Page 22 of Christmas with Saint

“You work tomorrow?” I wasn’t sure of her schedule since we all kept different hours and handled our calendar on our own.

“Nine until four. Do you want to grab a drink or anything?” Even though she knew I wasn’t in the mood, she still gave me the option to avoid going home, if that was what I needed.

“I’d be shit company.”

“You’re always shit company,” she teased, and it made me laugh. It felt like the first time I’d done that all day.

“No. I’m pretty tired.”

“Especially after all your extracurriculars with Monster Cock last night.”

She wasn’t wrong. Saint had kept me up way past my bedtime. And even though my heart was hurting for it today, I’d still never take last night back.

“Please don’t call him that.” I winced and grabbed between my thighs. I was still sore, and each time I went to the bathroom, I was reminded of that fact.

“I won’t. At least, not to his face.”

The two of us walked out of the salon and into the frigid night air. I locked the door behind us, and we made sure we each got into our cars safely before pulling onto the main road together. It was something we did so that neither of us was ever alone when we left. We also checked the backseats for murderers before we drove off. If you weren’t a female, you probably wouldn’t understand.

Once I was back in my apartment, the memories hit me with the force of a flash flood. Saint’s mouth on mine. His tongue inside me. His hands squeezing, grasping, and tugging at me. Shaking my head to make them go away, I walked into my bedroom, opened the nightstand drawer, and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Every year since I had been eight years old, I’d made a separate, private Christmas list for Santa. It wasn’t like the one I had given to my parents, asking for a horse and Hot Wheels or gift cards. That list had hung on the fridge next to Davey’s and eventually Saint’s until Christmas morning.

This other list only had one thing on it. And each year, it was exactly the same.

1.)Please let Saint LaCroix love me back.

That was it.

I still had the one I had written in tenth grade. Kept it under my pillow each night during the month of December. It had become a personal tradition of sorts. I’d read somewhere that putting wishes under your head at night while you slept helped them come true. I figured that I’d take all the help I could get when it came to Saint, so I did it. For twenty-five nights, every December, for years.

Last night, when Saint had been here, I’d grabbed the old note before he could find it and stuffed it into my nightstand drawer. I would have been mortified if he had seen it. It was one thing for him to know that I had a crush on him, but for him to see it written down on a note that I slept with at night? That seemed a little more than just embarrassing.

I thought about sending Saint another text, but one ignored message had proven to be more than enough for me to handle. I was currently sitting on my bed, holding the note in my hand, half-tempted to tear it in half and never look at it again. If he didn’t love me by now, he was never going to. At some point, I needed to accept my reality and move on.

A hard knock at my front door made me jump, and I quickly shoved the still-intact note underneath my pillow.

“Ivy?” Saint’s voice reverberated as he let himself inside.

I didn’t lock my front door?

“What are you doing here?” I asked tentatively as I rounded the corner of my room to find him standing in the entryway.

I wasn’t sure what this meant—him showing up, unannounced, after I hadn’t heard a peep from him. My heart raced and leaped, and my mind started spinning scenarios I wished so hard were true.

“I’m so sorry,” he said before taking me in his arms and squeezing.

He was apologizing. For last night. He regretted it—or something equally as horrifying. My arms fell from their position around his back, landing at my sides, as I stopped hugging him.

The second I did that, he reached for my chin and tilted it upward, toward his mouth. “You have it wrong, love. I’m sorry that I didn’t text you back. I was taking care of some housekeeping,” he said with a wink before his lips were on mine, kissing me like he couldn’t wait another second to do it.

I wanted to kiss him back, to lose all of my resolve and give in, but I stopped myself. Breaking the kiss, I shook my head and stepped back to give my body space from his.

“Care to explain what you’re talking about?” My tone came out harsher than I’d meant, but I wasn’t sorry about it.

His statement about housekeeping had me confused. What did that even mean?

He reached for my hand—a simple gesture that I wanted to resist, but I allowed it. His fingers moved across my skin, but I wasn’t even holding on to him the way he was to me. It was a silent answer to an unasked question.

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