Page 56 of Santa's Mistletoe Playbook

DYLAN

Four days after Christmas I still couldn’t get the taste of Trinity Westwood out of my mouth. She was in my head. Every time I ran into a girl on campus, I checked to see if it was her automatically. Nearly everyone headed home for the break, but I skipped out on Dad’s, driving straight across the country home to California, though it took me three days and a few extra sleepless nights to do it.

All because I wanted a girl I couldn’t have.

Considering the amount of flings I screwed and walked away from, maybe this was the karma Trin promised when she ran from me that day in her office. I could have sworn she was as into me as fast as I fell for her, letting me hold her and kiss her for fucking hours. Soft, sweet kisses designed to sooth her after I fucked us both to heaven and back.

Gentle kisses that eased the throb in my heart when it threatened to implode and end my existence from within. Hell, I was within an inch of laying her back and making love to the girl until night fell when she lost her shit on me.

And I hadn’t stopped her.

The simple truth was that I couldn’t. Her rejection, her disbelief that I wanted her for so much more than a snowday’s afternoon lay froze me while my heart shattered silently inside my chest. That this was the bed I’d made for myself, this lonely existence offuck for fun and runbroke a part of me I’d never really cared about.

Now I wanted someone so bad it ached, I couldn’t have her.

“Grow the fuck up, Mountforth,” I muttered to myself on my twelfth stair climb of the day. The Kingsman frat house was basically vacant until classes resumed, and I hated that I could hear myself thinking about her in every damn room I visited.

So I climbed stairs in the empty campus stadium until my body ached and my legs wobbled. Then I made my way back to my room, showered and collapsed. Prayed I didn't dream of her.

Repeat.

That was my routine for the last three days.

The strategy semi-worked so far, and I wasn’t prepared to give up on my dreams of simply wearing my heart and body out until a better distraction came along.

Like the purple streaked brunette standing at the top of the stairs.

This was it. I’d hit the point of exhaustion where hallucination came into play. Sure, I could dig that. Keeping my eyes fixed on the unsmiling Trinity at the top of the stairs, I pounded my way toward her, rounding her back and inhaling a hint of gingerbread—this exhaustion shit was better than cheap drugs—and started onto the down turn, hoping she was still there for the next lap.

Until Mirage-Trinity reached out and closed her cool hand around my sweaty, trembling one.

Hallucinations don’t do that.

I sucked in a breath and my feet stopped moving. “You’re here.”

“I’m here.” She tucked her hair behind her ear with her free hand, the other sliding tentatively through mine.

She’s real.

I gripped her hand tight. “I haven’t been able to stop fucking thinking about you.”

Her eyes flared wide. “I wasn’t sure. You know, if I was just another girl…”

“You’re not,” I burst out and coughed, bending at the knees. “One sec.” She waited while I hacked out the emotion that rose in my chest, suffocating me, or maybe that was her closeness. “I’ve been running for three days.”

“Me too, kinda,” she whispered as I straightened.

“What were you running from?” I clung to her hand, the one part of her that still seemed real. “I was trying to brand you out of my head. You were still there. I can still fuckingtasteyou–”

She shut down.

Kinda like I had on her, withdrawing and distancing from me, even though she stood inches away. Hell, our clothes brushed when I breathed deep.

I closed my eyes and realized what I’d said. “Not like that,” I corrected myself, stumbling over my tongue.

She breathed out, though she said nothing.

I took it as half a good sign. She washereafter all.

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