The Holidays Series

  I cut off her rambling with my mouth, crashing my lips against hers, sighing when I finally taste her again. I pull back before I get carried away and look down at her with a smile.

  “Say it again,” I whisper.

  “I suck,” she says with a hiccupping laugh as the tears fall from her eyes and drop onto my hands still holding onto her face. “And I love you. I am so in love with you, Sam Stocking.”

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding since she first started talking, close my eyes, and lean my forehead against hers. “I love you too, Noel Holiday. I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you. I suck too. I should have told you sooner so we could have avoided that whole shit-show this morning. I never should have left. I’m so sorry for leaving.”

  Her hands move from on top of mine and they slide around my waist, pulling me closer to her until our bodies are touching.

  “You really shouldn’t have left. You missed out on hearing me tell Logan he has a tiny penis and throwing that ugly ass ring at the door,” she jokes through her tears. “Then my dad threw him out in the snow, I curled up under the tree like a cat and cried all day, my mom smoked pot and ate four bags of Cheetos, and Aunt Bobbie made up my face to look like a hooker-clown after a gang-bang.”

  “You’ve had a very eventful day,” I laugh, tilting my head back to look down at her beautiful, tear-stained face.

  “And I got your present,” she says softly. “I can’t believe you got me magic.”

  I wrap my arms around her and hug her to me. “You should have had a little magic in your life a long time ago.”

  She sighs, looking up at me with those gorgeous green eyes, and I almost can’t believe this is real. We’re not faking it for her family, we’re not pretending with each other because we’re both too foolish to say what we want. It’s real, it’s happening and she’s here with me, in my house, and I’m never letting her go.

  “Do you really love me? In spite of my whack job family?” she asks.

  “I love you because of your whack job family. I love you because you make me happy, you make life fun, and you make me realize what I’ve been missing my entire life—a family of my own,” I confess. “I never knew I wanted it until I had to walk away and say good-bye to it. I love every part of you, Noel. I want you in my life forever. I don’t give a shit if you never want to get married. I don’t care if we have to live in sin for the rest of our lives, but I am never letting you go again. Stay with me, Noel. Here, in Ohio.”

  She rests her cheek on my chest and I run my fingers through her hair that trails down her back.

  “I’m not as disgusted by marriage as I used to be,” she informs me, her voice vibrating against my chest. “Being with you makes me want something I never thought I did before either. If I stay here with you, does that mean I can help you terrorize the Amish? Because if you say no, I might have to rethink my decision.”

  I chuckle, tightening my arms around her, my dick stirring in my pants thinking about all the ways we can fuck with the Amish.

  “Only if you promise to scream as loud as you can and let me open the windows every time we have sex.”

  She nods her head against me. “Deal.”

  As I start to walk her backward toward my couch, thoughts of Noel naked and screaming my name on top of the leather filling my thoughts, my front door suddenly opens.

  “I brought pot mistletoe for you guys to kiss and make up under!”

  Turning my head, I see Noel’s mom standing in my doorway holding the sprig of pot tied up in a red bow that used to hang from their living room archway.

  “Too late, Mom, we already made up,” Noel tells her.

  “But you didn’t kiss yet, I was watching through the window to make sure your eggnog didn’t get spilled,” her dad says, pushing past Bev and waltzing into my house, wielding his Christmas light trophy in his hands and aiming it at me.

  Nicholas and Casey come in next, each carrying boxes in their arms, followed by Aunt Bobbie, dragging a huge Christmas tree behind her.

  “Someone take this damn thing, I just chipped a nail,” she complains, dropping the tree in the entryway. “Sam, where’s your powder room? I need to freshen up. Bev got Cheetos powder all over my slacks.”

  Bev huffs, moving out of the way as Nicholas drops the box he was holding and finishes pulling the tree into my living room. “It was an accident, Bobbie, for feta’s sake. Reggie took that last turn too fast and I spilled my bag. Quit being a whiny ninny.”

  “Will you two spawns of Satan quit arguing and help me put this bag of eggnog in the fridge,” Reggie grumbles, lifting the plastic bag dangling from his hand up in the air.

  He points the bag at me and glares. “I’m stocking your fridge with eggnog. You can have one sip tonight and maybe one tomorrow, but no more than that, got it?”

  I salute him one and nod, still keeping an arm around Noel, refusing to let go.

  “That’s right, Noel told us you’re a Marine. You don’t eat raw eggs before a workout, do you, Son?” he asks.

  “Uh, no.”

  He nods. “Good, good. Let’s keep it that way. We’ll introduce this stuff one thing at a time.”

  “Dad, eggs aren’t dairy,” Noel corrects him with a laugh.

  “YOU DEFILED SANTA’S WORKSHOP! YOUR OPINION IS INVALID!” he shouts before heading off in the direction of my kitchen.

  Noel and I watch in silence as Aunt Bobbie, Bev, Casey, and Nicholas get to work decorating my house for Christmas. The boxes they brought with them containing stockings, lights and ornaments for the tree, a wreath for the front door, knick-knacks for the mantle and lasts, but not least, the stocking holders, set all along my mantle to spell out Leon.

