Page 18 of It's Mother-Pucking Christmas!

Mike and Pete forced my arm away from my body.

“The Noelle Noshery 5:30.” Mike sat back. “This a drug deal?”

“Is that how he’s so awesome?” Erik snickered.

“It was that girl,” I mumbled, turning back to my bag.

Pete grabbed my jaw. “The girl?”

“Not the fake Canadian fiancée,” Erik drawled.

“She wasn’t from Canada. She was from Illinois.”

“Same diff.”

“The stalker?” Pete was concerned. “Tell Hudson. She’s part of the Arctic Monkeys. She can’t be throwing you off your game.”

“She’s not stalking me.” I rubbed at my arm. “She just wants...”

“To bang you?”

“Have your babies?”

“No, to go on a date. She asked me out.” I glanced up at Pete. “That’s a red flag, right?”

“I think this is good practice for you,” Pete said smoothly, “even if you don’t marry her.”

“I only want to date someone I’d marry,” I replied stubbornly.

“Dear god, help me,” Rick said to the ceiling. “Just go on the date, College Boy, and stop overthinking it. Someone get him out of here.”

I stood up. “Yeah, I should go practice.”

“No. Put him in the shower and clean him up.” Erik grabbed the back of my shirt. “He smells like dog food.”

“There is more to life than hockey,” Rick told me. “Go on the date.”

“Yeah.” Mike rolled his eyes. “You can think that way if you have someone feeding you pucks.”

“Do not,and I cannot stress this enough, be weird.” Rick was yelling over the sound of the shower. “Keep it light, keep it fun. She doesn’t need your whole life story on the first date. You’ll scare her off. You have my best pickup lines. Use them.”

“I’ve already picked her up, though.” I toweled off my hair.

“It will make her laugh. You’re handsome. You have money. Just don’t make it heavy. Be normal. And wear this.” Rick held up a bright-blue shirt with a sheen.

“That’s not mine. I don’t own that.” I pulled on another pair of clean black jeans.

“Blue’s your color.”

I tugged a gray shirt over my head. No matter how much I scrubbed, the Sharpie was still a ghost on my arm.

“Okay, Joanna Gaines, can we put a little color on you?” Mike said from my bed.

“I don’t actually care about this girl.” I ran a comb through my hair. “It’s just practice for when I meet the real woman of my dreams. Like Mike said.”

I fastened on my watch, a present from one of those Toys for Tots programs that I’d punched extra holes in so I could still use it.

Maybe I should have just joined the Marines instead of college.

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