Page 10 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

I pull my phone out of my back pocket. “Just need to call my aunt and let her know I’m spending the night with a man I just met.”

“That a call you make often?” He pulls two white plastic floppy things from his bag and heads past me toward the open-plan kitchen without looking at me again.

“Oh yeah, totally,” I say as he walks away. God, those shoulders are broad and square. “Forever spending the night with men who threw me to the ground and sprained my ankle.”

“Got a boyfriend?” Gabe slides open the drawer in thebottom half of the fridge-freezer and tosses the white things inside.

A rush of something between nerves, excitement, and nosy-fucker floods my chest. “And what business might that be of yours?”

He pulls open one kitchen drawer after another. “Just wondering if I’m going to be awakened at two in the morning by an angry, jealous man banging on the door.”

“Well, if he did, if there was one I mean, you’d obviously just fling him to the floor and sit on him.”

He pulls a dish towel from the sixth drawer he looks in and holds it under the fridge’s ice dispenser.

“I did not sit on you,” he says, throwing me a quick glance over his shoulder as ice rattles into the cloth.

“Felt like it.” I point at my cell and exaggeratedly mouthmy aunt. “Oh, Aunt Lou. Hi.”

“Hi, sweetie. You still at the Sullivans’?”

“Yes. Well, except it isn’t the Sullivans’ anymore.” I look up and meet Gabe’s eyes as he walks toward me, his shovel-sized hands twisting the cloth into an ice ball.

“What do you mean?” Aunt Lou asks.

“Turns out they sold it last week.”

“Oh. So how come you’re still there?”

“Well, in summary?—”

Gabe sits two cushions away from me on the sofa and taps the empty one between us.

I gingerly lift my foot onto it.

“I decorated the house, changed into the bunny costume, and when a car pulled in, I jumped on the guy who got out, and he threw me to the ground, sat on me?—”

“Did not sit on you,” Gabe mumbles.

“What?”Aunt Lou says. “Should I be callingthe police?”

“God, no. It’s fine. I’ll explain…ah-ah-ah-ah…” The makeshift icepack Gabe’s taking care to slowly rest against my ankle is freezing. Even through my sock.

He tilts his head and rolls his eyes as if to sayStop being such a baby.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Aunt Lou sounds genuinely concerned, and I can’t have her up all night worrying when she’s so busy with all the Christmas stuff at Senior Central.

“Totally,” I say. “Well, not totally because he twisted my ankle. Anyway, he was driving me home?—”

“Driving you? What about your bike?”

“It’s in the trunk of his swanky SUV, with the bunny suit. But, anyway, a tree had fallen down across the road down the hill, so…” I’m sure it’s complete coincidence that I lose the power to form words right at the moment Gabe eases down my sock to make sure the ice is in full contact with my skin.

A tingle runs up the inside of my leg. And doesn’t exactly stop when it gets to the top.

“Now you’re stuck there?” Aunt Lou fills the void.

“Yup. And I’m about to spend the night at the home of a man I met about an hour ago.” For some reason, it feels a whole lot less dangerous and absurd than it sounds. But it’s likely that’s also been the final thought of a whole bunch of people in those true crime shows.

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