A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,5

you pull your back out.”

I step just behind her and move her hands out of the way. She stands completely still. I grip the top of the zipper and drag it down, revealing a long column, just an inch or two wide, of soft skin from the top her spine all the way to the band of her sensible cotton underwear. She has a tattoo on the back of her neck. It says “Dwell in possibility” in swirling cursive.

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo.” I also didn’t realize what a turn-on that little bit of ink would be. “Does it mean something?”

She puts her hand up to the back of her neck. I can only see her profile, but her cheek is all pink. “It’s geeky. So geeky. It’s, um, it’s Emily Dickinson. She’s...I love her. I love her, um, poems.” The pink goes to a deeper red.

“Not geeky,” I argue.

It’s a lie. It’s geeky as hell. I’m not even sure who Emily Dickinson is. The chick in all white? The one who drowned herself? Didn’t two of them drown? I spent most of English class checking out Jenna Donovan in high school.

I rip my eyes off of that geeky-but-hot-tattoo and look down as I finish pulling the zipper open, but I wind up uncovering another deceptively hot detail that brings out my dumbfounding Mila lust.

Cotton underwear should definitely be a turnoff.

Especially when they say ‘Team Darcy’ across the ass.

There’s nerdy and then there’s just beyond all hope. But, despite every clear reason why I shouldn’t be, I find myself turned-on by them.

And her.

And I have to stop myself from kissing the back of her neck, right over that tattoo by that poet I probably never read.

I’ve either had too much to drink already or not nearly enough.

“There you go,” I say, backing out of her room as quickly as I can and heading to the kitchen and the liquor stash. I decide my issue is definitely that I had too little to drink, and I plan to solve that problem immediately.

***

It’s a Wonderful Life is long over. Mila forced me to watch The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, mostly so she could point at the screen and laugh while expressing mock amazement over the fact that the Grinch and I were probably separated at birth. Now we’re watching A Christmas Story, and I feel like a bum and a traitor, because, in over two decades of holiday seasons, I’ve never once watched this movie before Christmas Eve and never even contemplated viewing it without my siblings.

I’ve been taking a shot every time I have a shitty, guilt-filled thought, so I’m pretty fucking hammered. But, like any decent drunk, I realize there’s still more rum left, and I’m ready to finish it off.

“You really don’t need anymore, Landry,” Mila says, jumping up and swiping the bottle of spiced rum from my hand, mid-pour. It splashes onto the freshly polished coffee table, and I momentarily debate licking up the droplets. But that’s just sad, right?

“What’s it matter? I’m not going anywhere.” I stand on unsteady legs and the room tilts dangerously to one side.

“Well, maybe not, but I need to get going soon and I’m not going to feel right about that if I leave you here, drunk and slobbering all over yourself.”

“Fine.”

I plop back onto the sofa. So what if I want to drink the next few days away? I hate how everyone is always trying to make the holidays into something they’re not.

I reach for her, trying to take the bottle back, but Mila prances away with it.

I mean to follow her ass, covered in flannel polka dot pajamas that really, really should be a turnoff but aren’t, with my eyes alone.

But I find myself standing up again and heading after her, my shoulder smashing into the wall as I try to keep pace with her. She heads straight for her bedroom, and, suddenly, the fact that I was trying to drown my thoughts of her is totally pointless, because she’s on her stomach, lying across her bed and reaching for the drawer of her nightstand.

“What are you doing, Mila?”

My words are caught in my throat. I shouldn’t be feeling like this, shouldn’t be in her room, too drunk to have much control over what I do next and just sober enough to know it’s probably going to be stupid.

She pops back up, her eyes wide and excited. “Okay, I know we never agreed on it, and it’s no