Page 48 of Jerk Neighbor

Chapter 11

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Paula

PAULA WOULD FOREVER AFTER THINKof the Spencer’s Christmas party as the Event of False Exits. They still hadn’t managed to get away. Even as they walked hand in hand, they were stopped by fellow guests to exchange farewells. Bastian allowed them to be stopped but kept his fingers around hers and kept guiding her toward the cloakroom.

As they waited for the attendant to fetch her coat, she turned to Bastian. “Home?” she said, and then replayed how that sounded—far too intimate. “Back to the Bast-cave, Bast-man?”

He chuckled, a delicious low rumble.

Then suddenly he stiffened.

“Sebastian, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Were you going to leave without saying good-bye to your mother?”

Right on time, Paula’s phone signaled. She reached into her clutch.Beautiful timing. Thank you, phone, for saving me from another encounter with Belinda Spencer, ice queen. It’s like you knew.

By the time Bastian’s mother had descended on her son, trapping him in the cloakroom, Paula had already stepped out with her phone.

“Dad?” she greeted, moving so she could keep one eye on Bastian and his mother.

“Baby,” her father’s bass voice rang out, “your mother’s in the kitchen making pineapple upside down cake. Do you know what she’s already fed me?”

Laughing, Paula relaxed against a post. “Drink extra coffee, then you won’t have any room left. Who else is over?”

“Cal’s gone out to shop for your mother. Elizabeth’s sleeping. Lucas and the girls should be in bed, but Tamara keeps finding excuses to peek at the Christmas tree.”

“Cassie let the kids stay? Mom’ll love that. Did Owen and Timmie get there in time?” Paula shifted aside as a line of guests drifted by toward the front doors. The party was rapidly dying down.

“They got here before aperitifs. She talks back and your brother backs down. It’s a sight to see. Here’s one of them together, I’m sending it now…I sent it. You see it?”

“Yeah. I wish I were there.” Paula stared at the image on the phone. Her conservatively dressed brother was looking the happiest she’d ever seen him beside his quirky looking new girlfriend.

But the moment the words were out, she knew she wasn’t being quite honest. She wanted to be with her family, but she had no complaints about being where she was at the moment. Soon she and Bastian would be alone in his car.

Suddenly talking to her dad felt like a reprieve.

“That’s the way it is, baby. Maybe one of these days your mother can handle the trip and we’ll fly up where you are. Are you done with that fancy shindig? Was it any good?”

“Almost. We’re just about to leave.” She looked up and saw Bastian and his mother had moved outside the cloakroom. She found herself wishing he weren’t facing that witch alone. “It wasn’t bad at all. Listen—”

“How about that man? He treating you right?”

“You mean the one I just met today?” Paula said, even as she stared at Bastian’s stoic face and thought,why does it feel like longer somehow?

“That’s not the way your friend tells it. You engaged to him yet?”

“Funny, Dad, real funny,” she said.

“Who’s making jokes? You get plenty of proposals. One day you’ll say yes.”

“Met himtoday.”

“So? I took one look at your mother and I knew she’d be having my babies.“

“And look at what happened to you!”

“What happened?” he scoffed. “We bicker a little, that’s how you know it’s the real thing.”

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