Page 1 of Promise Yule Be Mine
1
KODY
Late September
It all started, as all good stories do, on a drunken night.
“Screw him and all men!” Jenna said, waving the glass of wine dangerously above her white couch.
“Hey!” I groaned.
She laughed and leaned closer. “Awww, babe. Except for you. You can unscrew yourself. You’re not like other men.”
I nodded but flinched as soon as her boozy breath blew in my face. Jenna and I were close, but not that close I’d have to put up with that. At least not in a long, long while.
“I’m sick of them. Sick. I’m never there for one, I’m too there for the other, I’m a mess for the next. Like, what the fuck do you want? As if they’re all perfect little angels. Pfft! Men. Pigs more like.”
I sighed and raised a toast to that.
Although in my case it was both men and women. I was just…very unlucky with both teams. So unlucky in fact I’d given up the game altogether. What was the point of trying to put yourself out there only to be knocked down again and again. At some point you had to cry foul and go back to the bench.
Which was exactly what I did, and instead had given my heart and soul to my work, my family and my friends instead.
“I mean…fuck you, Jared! Who do you think you are? You aren’t even that handsome or good in bed. You don’t get to tell me I’m a mess! You’re a mess times infinity.”
I chuckled but it came out more as a snort and I choked on my own wine.
“They’re all the same.” I raised my glass.
She clinked it with her own a little too harshly, but thankfully we avoided any mishap.
“Right? Jared who? Anya what the fuck? Josh what?” She practically swung from side to side with her eyes closed as if trying to remember and list all of our combined exes.
“Don’t even remind me of Josh. I still want to punch his perfect little teeth in.”
I wasn’t a violent guy. I truly wasn’t. But that douchebag had played with Jenna’s heart like it was a chew toy and then discarded it as if it was worth nothing. And he had the nerve to come crawling to me to ask me to talk her out of telling everyone how small his dick was.
Freaking pilots.
“And I’d be there to collect it and make a victorious necklace for my wedding day.”
I cringed. “God, you’re really unhinged when you’re drunk!”
She rolled her eyes. “And you didn’t know that already?”
I rocked my head from side to side admitting defeat only I wished I hadn’t because everything started spinning. Including my own guts.
“Agh. I’m never going to get married, am I? I’m going to be a bitter old spinster who shouts at kids and adopts, like, a hundred cats.”
“Hey! What’s wrong with cats? They’re better company than humans.”
Jenna sighed. “You know what I mean. I’m fucking thirty?—”
“We.We’re thirty.”
“We’re fucking thirty and are nowhere close to that white picket fence and all that shit.”
I sighed and refilled my glass. Jenna hovered her own in front of the bottle but she was a terrible drunk so I ignored her silent request.
