Page 44 of Mistletoe, Mayhem & Mr. Grump
"Worth it," she decides, running her fingers through my hair.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the world's worst couch, covered by a blanket she found that has Santa's face on it.
"Santa's judging us," I observe, pointing at his knowing expression.
"Santa's seen worse. I remember the year Mrs. Patterson spiked the eggnog." She says, tracing patterns on my chest.
"What happened?" I ask, playing with her hair.
"We don't talk about Christmas 2019," she says seriously.
"That bad?"
“The reindeer display gained sentience. Or seemed to. Turns out Teddy was stuck in the Rudolph costume," she explains.
"How do you get stuck in a Rudolph costume?" I wonder aloud.
"Enthusiastically," she says, and we both dissolve into laughter.
We watch the fire die down to embers, neither of us acknowledging that this changed everything. That practice became real somewhere between the third sweater and the Santa blanket.
"The power will come back on," she says eventually, her voice small.
"Probably," I agree, tightening my arms around her.
"The heat will work again," she adds.
"Eventually," I confirm.
"We'll have to go back to pretending," she whispers into my chest.
"Will we?" I ask, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She turns to look up at me. "Won't we?"
I should say yes. Should remind her of the contract, the committee, the plan. Instead, I trace her face with my fingertips, memorizing every detail.
"The storm's not over," I say, which isn't really an answer.
"No," she agrees softly. "It's not."
We lay tangled together until she falls asleep. She shifts, burrowing closer, and my arm tightens around her automatically. The contract is somewhere in her kitchen, laminated and official and completely irrelevant now. Section 3, subsection 2a might as well be written in disappearing ink.
My phone buzzes again—Sterling, always Sterling—but I don't even look. Outside, the blizzard keeps raging, but in here, wrapped in Santa's questionable judgment and her warmth, I finally understand what I've been running from all these years.Not my father's legacy or corporate spreadsheets or Sterling's endless calls.
I've been running from this—this terrifying feeling of wanting to stay.
Wren mumbles something in her sleep, her hand clutching my chest like she's afraid I'll disappear. And maybe I should. Maybe I should leave before she discovers who I really am, before I destroy everything she loves.
But I don't move. I can't move. Because somewhere between the terrible rug and the googly-eyed reindeer sweater, I stopped pretending.
And that's the most dangerous truth of all.
Chapter 9
Wren
Iwake up to the sound of hard knocking and the realization that I'm using a half-naked man as a pillow. A grumpy, warm, surprisingly comfortable man who's currently making disgruntled noises at whoever's trying to break down my front door.
