of course, that I notice. We’ve been best friends, completely inseparable, since we werein elementary school, and there’s no one that I know better than Kennedy Elizabeth Belmont.
Sometimes, I think I probably know her better than she even knows herself.
Which is why I’malwaysthe voice of reason in our friendship.
A sigh tumbles past her lips as her gaze connects with mine. “Maybe. But I’m going to hold on to hope that my Prince Charming is out there, and it’s absolutely, without a doubt,not… this guy.”
My nose scrunches. “Yeah, I think I have to agree on this one. I was trying to be, I don’t know, positive? But the fake beard is a liiiiiittle too much.”
“For sure, it’s just the beard. Absolutely has nothing to do with him tainting Santa Claus with his ridiculous wiener pic?”
