Page 20 of War on Christmas

Freya, unlike me, is clearly stressed. The cool, take-charge professional who jumped into coordinating a funeral at a moment’s notice is gone, replaced by an aunt who’s been put in an impossible position. I don’t envy the conversation she’ll need to have with Bethany, who is 100 percent, no questions asked, going to go berserk.

As Freya reads me the address and I put it in my phone’s GPS, she bites at her red lower lip.

“Did you put on lipstick just to pick up your drunk niece at eleven at night?” I ask as I start the car, and her eyes flick to my face.Good, I’ve distracted her.I double-check that she’s buckled in and back out of the driveway.

“You like the lips,” she says.

She’s wrong. “Like” isn’t a strong enough word. I’mobsessedwith her lips.Mesmerizedby them. I want toworshipthem. I want them to worshipme. But I nod.

“If we’re going to have two weeks to indulge in whatever this is”—her fingers point back and forth between herself and me—“then I’m going to fill it with the things you like, Jeremy.”

I swallow, my fingers drumming on the steering wheel as I try to review 1990s Packers stats to keep my blood in my brain, where it belongs.

“Although…” Her beautiful red lips draw down into a frown. “We’re going to be down to thirteen days now. Pity.”

“Ok, what’s up with that?” I ask. If she’s going to be so up front about it, then so can I. “That whole ‘let’s have a two-week fling with a predetermined end date’ thing? Why are you so opposed to seeing where things go?”

The streets are empty this late on a Monday night, so I can take my eyes off the road to watch her face for a few seconds. Just long enough to see her incredulous look.

“See where things go? Like…date?” Her lip curls, and her obvious distaste has my previously hardening semi wilting like a sad flower.Jesus, she drives me fucking crazy.

“Yeah, like ‘date.’ Why not?” I grip the steering wheel harder. “Like you said last night, we’re both single. We’re attracted to each other.” I’m not sure that “attracted” covers the desperate way I needed to jack off when I got home the night before, my mind continually skipping like a broken record to the feel of Freya’s breath along my jaw. But I’m going with it. “Why not date? Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work out and we go our separate ways. Right? We’re no worse off than we were before.”

Ok, the whole “going our separate ways” part sounds shitty. That’s where my “let’s be friends” plan has merit—less likelihood of messy fallout. However, if we were going to give dating a real shot, it’s a risk I’d take. This whole two-week fling bullshit, though…

“Jeremy, wehatedeach other through almost four years of high—”

I’m so shocked, I nearly slam on the brakes.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” I turn to Freya, shaking my head. “Hold the fuck on. Did you just say wehatedeach other in high school?”

“Um, yah.” Notyesor evenyeah—she saidyah, which everyone knows has an automatically implieddumbasstacked onto the end of it. “Jeremy, we couldn’tstandeach other. We were at each other’s throats practically every day. They tried to add a ‘Most Likely to Murder Each Other’ category to the yearbook for us our senior year.”

“Freya!” Her eyes widen, and I realize I may have yelled. She doesn’t look afraid.Does she look excited?! Heaven help me, she looks excited right now.Still, I lived with a man who liked to yell, and I promised myself I’d never be one. I take some deep breaths—in my nose, hold, out my mouth—and when I feel reasonably certain I can speak at a normal volume, I try again.

“Freya,” I say more calmly, “I spent all of high school absolutely, positively,fucking desperatefor you to pay attention to me. I get that I was always going out of my way to annoy you, but that was the only way you would even look at me. Wait—” My jaw drops open. “Are you sayingyouhatedme?”

Her answer is immediate and unexpected.

“Why did you wear that fucking Dave Matthews T-shirt, Jeremy? I know for a fact that youhateDave Matthews.” She points a finger at me, and her voice is cold and scary. “Now tell me: Why did you wear that shirt?”

Fuck, if I’d known she would hate the shirtthismuch, I would have bought two.

“Because I knew it would drive you crazy. And it did!” I pound my palm into the roof of my car in triumph. God, I know her so well. “Now answer the question: Did you hate me in high school?”

My pulse is zipping with electricity, like her answer to my question is of life-or-death importance—right now, this instant. Not like it’s about something that took place almost twenty years ago.

To my delight, Freya howls with frustration, a raw, guttural sound that rips out of her. “Yes, I hated you! I hated your stupid, preppy clothes and I hated your stupid, preppy girlfriends and I hated your stupid, preppy football team. I missedyou—therealyou—and it was like you were taken over by some goddamn Abercrombie & Fitch zombie!” She throws herself back in her seat, chest heaving.

I blink, giving myself a moment for her words to sink in. Next to me, Freya stares outside, her face folded into a mutinous glare.

“So, what I heard,” I say, “is that you missed me.”

“Honest to god, Jeremy, you won’t be able to dateanyoneif I murder you.”

And despite all the drama, all the adrenaline, all the revelations, I find myself smiling.

“I don’t want to date just anyone.” We’re only a block away from Abi, and I have so much more to say. “I want to dateyou. But if you’re not open to that—which you’ve said you’re not—then I want to be friends again. Youjustsaid you missed that, Frey.”

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