Page 38 of Blame It On The Carols

Twenty-Four

Makayla

Between the beer andall of the food everyone had contributed to the party, I was beyond full. Sugar Faced Bar filled up faster than expected, so Aiden made sure to have Tony inside with a few other guys from my security detail while Patrick watched the outside with his team. There were also complete teams monitoring Aiden and my mom’s house. It felt like the population in Sugarplum Falls had doubled in the past few days, and that was just from the added security that had been sent in to protect me.

I hadn’t heard from Kevin since his call the other day. Curtis tried tracking his phone, but Tony ended up finding it in a trashcan inside the mall, which meant we had no way of knowing where he was anymore. Not only that, it had been registered to a bogus name, which made them doubt it was even his phone, to begin with. The Sugarplum Falls sheriff’s department had joined forces with my security team to try to find him, but everyone was coming up empty. I wasn’t going to let any of that bother me tonight because I was still riding the high of helping the Sugarplum Sweethearts win the caroling competition.

“Do you want another beer?” Sam asked, nodding to the empty mug in my hand.

“No, thank you. I’ve had enough for tonight.”

He nodded and made his way up to the bar where Aiden was currently talking to Jackie. They scanned the room, and she nodded before I felt his eyes land on me. I gave a nervous smile and finger wave, already knowing they were talking about me.

Aiden had set up karaoke again, so I grabbed one of the papers that were sitting out by the basket and wrote down a song before tossing it in with the others. So far, it had been a fun night of laughing and dancing with people who had quickly gone from acquaintances I barely remembered to friends I couldn’t get enough of.

I sat on one of the barstools off in the corner of the room, swinging my feet and dancing as my mom and Brock did a duet ofYou’re The One That I Wantfrom Grease. I had met him a few times since I’d been in town and could see why my mom loved him so much. He was one of the nicest guys I had ever met, and it warmed my heart to see how happy he made her.

“Are you having a good time?” Aiden asked, startling me as he snuck up beside me.

I turned and grinned at him, the beer making me a little more buzzed than I thought.

“The best.”

The DJ waited for my mom to hand over her microphone before reaching into the basket and tossing the papers around before pulling one out.

“Alright folks, up next, we have Makayla and Aiden singing Hakuna Matata.”

I looked up in time to see his eyebrows shoot up to his forehead as he shook his head no.

“Makayla,” he warned as I hopped off my barstool and grabbed his hand to drag him with me.

The only problem was that he didn’t budge.

Damn, he’s really strong. Strong enough to do some man-handling with me later tonight if I was lucky.

“No way, Mak.”

“Come on,” I whined, still pulling with all of my might.

“That song?”

“What?” I shrugged, playing innocent. “It means no worries.”

“You know I don’t sing.”

“But you used to.”

“That was a long time ago,” he countered, finally showing me some mercy as his feet moved.

“Yeah, and it was fun. You know how much we loved doing this song.”

“When we were like ten.” His eyebrow continued to arch at me, sending shivers across my skin.

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