Page 99 of Surrender

“This is...” My eyes widen. I move the cup to my mouth for another mouthful. “Jesus, what do they put in this?”

Whitney laughs. “Greta from work told me it’s addictive. I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s good, right?” She tips her cardboard cup to her mouth.

I swing my neck around to study the booth we just left. “I might have to stop on the way out for the stuff to make it at home.”

“I think I saw a jar of it you can purchase back at the booth.”

We continue down the block. A few people stop to say hello, but I don’t linger long. My jaw works as I scan the multitude of faces passing by on the crowded street.

An insistent tugging on my hand has me drawing my attention back.

“You’re too tense.”

“I’m fine.”

“I can feel it by how tight you’re squeezing my hand.”

I immediately loosen my hold.

Whitney pulls on my arm until I turn to face her. My teeth clench as I look down.

“He isn’t here,” she says quietly. “And if he was, you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. You have to trust yourself on that because I do.”

I look over her head at the blur of faces passing by. When I look down at her again, I relax. “You’re right. I care about you, and when you’re with me, you’re mine to protect.”

She loops her arm with mine and pulls me toward a vendor selling Christmas wood carvings. “Here.” She picks up an eight-inch-tall carved Christmas tree. The star on the top meets at a sharp point. “Get this. That way, if we come across him, you can shove it up his ass.”

My lips twitch. “So vulgar.”

She rolls her eyes and puts the carving down, missing the disapproving look of the vendor behind her. “Where do you think I learned it?”

I roll my tongue across the back of my teeth, yanking her arm until she’s flush against my body. With my eyes trained behind her, I lower my mouth to her ear. “But I only taught you to be vulgar when we’re in bed.”

She twitches against me, and I drag my teeth over her ear before letting her go.

“Are you hungry?” She pretends to walk beside me as if I didn’t just make her underwear wet.

“For you? Always.”

She slaps my chest and walks ahead of me, giving me a perfect view of her curvy ass.

I don’t bother to catch up. Not with this magnificent view. Not until she takes a hard left to a food truck selling turkey and cranberry sandwiches.

She places the order, and I pay for our food. We find a secluded table beneath a canopy away from prying ears. I also have an uninhibited view of the festival to keep an eye on our surroundings.

We eat the first few bites in silence, huddled together against the chilly air. It’s a cold December day, but with the sun shining, it’s tolerable.

“What happened to your parents? If I remember correctly, they left town around the same time you did.”

Whitney wipes her mouth with a napkin. “They did. Um, we just lost contact. We all went out east so that I could go to college, but after the second semester, I decided it wasn’t for me.”

“I bet they didn’t like that.”

She takes a drink of her hot chocolate. “They pretty much unofficially kicked me out and told me to come back when I was ready to be an adult. Of course at twenty, I was rebellious and moved in with a friend and got a job instead. That friend moved to Arizona at the start of the next term, and I went with her. My parents stopped calling a few weeks after I moved, so I did the same. I figured I shouldn’t have to beg them to support my choices.”

“You shouldn’t,” I agree.

“Anyway, that was that. I’ve had the same phone number since high school, so it isn’t like they couldn’t get in touch with me.”

---