Page 15 of Christmas with Saint

“What was Ivy doing? How is she? I feel like I haven’t seen her in months.”

Your sister is a fucking angel who tastes like sin, and I’ll never get enough of her pussy in my mouth.

“She was an elf,” I said.

The hottest elf I’ve ever laid eyes on. You should have seen her ass in that skirt. Hell, you should have seen her ass out of that skirt.

“What?” Davey’s voice broke through my thoughts, and for a second, I thought I might have said all of that out loud. Pretty sure I wouldn’t be standing upright if I had though. “She was an elf? HA! Please tell me you at least have a picture of that.”

“Nah. Cori might,” I suggested like I couldn’t be less interested, and he looked momentarily satisfied.

“I knew I should have swung by to see that shit in person.” He slapped a palm on my shoulder before letting me know that we had a call with our lawyer, Larry.

We were trying to wrap up this lawsuit before the end of the year. A guy out in California was trying to claim that we’d stolen his app idea, but there was nothing original about creating a dating app for successful individuals. Not to mention the fact that ours was locally based.

Unlike other apps, you couldn’t update your location and try to meet someone while you were traveling. Basically, if you left the state, the app didn’t work. That was the whole point though—to meet someone where you were based, where you wanted to live, or where you planned on settling down.

There had been a handful of naysayers at first, claiming that no one would want something so “small-minded,” they called it. But fortunately for me and Davey, they had been wrong, and our instincts had been right. We had one of the most successful online businesses in the state.

“Larry says this dude doesn’t stand a shot. He’s just trying to flex his muscles, so to speak,” Davey said as he made a face.

“He has no case,” I said, hoping my tone reflected my irritation.

This entire thing was a waste of time, resources, and money. There was zero chance this arrogant douchebag from California was going to win, but in order for us to not lose, we had to provide documentation of origination, app filings, and all sorts of other things. It was a colossal pain in the ass.

“I know. I wonder all the time what his angle even is,” Davey said as we walked toward our offices. They were across the hall from each other, so we stopped in the middle and continued our conversation. “Like, what’s the point of doing this to us? We’re not his competition. He’s in Los Angeles, for fuck’s sake. There’re a million rich people there.”

I had wondered about this guy so often that it kept me up at night. Had we wronged this dude at some point in our life? After researching him and his company for hours on end, I’d realized that we’d never met him and had zero mutual friends. This wasn’t some kind of personal vendetta against us; the guy just had too much time on his hands.

“From what I’ve gathered, he’s bored. And he’s the kind of guy who thinks everyone is out to steal from him. His parents are loaded. He’s never had to work a day in his life. He has an entire staff that searches the Apple and Android stores for anything even remotely similar to any of his creations, and then he does this.”

“He sues them?”

“Yeah.” I nodded my head. I’d only just found that part out yesterday morning, so I hadn’t told him yet. “The worst part is, he stops most people before they even get off the ground.”

“That’s horrible.” Davey grimaced.

“It’s definitely not good.”

Our core belief was to support our fellow content creators. We often spoke at conferences about how to start your own businesses and create your own sellable app. Davey and I believed that one way we could give back to others was through sharing information. Not proprietary information, mind you, just knowledge. Between the two of us, we had a wealth of it with nowhere for it to go.

“Guys like that deserve to get their asses kicked.”

I gave him a nod, letting him know that I basically agreed, while I silently prepared for the fact that once I told him about me and Ivy, it would be my ass he was attempting to kick. “Let me grab a file from my office, and we’ll take the call in yours.”

“Sounds good,” he said before walking away while I tried to work up the damn nerve to let him know that I liked his sister as more than a friend.

The call with Larry took less than twenty minutes. He’d said the claim should be wrapped up before Christmas, but we’d been dealing with this on and off for months already, so Davey and I weren’t convinced. I wanted to be hopeful that the suit would be dropped once and for all, but I wasn’t.

“All right, well, now, what do we do?” Davey asked after ending the call, and I shrugged.

“We wait.”

“I didn’t mean with the lawsuit, bro. I meant with our day.” He sounded so excited, and I hated how fucking conflicted I felt inside.

I needed to get it all out in the open once and for all. It wasn’t like Ivy and I’d been hiding a relationship from him for months or anything.

Being with Ivy was a no-brainer, especially after last night. There was zero chance I’d be walking away from her without a fight, so why was telling her brother so damn difficult? I was a grown-ass man, but whenever I thought about coming clean, I reverted into that seventeen-year-old kid who had tried like hell to stand by his word—even if his fingers were crossed behind his back.

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