Page 1 of A Cozy Holiday
Chapter 1
Assless Chaps
Parker will be stunned.Flabbergasted. So shocked, he’ll faint. For the first time in our yearlong relationship, I’m home early.
As the elevator hums toward our Tribeca loft, I picture the moment. My boyfriend will be on the couch, eyes droopy from a seven-hourSurvivorbinge. He’ll hear the keypad beep and leap up, tossing my nan’s blanket aside, and then he’ll scoop me up into his six-foot-seven frame. We’ll kiss. And then I’ll surprise him with first-class tickets to Cabo.
Not that I want to go to Cabo, but it was the only flight available today, and I desperately need to leave the city after the devastating news my boss dropped this afternoon.
“Honey, I’m home!” I sing.
But our apartment is dark, the red leather couch is empty, and Parker’s favorite hoodie, the one he always wears, is jumbled up on the floor.
“Parker?”
A loud thud and a groan echo from down the hallway.
My stomach flips. Parker has been complaining about his back for weeks, an old injury from his pro-basketball days. What if he collapsed? Or, God forbid, a burglar broke in and tied him up?
A second thud makes my heart sprint.
My brain flashes to Jubilee, my sweet, soft, anxiety-ridden Angora with ears like velvet, who faints every Monday from the sound of the garbage truck.
I scan the entryway for a weapon and spot a pink umbrella, swag from a veterinary pharmaceutical sales representative named Penny who always smells like honeydew. The furry handle squeaks as I fist it tight, raising it like a sword.
“Parker?” I whisper, tiptoeing down the hallway, my feet sticking to the hardwood floor. “Jubilee, Mommy is coming for you.”
I gather all the courage I’ve built from a decade of veterinary training and use it to trudge toward the repeatedthud,thud,thudcoming from my bedroom.
I nudge the bedroom door fully open.
The sight before me is unbelievable.
Truly.
It is un-fucking-believable.
My boyfriend is dressed like Santa Claus—well, if Mrs. Claus had tossed him out over a decade ago for gross negligence.A ratty red polyester coat hangs off one of his shoulders, and a felt beard clings to his chin. Around his waist hangs a black pleather belt. And below it is my boyfriend’s bare ass, shown in all of its clenched-tight glory in a pair of Santa’s suit assless chaps.
A long, throaty “Ho, ho, ho”escapes Parker’s lips, and I can’t tell if it’s a sex noise or some horrifying commitment made toward the heap of green fur below him.
Huh?
I blink once. Twice. Until I really see the entire scene.
Santa—my Santa—is thrusting with enthusiastic vigor over a writhing Grinch.
My fingers tighten around the pink handle of my umbrella until it pops open, a ridiculous shield against the sweaty trauma before me.
The moaning halts.
Then the Grinch shrieks, flailing around on my silk sheets before ripping them off the bed and wrapping them around her nude lower half.
Parker tugs his Santa hat off his buzzed head, then plonks it in front of his flaccid dick.“Joy?” he shrieks as if I’m the one engaged in holiday cosplay. “What are you doing here? You weren’t meant to be back until this evening.”
“How inconvenient of me to show up to this low-grade production ofTheNightmare Before Christmas,” I shoot back.
The Grinch slaps her giant green belly. “Parker? You said your name was Nicholas!”
