A Very Bossy Christmas - Kayley Loring Page 0,27
jingle bells
Jingle all the way—can’t hear you!
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, hey
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.”
I signal to the band to stop playing. “You know what—this is wrong. Stop! Nope. Fuck the happy songs. Not everyone is jingling all the way through the holidays, and they deserve to feel like they’re a part of this too. Y’know? Because they aren’t a part of anything else right now. If they were, they wouldn’t be here in this shitty hotel bar. Who’s feeling sad this Christmas? Show of hands.” My hand, the one that’s not holding the microphone, stays exactly where it is. Because I am not sad. Sad is for other people. Sad is for people who aren’t fun or cool enough to be angry.
I see a couple of guys and one messy-haired drunk lady with their hands up. “Okay, good. Sad is good. Sad is real. Sad…is beautiful. Good for you—sad, lonely losers! Good for you! I’m gonna ask who else is angry next, okay, but sad people—this one’s for you.” I turn to the band and tell them what to play. “This is a song about a reliable little fir tree I like to call…Tannenbaum. We don’t have enough songs about trees, you know that? Why is that? All songs should be about trees. All year long. Trees never break your heart. Trees don’t wear sweater dresses and then slap you in the face when you’re kissing them. Trees aren’t a constant reminder of how little you have to offer them, even when you really, really want to give them…something…anything…any broken piece of you that they’re willing to take… Fuck yeah, trees. This one’s for all the sad people and all the awesome Tannenbaums out there who never make people sad.”
Sixteen
Maddie
LUST CHRISTMAS
PIPER: Wait what?!?! OMG LOL SERIOUSLY?! You are in Ohio with Declan RN? I knew it! I knew you guys would HEA!!!
ME: Calm down. It’s a work thing. Sort of. We are not a couple, and we are definitely not HEAing. Is that a verb now?
BEX: Wow. You called it, Piper! #MACLAN
PIPER: Wait. How did you know about Maclan, Mother? I never told you.
BEX: Um. You must have. How else would I know about it?
PIPER: Aunt Maddie please get me a safe for Christmas. Or let me move in with you kthx.
BEX: I totally do not read your fanfic Piper!!! When would I even have the time?!
PIPER: How would you even know that I write fanfic if you weren’t snooping in my room?! OH MY GAWD GET A LIFE, MOTHER! AND FYI I’M TOTALLY GETTING A SPECIAL LOCK FOR MY ROOM!!!!!
ME: Happy holidays, everyone! See you in a couple of days!
BEX: Oh sure. Go have hot sex with your hot boss in Ohio and leave me with the angry thirteen-year-old why don’t you?
PIPER: Get a picture of his butt for me!!! Pretend he’s a corporate ladder and climb him like a lady boss!!!
BEX: Piper!!!!!
ME: OMG Piper!!!
ME: Okay! Kiss the baby for me! Love you bye!
I mean, I’m not going to go have hot sex with my hot boss, but they wouldn’t believe me if I’d told them that anyway.
I leave a generous tip for my waitress because it’s a pretty slow night here at the Twinstar Hotel’s restaurant. I actually got to do a little Kindle reading on my phone while I ate, so that was an unexpected benefit of this stupid trip. Not exactly worth getting up even earlier this morning to shave, but at least my hormones have normalized now. At least I’m no longer kicking myself for slapping Declan. At least I no longer want to slap him again for shutting me out.
We are clearly incompatible with each other, despite a…significant physical attraction and somewhat entertaining chemistry. And despite the fact that it was the hottest kiss of my life, and I basically had twelve orgasms when he squeezed my hips and shoved his knee between my legs and tugged on my hair and groaned in my ear and oh God I think I’m having another orgasm right now—despite all of that, he was right about one thing. We should stay away from each other until tomorrow.
I check my phone to make sure he hasn’t changed his mind and sent me a booty-text.
Nope. Good. God forbid he should pester me or do anything inappropriate when I actually secretly want him to. He’s probably in his room working,