The Christmas Grinch - Rebel Hart Page 0,16
at my watch and saw that he was five minutes late. I hated it when people were late. One of my biggest pet peeves.
A full ten minutes later, after I felt frozen all the way down to my toes from waiting out in the cold, he finally appeared around the corner. I watched him walk up to me in his nice wool peacoat and designer scarf wrapped stylishly around his neck. He even looked like a guy who would love Christmas, aside from the constant scowl on his face. It only made me that much more confident in my ability to convert him that very night.
“You’re late,” I frowned at him on the corner, already waving to hail down a cab.
“Sorry, I had to take a couple shots to gear up for this,” he explained shamelessly.
“Ha ha, very funny.”
“Oh, I wasn’t joking.”
Nonetheless, he followed me into the back of the cab and twenty minutes later, we had arrived at my parents. My heart swelled at the sight inside, while Chris seemed even more terrified than before.
Every table, and even some of the floors, were littered with glitter, ribbon, glue, scissors, and anything else you could think of for a crafting extravaganza. I felt like a kid in a toy store, but some straightening up was in order.
“See what happens when you’re late?” I nudged him. “My sisters are left to setting everything up, and you get this chaotic mess.”
I clapped my hands to get their attention and started barking out orders for making everything a little more tidy and photogenic.
“You all know I have to snap photos to do a blog post. My readers look forward to reading about our crafting nights almost as much as I look forward to having them!”
“We wouldn’t want to disappoint them,” Chris smirked sarcastically as I piled his arms up with clutter to hide somewhere.
“No, we wouldn’t” I shot back. “These kinds of get-togethers are the very thing that inspired the creation of my blog to begin with.”
A short bit later, everything was looking picturesque and perfect. More up to NonPareil standards. The longer I looked at it all, the more convinced I was that this if anything would make Chris fall in love with Christmas.
“Before we get started, I guess I should introduce you to everyone. This is Margo,” I pointed to my sister, leaning against a kitchen counter while fervently sipping wine, as if her life depended on it. She offered a half smile and tipped her glass in Chris’s direction.
“She’s a lawyer, and so is her husband, Tom. And the lady you see over there, stuffing her face,” I pointed to Payton who had her butt sticking out of the fridge as she plopped a sausage ball into her mouth.
“Oh, hey. What’s up?” she answered, her mouth full of food.
“And I’m Kathy,” my mom popped up with a bright smile. “You must be Chris. My goodness, I knew you’d be handsome. But I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this.” She plopped her hands on both of his shoulders, shamelessly feeling down his biceps.
“Okay, Mom!” I laughed nervously, shuffling her onto something else. “That’s quite enough of that. As for you,” I turned back to Chris. “You can put your coat right over there.”
He headed for the coat rack and shedded a few layers. I tried not to notice his perfectly chiseled muscles straining against his very expensive looking button up.
“You’ll want an apron so you don’t ruin your clothes. I need one anyway, so I’ll grab an extra.”
I darted off into the closet and returned a few minutes later with two ruffled aprons, decked out with bells and lace and cut outs of gingerbread men and holly leaves. “Sorry we don’t have anything more masculine,” I chuckled, holding one out to him. “But it’s better than getting covered in glue and glitter.”
He cringed at the sight of the frilly frock in his hand and looked back to me. “Are you sure about that?”
“Just put it on,” I huffed.
I hadn’t realized just how ridiculous it would look on his massive body until he came back around, the apron dwarfed against his sculpted chest.
Payton burst into laughter. Margo was only slightly more successful in hiding her laugh, while Mom scowled at them both, growling warnings under her breath. It’s rude to make fun of people.
He had little time to be too embarrassed about it because the crafting quickly commenced. We strung popcorn and dried fruit onto string with needles, and