Page 8 of Screwing With The Scrooge

She pulls into her drive and hurries to climb out. She looks from the snowman to me and her whole face lights up.

I know then that I’m in trouble, but as she smiles at me, I can’t seem to bring myself to care or to brace for the inevitable crash.

CHAPTER4

Olive

“For me?”I ask Xavier as I cross the road to where he’s standing.

“Figured it was time to get you back,” he says in his gruff voice.

“I love it,” I tell him as I beam up at him, and he swallows.

“Good, because it took hours,” he grumbles, and I grin.

“I knew that you had it in you,” I say, and he shakes his head.

“I was just trying to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

I freeze, doubt curdling inside of me, but when I glance at Xavier, I can see that he doesn’t really mean that. There’s a light in his eyes like he’s happy to have made me so happy, like maybe he even had fun pranking me back.

He looks almost… vulnerable as he watches me now. Like the rules between us have changed and he’s not sure how to proceed.

“You know what?” I ask him as I take a seat on his front porch.

“What?” He asks, sitting down next to me.

“I think that deep down, you would be sad if I ever stopped messing with you.”

“You could try it and we could see,” he suggests, but there’s no force behind his words.

“Did you like the lights this morning?” I ask him, and he huffs out what I’m going to take as a laugh.

“Took me a second to read them.”

“Yeah, it was a lot harder to write with Christmas lights than I thought it would be.”

The wind picks up and I shiver.

“Invite me in for some hot chocolate,” I tell him, and he glances back at his house.

“I don’t have any hot chocolate.”

“Of course you don’t,” I sigh, and he frowns.

“Not everyone has hot chocolate,” he points out like him not isn’t some fatal flaw.

“Sure, sure,” I say, patting his knee and he tenses. “Have you eaten yet?”

He blinks at that subject change and shakes his head.

“Okay, come on.”

I push to my feet and start across his yard to my place. I weave my way through the snowman, grinning as I take in each pose.

“Very creative,” I say when we get to the pair doing it up against the side of my house.

“Thanks. Townes helped.”

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