  “Are you sure about loving me because of my family? Because I will totally understand if you changed your mind,” Noel whispers when Nicholas asks Casey if they can name their son Jesus if he’s born before midnight.

  Bev starts yelling at him, Aunt Bobbie pulls a flask out of her pocket and takes a swig, and Reggie comes back in the room and starts loudly moaning about how I don’t have enough electrical outlets for the lights he brought with him and asking if I have an extension cord for the front porch so he can set up the lighted, plastic nativity he threw in the back of the van.

  “Seriously, I’ll give you a free pass,” Noel says with a sigh as we watch her crazy family scream at each other in the middle of my living room.

  “Nope, no way. This is perfect. Absolutely perfect,” I smile as she turns in my arms, lifts up on her toes and kisses me.

  “I love you. Merry Christmas, Sam,” she whispers.

  I smile down at her and speak the words I’ve never said out loud my entire life.

  “Merry Christmas, Noel.”

  The End

  Cupid Has a Heart-On

  The Holidays #2

  1

  Thirsty Thursday

  Noel

  According to Dante, there are nine circles of Hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. Clearly, he forgot about the tenth, rarely talked about circle: Moving Back Home with Your Parents. I’m guessing Dante never suffered through this burning inferno of misery and pain. Lucky bastard.

  “Honey, have you seen my black, crotchless panties? They were on top of the dryer this morning, and now I can’t find them.”

  Swallowing back the vomit that pools in my mouth, I look up from my laptop on the kitchen table. “In what universe is it okay for a mother to ask her daughter that question?”

  My mother pauses in her search through random kitchen drawers and cabinets to sigh and look back at me over her shoulder.

  “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Noel. Maybe if you had a pair of crotchless panties, Sam would have proposed by now.”

  I glance down at the ring on my left hand and smile, despite my mother’s continued use of the word panties.

  “Sam did propose, thank you very much. It’s only been five weeks. Have you already forgot
ten how much crying and snotting you did all over the dining room table on Christmas Eve?”

  With a slam of one of the drawers, she turns to face me.

  “That was a fake proposal. It doesn’t count.”

  Okay, so I met a stranger at the airport on my way home from Seattle for the holidays, and convinced him to pretend to be my live-in-boyfriend and come home with me, so my family wouldn’t know I lost my shit and ran out of our apartment when he got down on one knee right before my trip. And sure, Sam was still playing the part of said-boyfriend when he proposed on Christmas Eve, but he meant all the words he said to me that night, even if he was pretending to be someone else.

  At least I think he did. I mean, he loves me, and he told me I wasn’t allowed to give the ring back after the disaster of Christmas Day when my ex showed up unannounced and my family found out we’d been lying to them. I almost lost him because we were both too stupid to admit our real feelings for each other, but once we cleared the air, he still told me to keep the ring on my finger. That means we’re engaged, right? RIGHT?!

  “Don’t forget, Noel, it’s the third Thursday of the month, so I’m going to need you to make yourself scarce tonight while your father and I get freaky with it,” my mother informs me, finally giving up her quest of looking for her missing underwear.

  Hello, Tenth Circle of Hell.

  “Mom, seriously, just because I’m living here temporarily, doesn’t mean you need to share everything with me. It would have been fine if you just told me you wanted the house to yourself tonight, really.” I shut the lid to my laptop and lean back in my chair with a sigh.

  “After all the miscommunication that happened over Christmas, I’m not taking any chances. From now on, we will share everything. So, now it’s your turn. Why haven’t you and Sam been doing the nasty?” she asks with a raise of one eyebrow.

  “Jesus, Mom. Really?”

  Not only did Sam and I fail to communicate with each other over the holidays, I spent the majority of my adult life thinking my parents loved my older brother, Nicholas, more than me. I assumed since he was successful, happily married, and just recently gave them their first granddaughter, that he was the golden child. Whereas myself, at the age of thirty-three, am unemployed again, a recent runaway from commitment like it was a death sentence, and with no place to live.

  I blamed all of my problems on my parents and their favoritism when really, they just wanted me to be happy. Their extra nagging and picking apart my life choices was only because they wanted me to finally find what I was looking for and just. Be. Happy.

  Unfortunately, my mother doesn’t seem to realize that talking about our sex lives is the exact opposite of my happy place. This is what I like to refer to as my “Get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here” place.

  “I’m just saying, sweetie, you’ve been back home for a little over a month, and I have yet to be woken up in the middle of the night from moaning and screaming. It’s concerning.”

  She pats my hand gently and I force myself to stay in my chair and not run from the room screaming like my ass is on fire.

  “It’s called common courtesy, Mom. I’m not going to disrespect my childhood home or my parents by having loud, wild sex under your roof.”

  Well, I will and I have. I’m just quiet about it, thank you very much.

  “As opposed to disrespecting Santa’s Workshop by swishing with semen?” she questions.

  Jesus God, you give ONE blowjob in the shed out back and no one lets you live it down.

  “We really need to establish a safe word when we speak,” I mutter.

