Page 58 of The Holiday Hate-Off
She gasps. “As if. No one needs to talk about you. Your ego is already the size of Maine.”
“Only Maine?” I say. “Surely you can do better than that.”
She’s inched closer to me, seemingly without realizing it. We’re so close only a foot separates us, maybe less, the air between us a billowy white from our warm breath.
She pokes my chest, and despite her reluctance to touch me earlier, I layer my hand over hers.
“You’re freezing,” she says softly.
“I’m fine. My blood runs hot too.”
Our gazes lock in an intense stare-off.
Distantly, I register people passing us. People watching. But at this particular moment it’s hard to care.
“I wasn’t gossiping about you,” she says quietly. “And I’ll take down the flyer. I told your grandmother I would.”
This is the moment where I can let it go. Ishouldlet it go. I don’t hate this woman. I don’t even dislike her anymore. Maybe I never did.
But Idolike this game we’ve been playing. It’s one of theonly things that’s made me feel alive since leaving New York a defeated man.
So I say, “Then you lied to her face. I want you to keep it up. And I’m going to put up one of my own.”
Gasping again, she wrenches her hand from my grip. “You wouldn’t.”
“You’ve had so much fun with your little marker.” I gesture to the marked-up flyer. “I feel left out.”
Her chin tips up. “Don’t you already have a little marker?”
I laugh. “Always building me up, Lucia. No, there’s nothing little about me. And although I’ve been told my dick can work miracles, I still haven’t figured out how to write with it unless I’m peeing on snow.”
She gapes at me. “You’re disgusting.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Please do.”
But we stand there for another long, loaded moment, our eyes locked, the air between us fraught. I’m tempted to close the distance between us, to lift her stubborn chin and kiss her.
Maybe she even wants me to.
But that would be as good as a declaration, and even though I’m desperate to touch Lucy, I don’t want to walk hand in hand with her through the streets of Hideaway Harbor, the way her friend and my sister’s ex-boyfriend do. And I definitely have no desire to see this moment recreated in the pages ofThe Almanac.
“My proposition stands,” I finally say.
She scowls. “So does my refusal.”
“Very well,” I say. “We can discuss it over dinner tomorrow night.”
“Like I said the other day, I don’t haveany ideawhat you’re talking about,” she says, her expression almost convincing. “But I’ve heard the only person who’ll give you a pity date inHideaway Harbor is a woman old enough to be your mother. That’s got to burn.”
I grin at her, because arguing with this woman is addictive. “For a moment, I was worried you’d gone soft on me.”
“No, from what I’ve heard,you’rethe one who goes soft.”
The look on her face says she’s hoping I’ll assume Rachelle told her something embarrassing. But there’s nothing embarrassing to tell. Not like that, anyway.
