Page 28 of The Holiday Hate-Off
He gives me the finger again as he walks away.
Ignoring him, because he did grant me the last spoken word, I strap on the beard, putting the loops over my ears. It smells like stale smoke and Cheetos, but I’ve been standing out here for at least fifteen minutes by now, freezing my ass off, and for all I know Lucy is already…
Yeah, I don’t want my mind to go there.
I step inside, and thankfully the smoke and Cheetos smell is mostly overpowered by the sweet scents of hot chocolate and baked goods. I glance around the room and find a roomful of Santas and women in red and green staring at me.
“You’re not Curtis,” says one of the guys sitting at a two-top near the door. The name rings a bell, and I realize he’s talking about handbag guy.
The card table next to Curtis’s bud has a single empty seat opposite a nervous-looking woman in red.
“Thank God, I’m not,” I murmur, lowering into the empty chair across from her.
Plenty of eyes are still glued to me as the song shifts to “Silver Bells.” And that’s when I see her, a few tables down.
Lucy Taylor, with her long, curly hair down around her shoulders, wearing a white sweater and a red miniskirt trimmed with white fake fur paired with black stockings. She’s staring daggers at me.
My first thought is:Good God.This woman’s so new to Maine she’s going to give herself hypothermia.
Okay, fuck, I’ll be honest. That definitely wasn’t my first thought…
She looks fantastic. If she was an angel last night at the bridge, tonight she’s a Christmas gift, all ready to be unwrapped. I let myself acknowledge what should have been obvious: I might not like this woman, but I am attracted to her.Veryattracted to her.
She’s still giving me the death glare, so I smirk back at her and lift two fingers to my forehead in a salute. Her eyes narrow, and I can’t help but be amused. For half a second.
Because Brandon Wright is absolutely going to make a play for her. He’d be the biggest idiot on the planet not to, and even though he’s a douchebag, he’s not stupid.
Damn it.
I need to have a talk with her, preferably before she gets to him, and he’s a few tables down from her.
I survey all of the tables, getting a feel for the seating, which is in a circular formation.
“Is this moving clockwise? Counterclockwise?” I ask the woman sitting across from me, who is staring at me in disbelief, probably waiting for some kind of explanation.
She signals to the left, which suggests Lucy’s going to be on her date with the douchebag in another three rounds.
“You’redefinitelynot Curtis,” the woman says, echoing Curtis’s slack-faced friend next to me.
I recognize her, I realize. Mabel, I think her name is. Or maybe Maple. She went to school with my little sister, which makes her much too young for me, not that I’m here to pick anyone up.
No, I’m here to stop a pickup from happening.
“What’d you do to him?” Curtis’s buddy asks me.
I clear my throat. “Nothing. Curtis had a minor medical mishap. Too much hot chocolate.” I give the guy a knowing look that suggests Curtis blew chunks in the street or shit hispants. “So I offered to sit in for him.” I smile at Mabel/Maple. “He knew it wouldn’t be right to leave these lovely ladies alone.”
“That sure doesn’t sound like something Curtis would say,” the guy continues, completely ignoring the woman across from him, a pretty blonde who’s scrolling on her phone while she picks at a whoopie pie decorated to look like an elf. (So far the elf has lost an eye and half a nose.) She’s one of Mayor Locke’s daughters, but I can’t tell if she’s Harper or Piper.
“Maybe it’s a Christmas miracle,” I say with a grin. “They say this time of year brings out the best in people, don’t they?”
CHAPTER 7
LUCY
“Is something wrong?” asks the man across from me. “You seem…distracted.” He’s perfectly pleasant—perfectly okay—and if Enzo Cafiero hadn’t interrupted the rhythm of our conversation, maybe he could have been the answer to the silent wish I made on the bridge last night.
I grit my teeth, feeling my heart thumping double time in my chest. “Nothing’s wrong,” I say, sounding very much like something is wrong.
