Page 10 of Mr. Mistletoe
My phone buzzes from across the worktable, my brother’s name flashing on the screen.
“Here we go,” I mumble, reaching for my phone. “Hey—”
“What the hell, Jess?” His voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “What were you thinking?”
My stomach dips. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Don’t play cute. Kyle is pissed. You embarrassed him in front of the entire Stingers arena. I should have never set you up with him.”
Anger boils in my chest. “No, you shouldn’t have. He was a complete jerk. He stared at his phone the whole time. He didn’t even pay attention to me.”
“So you kissed the guy next to you to get back at him?” Matt huffs. “That’s really mature.”
“It wasn’t like that!” A shiver runs through me at the reminder of Mr. Mistletoe’s lips on mine.
I sit back, the pencil rolling from my fingers. The first kiss had been spontaneous, a blur of adrenaline, but the second had been all heat. All us.
“I didn’t plan it,” I say. “It just…happened.”
“Yeah, well, things like that don’t just happen to most adults. You’ve got to grow up, Jess.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re gonna be thirty.”
“Not for six years.”
“It’s time you stopped acting like a teenager.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I stick my tongue out at the phone and swipe to end the call. There, take that. Conversation over.
Gran takes one glance at my storm-cloud expression and lowers her oversized, noise-cancelling headphones. “What’s up, Buttercup?”
I ball my fists and make a growling sound in my throat. “Matt.”
Gran rises and bends to touch her toes in a fluid motion that most octogenarians could only dream of. “Your brother has always known how to push your buttons.”
“He’s so annoying.”
“What’s he done this time?” she asks from her rag doll position, peeking out from under the curtain of her silver hair.
I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood. “It wasmethat did something.”
“What did you do?”
“I kissed…” My throat closes up, and my words trail off in a whisper.
“You kissed somebody?” She chuckles and continues her stretches. “Even in my day, that wouldn’t make you a hussy.”
Heat rises on the back of my neck. “The man I kissed wasn’t exactly my date.”
A gleam of curiosity twinkles in her eyes, silver brows shooting up on her forehead. She sits down at the small table where we often break for snacks and points to the chair next to hers.
“What do the young people call it these days?” She purses her lips in thought. “Drinking the tea?”
