A Very Bossy Christmas - Kayley Loring Page 0,10
you.”
“You let me put more fat on bones, and good man vill come for you. You vill see I’m right.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m in my kitchen, biting into Mrs. Pavlovsky’s reheated sausage and definitely not thinking about anyone else’s sausage when my phone vibrates, and my heart starts racing. Because I’m hoping it’s not Declan. And it’s definitely not a sigh of disappointment when I see that it’s my sister calling me. It’s a sigh of relief. Because my sister Bex is my best friend and exactly the kind of person I should be talking to on a Saturday. Not my boss.
“I was totally just going to call you,” I say as soon as I answer.
“What are you eating?”
“A delicious sausage.”
“Interesting,” she says in a singsong voice. “That’s exactly why I’m calling you.” I can hear her collapsing onto a bed. “So, I’m tidying up Piper’s room because she’s out. And one of her notebooks just happened to fall on the floor.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you know how I discovered a few months ago that she writes fanfiction?”
“You mean how you discovered it by making her notebooks accidentally fall open on the floor?”
“I’m very clumsy. It can’t be helped. Anyway. Last time she was writing a very PG-13 Stranger Things fanfic story. Now she’s working on something about Maddie and Declan.”
Whaaaaat?
“Who is Declan, and why does your niece think you should be kissing him?”
“I have no idea, because I know for a fact that I should not be kissing him.” I scoff, very convincingly. “She met Declan the other day. He’s my asshole boss.”
“Really? Because he doesn’t sound like an asshole to me.”
“Let me guess—does he sound like a man with a perfect butt?”
“Yes, but he also gazes at you longingly with his beautiful amber eyes.”
“That is definitely fictional. You know for a fact that Piper has a hyperactive imagination.”
“There has to be something there, or she wouldn’t be shopping you.”
“Shopping us?”
“Rooting for the two of you to succeed in a romantic relationship. Maclan.”
I have to laugh at that. “You mean shipping. She’s shipping us. You know I love that girl, but she is absolutely flooded with hormones right now. She would root for two pigeons to succeed in a romantic relationship if she saw them sitting together.”
“She’s actually very perceptive.”
“Yeah. She’s extremely perceptive about boys’ butts. You do realize we’re talking about the man who’s making me work on Christmas Day?”
“Oh yeah. That’s still happening, huh?”
“Yeah. Still happening.”
“But you’ll be at Aunt Mel’s for dinner?”
“Please—I tell youse,” I say, imitating our Aunt Mel from Staten Island. “I am there, come hell or high watta, arright?”
“Youse betta be, I’m tellin’ youse… Shit. Piper’s home. We never had this conversation—but we aren’t done talking about Boss Butt!”
She ends the call.
That kid. I have no idea what Piper is thinking. Maclan.
I open up my messages app and scroll through the many, many text conversations with Declan. He definitely does not look at me longingly with his beautiful amber eyes. But he is kind of fun to text with. And look at. But terrible to work for. I can’t even imagine how awful he’d be to date.
Suddenly, a new text notification pops up. From Boss Butt.
DECLAN: Happy Saturday, Cooper. You at home?
“Shit!”
DECLAN: I’m just asking if you’re at home.
“Shit shit shit.”
ME: Why do you ask?
DECLAN: Because I’m in the neighborhood.
I burst out laughing. Is he kidding me? What is this—a booty call? Am I supposed to get all excited? I tell him I’m at home, and he’d say, Oh good, so you’re not busy—I need you to do something for me. “Not falling for it,” I mumble to myself.
ME: I’m out running errands all day. And night. Unfortunately.
DECLAN: Really? Because your landlady let me in and I’m standing outside the door to your apartment right now. Pretty sure I heard a woman swearing and laughing in there. Should I call the cops? Maybe someone broke in.
“Shit.”
DECLAN: I think I just heard her again. Kind of a potty mouth. Sounds like trouble.
ME: Just tell me right now if you’re here to murder me.
DECLAN: That depends on how long you’re going to make me wait out here.
For purely professional reasons, I run to my bathroom, as quietly as possible.
ME: Could you first explain why I have the honor of receiving you at my home on a Saturday?
I roll a little perfume oil onto some pulse points and floss my teeth and gargle with mouthwash and apply lip gloss. Because my mother and my landlady would be appalled if