Page 42 of Just Enough

I looked down and saw that I somehow managed to wrap myself in Christmas lights. I dropped my hands in surrender. “Help.”

With a smile, he stepped forward and took the lights from my hands. He was bent over me, so it put him closer to my face. He always smelled good. He had perfect skin too. “Where’s Roger?”

“Hmm?”

He met my eyes and skimmed over my face with a smirk. “Roger?”

“Oh, he’s working.”

He dropped his eyes to my stomach and started working with the lights. “How the hell did you do this?” he muttered as his eyebrows bunched together in concentration. “Did you guys have a good Christmas?”

“Yeah, it was nice.”

He lifted his eyes to my face. “Nice?” I nodded. “That sounds boring.”

“My daughter is boring,” Dad observed us from the couch.

“We sat and opened presents. The same as everyone else on Christmas.” His smirk both irritated and entertained me. “Why? What did you and Tammy used to do on Christmas?”

“The same.”

I didn’t even understand why I was disappointed with his answer. “Then why are you calling me boring?”

There was a flash of something I’d never seen before fall over his features. “Imagine how much better it would have been if we had spent the last couple of Christmas’s together?” I rolled my lips in my mouth and said nothing, but my face was strangely heated in a way it hadn’t been before. “Relationships are overrated.”

His words brought me out of my weird state. I shook my head. “Say that to me when you find yourself a new girlfriend.”

Only I wouldn’t admit that I agreed. He and I would have had a better time if we had been together. He was still my most favorite person after all.

“Here, you sit down and put the stuff away while I take everything off the tree.”

I plopped down on the floor and looked up at him. He simply grinned down at me. I liked when he smiled at me. When Benjamin looked at me, I felt like I was something special. He was overprotective and overbearing with me, I always loved that too.

We spent the next thirty minutes taking down the tree while Dad sat back and criticized everything we did or talked about, making sure he added his two cents. After eating another plate of food with Dad, Benjamin offered to take us out somewhere, and I agreed to get some time alone with him.

We found ourselves skimming through games at Game Stop. It was rather busy the day after Christmas, all these kids wanted to spend the money they received.

“Don’t you start sending out some ARCs to the bloggers soon?” Benjamin murmured, picking up a game and flipping it over to look at the back.

“Please don’t bring that up.” My stomach swam with uneasiness. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

He smirked. “Too late now. Tiffany should be done with the cover in no time. She was very passionate about doing it—the idea of a gorilla man and human girl.” I nodded. “You worry too much about what people think, some are gonna like it, some are gonna hate it, while others might even love it.”

“It’s just…so goofy.”

“That’s what makes it so good. Anyone that one-clicks it with a title and description like that thinking it’s gonna be anything other than outrageous comedy, should have their head checked.” That made me smile. “Are you gonna let me read volume two yet?”

I lifted my brow. “How did you know I was finished with it?”

“I had a feeling you might have started working on the next one as soon as I convinced you to self-publish.”

I grinned. “I’m already finished with the third volume, actually.”

His eyes widened. “What the hell, Emily? You’ve been holding out on me. Send them to me tonight.”

Feeling pleased, I nodded with a smile I planned on keeping for the rest of the day.

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