Three Christmas Wishes - Krista Wolf Page 0,28

get that, but you never gave me a chance to expla—”

“Fuck your explanation,” I shouted. “Shove it up your ass.”

My ex-boyfriend opened his mouth to say something, then slowly closed it. He leaned back even deeper into the loveseat and folded his hands.

“Nice tree,” he said. “What happened to ours?”

“It got trashed when you trashed our relationship.”

He nodded as if he agreed with me. “Alright. I had that coming.”

“Actually scratch that,” I corrected myself. “Our relationship has been trashed for a long time now. I’m only just seeing it.”

“You got home late,” he said, changing the subject. “Real late.”

I sneered at him. “Fuck you, stalker.”

With a sigh, Drake pulled something from behind him and tossed it at my feet. It took me a second to recognize what it was:

The still-crumpled Santa lingerie, taken from my bag.

“What the everliving fuc—”

“So you have a boyfriend,” he cut me off, his face going all smug. “That was fast, no?”

I fumed at him, so angry I was at a loss for words.

“It’s not a big deal, Sloane. Looks like we’ve both moved on.”

“You moved on while we were still together,” I finally grunted. “Huge difference.”

“Yes, well that wasn’t ideal,” Drake admitted, as if just noticing that little fact for the first time. “It was… shitty of me.”

“You bet your ass it was.”

“I regret it, and I would’ve apologized had you given me the chance.”

“Drake…”

The way I said his name left no doubt as to what was going to happen next. I was on the verge of screaming. The edge of doing something we’d both regret.

“Get the FUCK out of my apartment!” I seethed.

“Our apartment,” he corrected.

“Right now,” I reiterated, “before I call the police. Before I go totally fucking crazy on you. Before—”

He held his hand up in concession. As he did, he slowly rose.

“I’m going to leave,” he said placatingly. “Just for tonight, anyway. But tomorrow I’m coming back here with my stuff, and you’re not going to be able to stop me.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Sloane, be reasonable,” he said. “You don’t just ‘get’ the place because I cheated. And you can’t legally keep me out.”

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. To laugh into his face that he was wrong, so fucking wrong, and then kick him down the staircase. But in the back in my mind, there was a nagging doubt. A sour taste in the pit of my stomach that told me somehow, in some way… the asshole was probably right.

“We can both stay here,” he said as he made his way to the doorway, “at least until one of us finds another place to go. We don’t have to be friends. We don’t even have to talk.”

I watched him go, slithering toward the door like the snake he actually was. He opened it to let himself out, then paused in the threshold.

“You have a boyfriend too,” he said again, nodding toward the sex-soaked Santa outfit, “and you don’t see me freaking out.” His placating smile twisted into a smirk of disapproval.

“So let’s try to be mature about this,” he said, as he closed the door.

Twenty-Two

SLOANE

Sleep wasn’t an option, as tired as I was.

Neither was staying.

I spent the next few hours working diligently in the apartment, packing until dawn. Getting everything I needed into neat piles for when the stores opened, so I could go out and buy more boxes to put everything in.

Fuck.

I couldn’t stay here another minute knowing Drake might come back. And he would be coming back, there was no doubt about that. As much as the place was mine, I also knew in my heart I couldn’t legally keep him away. Sharing it with him — and possibly the bimbo from the Christmas tree lot — was entirely out of the question, which left only one option for me:

I had to get the hell out.

The problem was I had way too much stuff and nowhere to go. Lynne would certainly put me up if I asked, but the last thing I wanted to do was impose myself on her and her new fiancé. My parents were in Florida. My sister in Colorado. Neither of those things helped me.

I made coffee at dawn, then sat there drinking it miserably as I decided on a course of action. I’d have to rent a truck, then move everything into storage. My equipment, my tools, my sculptures… the cold weather might be bad for some of them, so I’d have to rent a climate-controlled unit. That would cost even