  “Your father’s safe word is donuts,” she muses. “But it’s always so confusing. I never know if he wants me to stop spanking him or if he’s just hungry.”

  “DONUTS, DONUTS, DONUTS!” I shout, bringing my hands up to my ears to make her stop.

  In hindsight, I should probably be a little proud that my parents are still hot for each other, being in their sixties and married for so long, because it gives me hope for my own future, hopefully with Sam. But I’m not. These are NOT things a daughter should know about her parents. Ever.

  My mother reaches over and pulls one of my hands away from my ear, shaking her head at me. “Fine, we’ll talk about something else. But if you ever need the house to yourself so you and Sam can make your own donuts, just say the word. I’ll tell your father there’s an after-Christmas sale on lights at Home Depot.”

  Dropping my other hand, I give her a jerky nod of agreement, even though I have no intention of EVER letting her know something like this.

  “Okay, next subject. How’s the job search coming?”

  She glances at my laptop and then takes in the messy bun on top of my head, along with the hoodie and yoga pants I’ve been wearing for four days straight, trying not to feel sorry for myself that I still haven’t found a job. It doesn’t help that Sam has been in Virginia for the last week for military training. He’s the only bright spot in my life at this moment, and with him gone, I’ve lost the will to shower or change my clothes.

  “I think I’ve sent out resumes to every business in a fifty-mile radius and not one person has gotten back to me,” I admit dejectedly.

  I know moving back to Ohio was the right decision for me. I only moved away in the first place because of that whole miscommunication thing, and because I thought being away from my family and their constant meddling was the only way I would ever find what I was looking for. I love being back home and spending time with my family, and now that I’ve found the man of my dreams, there is no way I could ever leave again. But after a month of job searching with no luck, I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to get out from under my parents’ roof.

  Sam has been asking me non-stop to move in with him, but it just doesn’t seem right. As much as I love him, and as much as I love the idea of waking up in his arms every morning, I can’t let him take care of everything. I don’t want to move in with him until I have a job and can pull my own weight, pay part of the bills, and not feel like I’m taking advantage of him. Not to mention how fast everything happened with us. My head spins just thinking about how we met in an airport bar and fell in love and into bed so quickly. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, I just think we need more time to get to know each other a little better before we jump to the next step of cohabitating.

  Also, five-ish weeks of dating is nowhere near enough time for him to do my laundry and have to discover the horror of period panties. I’d like to keep up the illusion for a little while longer that I only wear sexy, matching bras and thongs a hundred percent of the time, instead of giant, granny panties, full of holes and falling apart at the seams, that I’ve had for five years and keep shoved in the back of my dresser drawer until those five days a month when my uterus vomits misery all over myself and everyone around me.

  “Well, you’re in luck,” my mother informs me. “You remember Margie from church? Well, she has her own business she runs out of her home, and she’s looking for someone to manage it. I told her I’d send you over today at five for an interview.”

  “Is this the same Margie who flirted with dad at the spaghetti dinner last Easter, and you dumped a bowl of Jell-O on her head?” I ask.

  She snorts and waves her hand dismissively. “Water under the bridge. She apologized after your father farted in front of her and didn’t excuse himself. Margie realized he wasn’t the catch she assumed he was. Her husband had just run off with his secretary and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I have since forgiven her and you can thank me after your interview with her tonight.”

  Something is telling me to politely decline this interview because, really, working out of the home of one of my mother’s church friends? But I’m desperate. So desperate that I’ll take a job helping Margie organize her baskets of yarn for all the kitten sweaters she knits, as long as she pays me.

  “Do I even want to ask what kind of business this is?” I ask, pushing back from the table and stre
tching out the kinks in my body after two hours of staring at my laptop, wondering if it’s too early to start binge drinking.

  “I don’t know all the details, but I do know Margie just bought herself a brand new Buick with heated seats, so she must be making good money. It’s some sort of event planning business from what she’s told me. She needs someone to help manage the employees, create schedules and things like that,” my mother explains. “I know it’s not your dream job, but at least it’s something to do until you can find something better. Not that I don’t love having you back home with us, but Thirsty Thursday would be a lot more fun if I didn’t have to always force my daughter out of the house.”

  Don’t do it. Do NOT ask…

  “Thirsty Thursday?”

  Dammit, Noel!

  “You know, because we have sexy times on Thursday and your father is thirsty for my body,” she explains with a smile. “Honestly, Noel, it’s really sad I need to explain these things to you. Start having more sex with Sam before he changes his mind and moves on. The penis waits for no woman. And take a shower, for the love of Gouda. The penis doesn’t like a dirty vagina, and neither does a prospective boss.”

  Even if this turns out to be the worst interview in the history of the world, anything is better than staying in this kitchen with my mother for one more second. I’m pretty sure no matter what the job entails, I’ll take it. I’d be making my own money again, and I won’t have to see the look of rejection on Sam’s face the next time he asks me to live with him. It would also help me get out of this funk I’ve been in and make me feel like less of a loser. Maybe then I could strap on a set of balls and ask Sam if he told me to keep his mother’s engagement ring because that proposal on Christmas Eve was real, or because it would have been too awkward for him to ask for it back.