Page 14 of Flirting with the Scrooge

“Oh my God. Are you alright?” Her gaze roams my body as her hand brushes over my chest, searching for an injury.

I wince again. “Your knee is kinda pinching my testicles.”

“Oh!” She jumps off me as if she touched a hot stove.

I attempt to sit up but grimace and fall back to the snowbank. “I’m just going to lie here for a moment.” Partially because of the pain but I also need to collect my thoughts with how much I enjoyed her body on mine.

“What can I do? Ice? Do you need ice?” She frantically collects snow into the palms of her mittens.

“Well… There is something you can do.” The corner of my lips pull into a slight smile.

“Anything. What is it?” Her distraught gaze meets mine.

I sit halfway up so I can see her face. “You could always kiss it and make it better.”

Her face falls. “You’re such a dick.” She shoves at my chest.

My back hits the snowbank as a half laugh, half groan escapes me. “You asked.”

“I thought you were going to be serious.”

“And who says I wasn’t?”

She throws the snowball at me and it crashes into my shoulders, bursting into a plume of snow dust. With a hand on her hip, she rolls her eyes before looking both ways and crossing the street.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Away from you!” she yells over her shoulder.

“You’re just going to leave me here wounded in the snowbank?”

“Yep. And if I’m lucky, a snowplow will come by and bury you.”

“That hurts.” I laugh and, shit, it really does hurt.

She holds up her mitten covered hand like a stop sign. “If you can’t tell, I’m giving you the middle finger.”

NINE

FUCK XMAS FRANK

Tatum

Later that day, Olivia steps out of her SUV and onto my driveway, garment bag in hand. “I bring you dresses.”

Before she can close the car door, I’m greeting her with a hug. “You’re a lifesaver. I had no idea what I was going to wear to the gala and zero desire to go shopping.”

“Gasp.” She feigns shock with a hand to her chest. “You didn’t want to go shopping?”

“Not for a dress anyway. I’ve been… preoccupied.” Daydreaming about my neighbor, which should not be a thing, but it’s totally a thing. Ever since the snowbank incident he’s been on my mind. Did he get hurt? Besides his testicles? Then I’m thinking of his testicles, which leads to something else in the general vicinity, like the prominent bulge in his sweatpants. Maybe someone needs to smackmein the face with a snowball.

Olivia glances across the street into Connor’s yard, as if she knows who’s been occupying my most recent thoughts. “I see he kept the snowman. And added extra accessories.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure he found the ugliest tree at the tree farm to put in his yard.” A Charlie Brown looking tree is perched next to the snowman we built.

“Did he add a stick hand? Wait. Is it...”

A woman holding hands with a little boy stroll passed the house on the sidewalk. The boy yells out, “Look Mom, that snowman is waving!” The little boy enthusiastically waves at the snowman.

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