Page 5 of She's A Hot Christmas Mess

CHAPTER TWO

NISHA

“Gotta get a betterjacket than that,” Jeramiah Wallace, the super at my building and local elderly who loved to perch on the doorstep and people watch, commented as I climbed the steps with weary feet. “Snow’s coming on. I feel it in my knees.”

Jeremiah had been predicting a white out Christmas with his knees for the last five years straight, and we hadn’t gotten one yet.

“Not going to happen this year, Mister Wallace,” I muttered, digging for my keys in my purse. My antlers fell over my face, obscuring everything. “Fuck.”

“Language, Miss Lister,” Jeremiah reproached me. “You won’t go about finding a nice young man with a mouth like that.”

“Oh, you love it,” I sassed him for the hell of it. “Do you need any groceries, or anything taken up?” I stopped beside the little old man who could barely fix a tap.

Our building fell down around us and our twenty-three tenants, of whom I knew a good dozen by first name. The others were little more than night shift ghosts, especially over the silly season.

“I can look after myself.” Jerry sat proudly. Something cracked in his back and he winced. “Mostly.”

I grinned. “I’m going to knock on your door at the first snowflake tomorrow, and you’re going to give me any of your prescriptions you want topped up, plus a list of what you need for Christmas. Are we doing our regular breakfast, or lunch this year?”

“Are you making that nice ham again?” The super tried to sound disinterested, but his sneaky side glance gave him away.

“Of course I am.”

“Make sure you get those fancy cherries for the top then.” Jerry sank back to his slouch on the stoop, returning to watching the stragglers slosh past in the melting mud that covered the pavement.

“Will do.”

Resisting the urge to pat his balding dome, I lugged my own groceries onto my hip and traipsed up the stairs humming about Jeremiah the Bullfrog. Finally locating my key in my fanny pack, I used the last of my energy to reach my scarred door that barely hung on its worn hinges, and stepped inside my apartment. Breath left me in a whoosh, the day’s conversations still whirling around my head in fragments and echoes. I closed my eyes, leaning back on the door.

One day I’ll have quiet.

But for now, the tours were my lifeline to pay rent, eat, and exist.

And I offered Mister Alpaca Man three days' free work at my busiest, most lucrative tip time of the year.

What the hell is wrong with me?

He was cute, but not that cute. Okay, so maybe he was that cute. And I wasn’t talking about that alpaca. Though the fuzzy beast had a certain appeal.

Groaning, I pushed off the door that seemed to hold a whole lot more gravity than before and began to unpack my groceries, counting the moments before I could shower beneath my rusty faucet, praying there was enough hot water left, and sleep before my alarm went off far too early the next morning. Maybe work out what Ford No-last-name-yet needed to know about New York for the few days he was in town and show him what tourists only missed.

Maybe dream about him a little as well.

That secret little smile while he wasn’t bantering back with me, the light behind his eyes while I kissed him and soothed his inner beast. That brought up images of the alpaca rocking an underbite, and I giggled.

Because any fantasy was better than the lonely Christmas in the apartment block where we all pretended we had family who cared and ended up creating one with those around us instead.

Another lonely Christmas.

I pushed the thought aside, kicking off my elf boots without untying them and pushed the all too sexy Ford and his cute alpaca from my mind.

Unsuccessfully.

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