Page 73 of Knot what I want for Christmas
“Regrets?” Tucker asks.
“No.”
“Remorse?” Nash asks.
“No. I will tell her. Just not right away. I need time to think about how I’m going to break this news to her. It’s Christmas Day and…”
They’re all looking at me.
“Don’t stand around, staring at me like that,” I say. “She’s going to be home in five minutes. We need to look natural.”
“You’re the one curled up in a ball, rocking side to side, sweetheart,” Tucker points out unhelpfully.
“You’re right,” I say. I snap down my legs and lean back in the chair, trying to look natural and relaxed – not like a girl who spent all of her afternoon, evening and night messing around with her best friend’s brother and his packmates.
Tucker laughs. “It looks like someone shoved a stick up your backside.”
I raise an eyebrow at him because there were no sticks involved last night, but Tucker Parker certainly pressed his finger inside my ass just as I was coming.
“Oh my God, she’s going to know, isn’t she?” I press my hands to my cheeks; they’re probably still glowing manically. And my hair – it probably looks like bed hair. “Son of a nutcracker! Your parents, they’re gonna know too, aren’t they?”
“Hollie,” Clay tells me, “breathe. It’s going to be okay.”
“No one’s a mind reader,” Nash adds. “They’re not going to know unless we tell them.”
But Nash seriously underestimates the powers of best friends and women in general. Because, as my best friend Annie comes bursting through the door, trailing snowy wet footsteps behind her, she takes one look at me waiting for her in the hallway – trying my best to look casual, relaxed, and not like I’ve spent the evening behaving like some sex goddess – and comes to a skidding halt.
“Something’s happened,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me.
I gulp. She pulls off her boots, grabs my hand, and yanks me up the steps. Behind us, Mr. J calls out, “Happy Christmas, Hollie!”
“Happy Christmas!” I murmur back.
“Gonna start on that Christmas breakfast.”
“We’ll be right back,” Annie says. “Me and Hollie need to talk first.”
She narrows her eyes even more aggressively at me, and I swear my heart’s beating so loudly Annie must be able to hear it.
Once we’re in the safety of her room with the door securely shut, she rounds on me.
“Out with it,” she demands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say as nonchalantly as I can muster.
“I know your guilty face, Hollie Bright,” she tells me. “In fact, you may as well have ‘guilt’ written right across your forehead.”
I stare right back.
She narrows her eyes even further.
I keep staring. She stares some more.
I stare. She stares.
And I’m the first to blink.
“Okay. Okay,” I admit. “Something happened.”
