Page 62 of Merry Me
The sound of the door shutting behind me was too loud, too final, and it echoed down the hallway like a countdown clock.
Because I wasn’t ready.
And deep down, I wasn’t sure Ieverwould be.
EASTON
She ran.
I just stood there, dumbfounded in the glowing aftermath, the echo of the door slamming reverberating like a gunshot in the silent office. The only thing louder than that echo was the sound of my own heartbeat—too fast, too loud, still thudding like it was trying to catch up to hers.
Everything was still warm. The desk. My hands. My skin.
The air was thick with her. Her perfume, hermoans, the ghost of her fingers clawing at the wood for leverage while I held her hips like a man possessed.
I could still feel the imprint of her body against mine, the way she trembled, breathless, as I buried myself inside her.
And she’d run.
I stared at the closed door like it had betrayed me. Like it should’ve locked itself before she could escape.
What the hell had I been thinking?
I wasn’t supposed tosayit. Not like that. Not now. I had a plan. A whole careful, stupid, slow-burn plan. Win her back one small, gentle step at a time. Feed her breakfast. Make her laugh. Be the guy she remembered, the one she once loved, before I let the distance and the months and the career take all that away.
I wasn’t supposed to just lay my heart out, raw and bloodied, and ask her to step over it.
But she looked at me like she wanted to believe it. Just for a second. And that second? It broke me. Because I remembered what it was like to have her believe in me.
I tugged my hat back on, letting the red velvet slouch over my brow, the stupid white puff bouncing like it didn’t realize it was now sitting on the head of a man who’d just emotionally detonated all over his ex-girlfriend in a random office.
And yeah. I didn’t bother cleaning myself up.
Iwantedto smell like her.
That lotion she always wore—something with vanilla and citrus and sin. The perfume that clung to my jacket like a ghost whenever we used to say goodbye. I wanted all of it soaked into me, branded on me, because maybe if I held on to it long enough, I could pretend she hadn’t looked at me like I was the biggest mistake she almost made twice.
I walked back into the hallway with all the grim enthusiasm of someone heading to their own execution—or worse, having to play a jolly Santa when I was feeling the opposite of jolly at the moment.
“‘Bout damn time.”
I nearly jumped out of my velvet pants. Her grandmother,MeMaw, popped out from behind a fake snow-dusted wreath like some sort of yuletide goblin. A terrifying one. Wearing orthopedic shoes and a necklace made of glowing Christmas bulbs that blinked in time with her judgment.
“For fu—fudge sake, MeMaw,” I wheezed. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“You should be so lucky,” she said dryly, squinting at me like she was trying to set my eyebrows on fire through sheer force of will.
I tried not to fidget. She had the kind of stare that could curdle milk.
“You gonna mope all the way through Advent, or are you planning to fix what you just broke with my granddaughter?”
“I didn’t break anything,” I muttered, not at all sounding convincing at all. “I told her the truth. That should count for something, right?”
MeMaw kept giving me that long, squinty-eyed look. Then, without a word, she reached for the oversized plastic candy cane leaning against a nearby entry table and whacked me across the head with it.
“Ow!”
“You deserved that.”
