Page 59 of It's Mother-Pucking Christmas!

“Good lord.”

“You ever watch Ryder O’Connell play hockey? Well.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “He fucks just like that.” I grabbed Gracie. “He’s relentless. He would have fucked me all night and all morning if I let him. And don’t get me wrong, the sex is freaking amazing, but I love hanging out with him too. He’s funny. We have these really deep conversations. He’s so thoughtful but not like any of those know-it-all PhD students I dated. You remember when I was trying to date all those Ivy League guys?”

“You were in your dark academia phase,” Gracie said. “Though, to be fair, I liked them better than the men-in-finance. I take it Ryder blew it out of the park with date number three?”

“Apparently, he doesn’t count the last date as a date, but it was actually so much nicer than anything any of those self-absorbed Wall Street bros ever planned.” I swooned. I couldn’t help it. Ryder was everything.

“And he’s so sweet and kind. He volunteers. The senior citizens adore him. He’s like their grandchild, and he goes to the animal shelter to help socialize the dogs. Not to mention he loves Christmas and…” I trailed off at the look on my cousin’s face.

“Oh my gosh,” Gracie said slowly. “You’re in love with this guy.”

“What? No, that’s… No.” I sat up. “We’re hooking up.”

“You’re, like,datingdating him,” Gracie said flatly. “Like runway-to-marriage type of dating.”

“Marriage?”

You could have him fuck you up the ass,my vagina helpfully reminded me.

“I just met him. I’m not marrying him.”

“Marriage?!”My mom careened into the living room followed by a stampede of her sisters. “Dakota, you’re getting married?”

“God, Mom, no, that’s not—”

My mother wrapped me in her arms. “My first daughter to be getting married. Praise God!”

“We need to see if you can fit in my old wedding dress,” Aunt Giana said, measuring me with her hands.

“Aunt Giana.” Gracie made a face. “I don’t know if Dakota wants an eighties wedding dress.”

“Ryder would appreciate the tradition.” She sniffed. “That boy likes a hand-me-down. He’s sentimental. I can tell.” She sighed wistfully and stared at the mantel.

I followed her gaze. “Mom, what the hell?” I clapped my hands to my head in shock.

There, over the fireplace, instead of the frankly creepy-looking family portrait of all us kids my mother had had done at the mall, was an enormous poster-size photo of me and Ryder at the Christmas market yesterday. Dasher in his arms, Ryder was looking at me with that blue-eyed intensity.

“Mom, you can’t put that up. It looks like some sort of memorial photo. People will think we’ve died.”

“What am I supposed to do? I can never get a nice picture of you.” My mother sniffed.

“Who even took that? Are you all following me?” I demanded.

“Girl,” Violet drawled as she and several more cousins wandered into the living room, drawn by the potential drama, “you guys are all over the internet.”

“No,” my sister said, curling up next to me, a cup of coffee in her hands, “Ryder’sall over the internet. He’s a meme.” She scrolled through her phone to show me. “He’s everywhere. Him and that dog.”

“You’re a placeholder,” my brother Nico added, showing me his phone. “Everyone’s reposting it as a meme because they can get so many likes.”

“Dakota, you look constipated.” Aunt Lisa peered at the photo on the phone.

Ryder looked amazing—eyes a sharp blue, his expression a mix between exasperated and bemused as he carried me by the waist under one arm, Dasher in his other, the husky’s paws around Ryder’s neck, his tongue poking out below his black nose.

“Me taking my children home from the mall,” read one caption.

“It, like, basically virals itself,” my brother said, scrolling through all the memes.

“I’ve never gotten so many Twitch viewers,” my other brother crowed from the stairs, “as I did when I live streamed about Ryder and you.”

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