Page 60 of A Very Bossy Christmas
“Shhh! Thank you.” We both lean against the counter and start shoveling pie into our mouths. “What am I gonna do—have sex with him in the garage while Mom and Dad are watchingIt’s a Wonderful Lifeup here?”
“Hey, you know what they say—YONO!” She waves her fork around in the air.
I laugh so hard I almost spew fake whipped cream everywhere. “It’s not YONO. It’s YOLO.”
“What? I thought it said YONO.”
“Where—in Piper’s journal?”
“Shhhh!!! What journal—I had no idea my daughter had a journal. I thought it was short foryou never know. Like you never know what might happen.”
“That would be YNK.”
“Oh yeah. I just had a baby. Shut up.”
“YOLO stands for You Only Live Once.”
“Yeah. That too. You only live once.” She checks the door to make sure no one’s around and whispers, “You don’t have to do it in the garage. You can do it on the ferry on the way back.” She winks at me and then shoves more pie into her mouth.
“Hah! Right.”
Bex waggles her eyebrows. “You wouldn’t be the first—all I’m saying.”
“Wait—have you done that?”
“My lips are sealed,” she says, grinning and nodding. “I promised Josh I wouldn’t tell anyone. Which is why I never told you. And I’m not telling you now.”
“Nuh-uh! Shut up. You did not!”
Her eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets as she nods vehemently. “No, we would never do that. Especially not last year when we were coming home from Christmas dinner, and you were inside the boat with Piper and Mom and Dad.”
“Whaaaaaat? You and Josh did it out on the deck? Come on.”
“No, we definitely didn’t, because Josh would never do such a thing—and I also didn’t give birth to an infant nine months later. I’m just saying—baby it’s cold outside, so no one else is around and YOLO. But wear a coat because it really is cold.”
I shovel the rest of the pie into my mouth while contemplating this. “I can’t bone my boss on the Staten Island Ferry. I mean, he wouldn’t even set foot on the Staten Island Ferry.”
“What is he—a Kardashian?” she says, imitating my aunt. “Everyone rides the ferry. You already rode your boss in Ohio, so why not give him what every man really wants for Christmas?”
“Public sex while he’s freezing his nuts off?”
“Fine then. Don’t have sex with him, but invite him over.”
“I can’t. We can’t have dinner with both our families two nights in a row—we aren’t actually dating.”
“Why are you so afraid of this?”
“Of what? Of ruining this perfectly good temporary fake dating arrangement with my moody boss?”
“Everything’s temporary until it isn’t. Nothing’s real until it is. Every guy you’ve ever been with ‘for real’ has been unworthy of you, and you finally have this guy who—”
“I don’t have him.”
“Please—every relationship you’ve ever had has ended either because you finally realized the guy was unworthy or because he told you that you deserved better than him, but that always meant he wanted to start seeing someone else. And you do deserve better. You’re finally with a guy who’s on your level, and you don’t even want to admit that it’s a thing. I’veseenthe picture. They don’t make ’em any better than that. Look at that picture of the two of you on your phone, Maddie. You’re a couple.”
“Yeah. For six, maybe seven more days. Wait. Where is my phone?” I feel around for my phone, but I don’t have any pockets on me right now. “I should probably check in on him. Make sure he ate dinner.” I find my phone in my coat pocket, on the bed in my aunt’s guest room. I see that there’s a missed call from Declan and call him back.
He answers immediately and hesitantly. “Piper?”
