Page 5 of Christmas Kiss

My sister squeals. “He’s hot. Definitely not as hot as Gabe, but still…”

“Please stop! Gabe’s old enough to have kids your age, and he’s Chevy’s closest friend. He watched you grow up! That’s gross.”

“You’re such a hypocrite!” Her tone is playful with sarcasm.

“Whatever. This is different because I’m not into Charlie, and Charlie's not into me. He’s coming over because he pities me and I’m sure Chevy guilted the hell out of him.”

“That’s not what Gabe says…” Her tone is sing-songy and playful. I love my sister, but her energy is ten out of ten every day of the year. I run at a fourth of her energy on a good day.

“Oh, really? And what does Gabe say?”

“Gabe says that Charlie has to keep away because he doesn’t trust himself to be alone with you.”

A tingle of something I’ve never felt before rattles through me, and though I’m sure she’s wrong about what she thinks she heard Gabe say, I can’t help but flipping through the fantasy again. The one where I’m under his control and he’s using me like a sopping wet, little doll. I clear my throat. “Yeah, I highly doubt that’s the case, but thanks for the confidence boost. I don’t think he’d be coming over here tonight if he couldn’t trust himself.”

“Yet, he’s on his way. What are you feeding the man?”

“Feeding him?”

“Oh, God… and you’re the big sister? It’s six thirty in the evening and you have a giant man who’s worked all day coming over to help you with chores. You’re supposed to feed him.”

“I don’t cook.”

“You do tonight. What’s in your cupboards?”

“It’s literally ten minutes until he gets here. I don’t have ti—”

“What’s in your cupboards?” she barks.

I’d love to say I’ve never heard Mira this forceful, but I have. This is who she is.

I roll my eyes and stand from the wooden chair by the fireplace and make my way to the kitchen. This man is not into me, but I’d bet he is expecting something to eat considering it's dinner time and he’s about to finish his day off with manual labor as a favor to me and probably my brother.

God, what’s wrong with me?Pregnancy has my brain all kinds of broken, or maybe I was always this way.

“I have saltines, three cans of chicken noodle soup, a box of noodles, and some Cheez Whiz. It’s the spicy kind, which, regrettably, was not as good as I was hoping it would be.”

“What kind of pregnant lady are you?” she groans into the phone. “Your cupboards are bare!”

“The poor kind.” I laugh and open the fridge, hoping something will magically appear, like some homemade lasagna with garlic bread, but there’s no such luck.

“Well… pull out your crock pot, open those cans of soup, and make it look homemade.”

“What? No! That’s obvious.”

“And so is the fact that you’ve fed the man nothing.” I can almost hear her eyes rolling.

My baby sister might be right. I’m going to need to exchange the man something for all his hard work.

My clit twitches with a barter of its own in mind.

“Not the time,”I whisper to myself as his truck tires pop and roll up my stone driveway.

“I’ll call you later.”

“Please do.” My sister laughs as she hangs up the phone. We’ve never been super close. She’s a little younger, and well, there’s the energy thing. Where I see things more grounded, she sees opportunities. Where I see quiet, she sees space to be loud. We’ve spent a lot of time together, but our differences have definitely kept us further apart than we could be.

I haven’t had time to make fake soup when the doorbell rings. Maybe I could offer to drive into town and grab something, or I could pretend I’ve already ordered it, though I don’t really have the cash for that either.

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