A Very Bossy Christmas - Kayley Loring Page 0,56

she says, giving my shoulder a shove. “Mistah Readin’ My Mind over here gets me a Nutcrackah doll after I’m thinkin’ for a month—you know what this place needs? A Nutcrackah doll! This is goin’ somewhere special, but I’m puttin’ it here on the table for now, arright? You hungry, hon? I’m gonna fix you a plate. I’ll get you a plate of everythin’. It’ll be reheated, nothin’ fancy. Just whatevah.”

“Yeah whatever. That’d be great, thanks.”

“Okay, hon, make yourself comfortable, sit. Eh, Joe!” she yells out to Maddie’s father who is six feet away. “Joe, let our guest sit by you there, on the good sofa.” She waves at him to make room for me while pushing me toward him.

So I guess I’m sitting next to Mr. Cooper on the good sofa, instead of standing behind the armchair next to Maddie. She looks so wholesome in her big chunky sweater and those tight black things—leggings, I think my sister called them—and she seems so nervous. I want to stick my hands up that sweater, pull those leggings down, and help her relax a little. Or a lot. But maybe not in front of her family.

“Have a seat—Declan, is it?”

“Declan, yes.” It really is a good sofa, but because Maddie’s brother-in-law and sister are also sitting on it, I have to nestle into the corner, uncomfortably close to Joe Cooper. We’re basically rubbing up against each other on one side.

Colin Firth is paused on a massive screen, and it looks like he’s about to sneeze.

“You seen this movie before? Love Actually? It’s British. A classic British romantic comedy film.”

“I’ve seen parts of it, whenever it’s on TV.”

“Parts of it, huh? Interesting. Too busy working to watch entire movies?”

“To be honest, yeah. I was. But I’m trying to make some changes in my life now.”

I’m not even going to think about what it means that I’m saying this shit to get Maddie’s dad to like me within minutes of meeting him.

“Yeah? By pretending to be my daughter’s boyfriend?”

“Well…”

“I’m just fucking with you. That sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do.” He gives me a reassuring wink.

“Really?”

“No. It’s messed up. But you must have your reasons. And you didn’t come to Christmas dinner wearing cargo shorts and knee socks, so I guess I’d rather she pretended to be your girlfriend than have her actually date more of those losers with the bad socks.”

“Dad!” Maddie rubs her temples. “That was senior year of high school!”

“Nothing worse than bad socks.” I casually lift up the cuffs of my pants so he can see the Italian-made socks Nonna gave me this year.

He pats me on the shoulder. “Good socks.” Then he aims the remote at the TV and un-pauses the movie. “Watch the movie. This is my favorite part.”

So I watch the last half of Love Actually with Maddie’s family and eat a reheated mash-up of like nine different kinds of food that I never get to eat at Christmas, and it’s all good, and I love it. I love it so much that I barely even think about how hard it will suck when I inevitably screw this up.

It’s not until the cab drops Maddie and me off outside the Staten Island Ferry terminal that I finally say to her, “So when you said you told your family ‘everything’ about us, you meant…”

“The faking thing. Not the sex.”

“Got it.” I put my arm around her waist and bring her in closer to me because it’s freezing and because I’ve been in a room with her and her family for two hours, and I just need to touch her. Even if it’s over a big puffy coat and a big chunky sweater. “So not the part about you biting my ass this morning.”

She snort-laughs and looks around to see if anyone heard that. No one heard. No one else is around. It’s freezing, it’s Christmas, and it’s nine thirty at night. I don’t know how I’m going to wait until we get back to my place to get my hands under that sweater and get those leggings off her, but I’ll have to. “Shhh! I mean, I tweeted about it, but my family doesn’t follow me so it’s fine.”

We get inside the terminal, and I can see that she’s blushing, and it’s so fucking cute. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see Maddie Cooper blushing. Never in my filthiest fantasies about her did I imagine myself stopping to kiss her on her