Page 31 of Bossing My Holiday
Brax barks out a laugh but otherwise leaves the two of us to this.
She gasps. Loud. Affronted. But there is also no hiding that blush of hers or the way she skirts my eyes. “You can’t say that to me.”
“Then don’t get presumptuous unless you want me to prove you wrong.”
“Oh my god! Shut up!” She covers her face with her hands, but she’s laughing too. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I am. I just wanted to get a rise out of you. But we still haven’t figured out a nickname for you.”
Her hand comes up between us, palm out toward me. “Idon’t need you calling me something cute and icky. I’m not really a pet name girl.”
“Sure. I believe you. That’s why you smile every time Brax calls you Sunshine.”
She makes a harsh noise in the back of her throat. “Fine. Give me something better than babe or honey.”
“What about… sweetie?”
She shakes her head. “That’s what you’d call a child.”
“Help me out then.” I throw her a pleading glance as the back door is opened by the valet and we step out.
“I don’t know. What did you call your ex-wife?”
“By her name.”
Her hands fly about. “Exactly!”
“I didn’t love her enough to care about what I called her,” I state bluntly, and Waverly trips into the back of Braxton.
She flips on me. “You can’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. She was the same as the women they wanted to set me up with. She pretended to love me, and with that, I tried to talk myself into loving her, but I never did.”
She stares at me and stares at me, not even blinking. Then she turns to Braxton, who nods in confirmation.
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I step forward and wrap my arm around her waist and kiss the corner of her lips. “Don’t be sad, sweetheart. This is where you come in, Pookie.”
“I will leave if you call me Pookie,” she threatens, and I’m dying at her reactions to this.
“Fine. You’re his sunshine and my sweetheart because both fit you.” I think I called her that earlier. It had just slipped out, but they do both suit her so perfectly. She’s a ball of fucking sunshine and sweet as sugar at all times. Even when she’s busting my balls.
She huffs and turns away, but it’s fake. I know when Waverly is actually upset about something, and this isn’t one ofthose times. She likes sunshine and she likes sweetheart and Braxton is on cloud fucking nine. He thinks we’re going to have dirty hot sex for the next two weeks, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen.
Maybe with the two of them, but Waverly doesn’t want me that way.
She still doesn’t even like me.
Plus, Brax can get away with things I can’t. He can fuck around and move on, and no one gets upset or expects more because of hishappy go with the flowattitude. For me it’s different. It always is.
Waverly cranes her head back as she stares up at the building, but I walk us inside, being greeted by everyone we pass.
“You lived in a hotel. That’s just so wild. You’re like a character in Monopoly.”
“Lots of people live in residences in hotels. Trust me, we have them all over the world.”
The lobby is decked out in its usual holiday fashion. There are two tall, tastefully decorated trees on either side of a long table that has a snowy gingerbread village, including the Ouest Hotel, and we have a tall Menorah glowing for the first night of Hanukkah. It smells like pine and cinnamon and orange, and light holiday music is playing through the speakers. In the parlor off the main lobby that serves afternoon tea and cocktails in the evening, a fire is roaring in the gas hearth.
