Page 39 of It's Mother-Pucking Christmas!

You’ve only known him for two-and-a-half days. This is ridiculous. Timmy is your brother. Your flesh and blood. And I will do anything for my family.

But Ryder was just so fucking perfect. If he was one of those asshole billionaires, I would have betrayed him in a heartbeat.

I gazed at him. He was humming along with the Christmas carols one elderly man was playing on the piano while two women measured him for a new Christmas sweater. Once they realized they weren’t getting a lot of juicy details about Ryder’s bedroom performance, the seniors started to tell me about all the hijinks they’d gotten up to when Ryder was around.

“You stole a nativity scene out of the director’s car?” I was shocked.

“Shh! Keep your voice down.” Ryder kissed me to shut me up, setting off shrieks from the seniors.

“I didn’t know I was stealing it,” he admitted. “They told me it was supposed to go into the bingo room.”

I parceled out the food I’d brought for Ryder. The seniors insisted on trying to force-feed him their portions.

“Look at that boy eat.”

“Did you make that?” Edna asked me.

“The turkey? It’s a miso honey glaze.”

She nodded approvingly.

“Don’t fuck that up, Ryder,” Edna ordered. “I used to make my husband a home-cooked meal every single night. You know what he did?”

“He left you,” Ryder said solemnly.

“Exactly!”

“He’s heard this story a thousand times.”

“He’s gonna hear it again!” Edna leaned forward. “That bastard left me. Went off with this floozy. But she didn’t know how to cook. He came crawling back to me. Begged me, hat in hand, to take him back. He’d lost twenty pounds. Got food poisoning twice.”

“And you took him back?” I was horrified.

“Of course!” Edna sniffed. “You didn’t get divorced in those days, and besides, after that, he did whatever I told him to do, no question. Once you spend all that time training a man, it doesn’t make financial sense to throw him out and start over.”

“Ryder seems pretty well home-trained.” Myrtle patted his cheek lovingly.

“If I didn’t know his family situation, I’d say his mother did a bang-up job. Better than my daughter-in-law. Never brings my grandkids to see me. Thank the lord for Ryder.”

“I hope you’re visiting your grandmother.” Another elderly woman eyed me critically.

“Oh, all the time. She lives with my aunt,” I explained. “Well, technically they live with her. She owns the house.”

“Poor woman.” Frances shook her head. “That’s why I moved in here. My son and his girlfriend and all their ferrets moved into my house, and I never could get rid of them.”

“I think Aunt Bethany probably wishes my cousin would let Granny Murray move in with her and her husband.”

“Hudson’s not going to allow that,” Ryder said with a snort.

“Nope, he does not want an OnlyFans studio in his attic.”

“She’s got an OnlyFans?” Several elderly men perked up.

“It’s not free,” I warned them, “and it’s not particularly good.”

“I have a military pension and a social security check burning a hole in my pocket.” Charles was giddy.

“With any luck, he’ll jerk himself off into a heart attack, and I can move into the presidential suite,” Myrtle said matter-of-factly.

---