Jingle Bell Hell (Bad Luck Club)

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Keep me updated. If he doesn’t, I will.” She doesn’t have any PI experience I’m aware of, and yet I don’t doubt her. I really don’t. If anything, she’s probably willing to cross lines that Dennis would only toe.

  Again, I’m touched despite myself. Nicole really doesn’t have to do that for me—or for Jace—and yet here she is, offering.

  “Speaking of which, what are we going to do about Glenn?”

  I snort and take a sip of the hot chocolate. “Molly already offered to bring over a shovel and a shotgun. And Maisie tried to get me to adopt a guard dog. Then again, she’s been pushing different animals on me ever since she started the animal shelter. I think she’s just low on adoptions for the month.”

  Nicole’s already shaking her head. “The best way to deal with a man like that is to fuck with his life. Just give me the word, Mary. I’ll have him buried under more dirt than Molly could hope to dig. Her arms are twigs, anyway.”

  Somehow, I don’t think she’s exaggerating. The temptation is there, snaking through me. I could make him stay away. I could make him leave us alone. But I can’t do that yet. Not until I know his true intentions. And I’m hoping not to hear from him again until after Christmas.

  It took me a few days to decide how to respond to Glenn. Ultimately, I decided on an email. Less of a chance for him to gaslight me, twisting things around to make himself look like the victim.

  Yes, we can talk. After Christmas. If you sincerely want to be a part of Aidan’s life, I won’t stand in your way. I WANT him to have a relationship with his father. But he’s just getting settled into his new home. This is not about punishing you or taking him away from you at the holidays. You’ve never liked the holidays, and seeing you right now would dysregulate him. You wanted to schedule a conversation, so if it suits you, we can talk on December 26th. Nine a.m.

  -Mary

  It’s up to me, whether I let him see Aidan again. He signed away his rights, after all, willingly.

  To my shock and no small amount of disgust, he responded with: Your terms, Mary. ;-)

  I’m not sure what threw me more, the acquiescence or the winky face. I don’t trust either.

  I’m terrified he’s going to hurt my son again. That he’ll blow in like a storm and then flit out, leaving me to put the pieces together. But I also don’t want Aidan to learn someday that his father asked to see him and I turned him down.

  “You have no idea how tempting that is,” I admit to Nicole, “but I have to talk to him first. If he really wants to be there for Aidan, I guess I’ll have to deal with him visiting or getting Aidan for visits.”

  “We’ll see,” she says.

  I’m not sure what that means—it sounds an awful lot like Nicole plans to go rogue—but I decide not to pry. “Moving on. Would you like to see my room?”

  “Are you propositioning me?”

  “No,” I bark out, blushing, “I wanted to show you the painting I told you about.”

  “I know,” she says with a grin. “What can I say? You’re fun to shock.”

  We bring our hot chocolates with us, something that’s firmly against my own house rules, and I lead her through the door, feeling proud of what I’ve accomplished in a short time. The bedroom feels like my sanctuary now, like it’s somewhere I want to be.

  And your memories of Jace have nothing to do with that, surely.

  I tell my internal voice to shut the heck up and glance at Nicole.

  “So?”

  “Yeah,” she says, thoughtful, “I can see why you want to glam the place up. The only thing worth keeping is the painting. That’s rad.”

  “Hey! I already glammed it up. Didn’t you see the new duvet cover? And the lamp! You can’t tell me you don’t like the lamp.”

  That’s when I catch her smile. “It’s very you.”

  It doesn’t sound like a compliment, and it’s probably not supposed to, but I find myself smiling back. “Thank you.”

  Her smile widens. “You didn’t apologize for yourself. Good one. I think you’re ready for your next challenge.”

  I feel a weird tingling on my skin, and it takes me only half a second to realize I’m hoping she challenges me to sleep with Jace again. Or text him. Or do anything that puts me into closer contact with him.

  She doesn’t disappoint. “Come to my wedding this weekend. And bring him.”

  I’m so overwhelmed with shock, I almost drop my cocoa, because (a) I can’t picture her getting married, even though I’ve concluded from her stories that Damien is just as crazy as she is, (b) my type A side is horrified by the thought of inviting guests to a wedding at the last minute, (c) she’s not wearing a ring, as far as I can tell, and (d) I can’t do this. I can’t just up and invite Jace to a wedding, of all things. We’re just friends, right? Besides, he doesn’t know Nicole, and she’s terrifying, and…

  “Stop coming up with excuses in your head. I’m going to take it personally,” she says. “And quit eyeing my ring finger. We’re not doing that. We’re getting tattoos instead.”

  “I mean, I’ll go, of course,” I say. “If you’re sure you can add us at the last minute. Will Molly and Cal be there too?”

  “No,” she says bluntly. “We decided not to invite anyone. My mom would get weird and try to stuff me into a white dress. Literally. That woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word no.” She’s not the only one. “And Damien’s parents are shitty. Our friends would just make a big deal of it.”

  Does that mean she doesn’t consider me a friend, or that she trusts me not to make a big deal of it?

  “But…?”

  She rolls her eyes. “We need witnesses, obviously. Witness One. Witness Two. Done.”

  I’m still reeling from the revelation that we’ll be the only guests. Are they getting married at city hall? A ghost-riddled dungeon? A tattoo parlor? With Nicole, anything seems possible. “Can I tell Molly?”

  One eyebrow lifts. “Will you hold off if I tell you to?”

  I don’t really want to—it seems wrong, kind of, since Molly and Cal knew Nicole before I did. Still, knowing her as they do, they’d probably expect this kind of thing, and I don’t want to break her trust.

  I nod.

  “Excellent,” she says with a sharp-toothed smile. “I’ll consider this your RSVP.” She turns to go—is she seriously leaving?—and I’m left trailing after her, gawking, still careful to hold my hot chocolate so it doesn’t splash.

  Hers is already finished, and she sets the empty cup on the dining room table before gathering her things.

  “Don’t you need to text Damien to pick you up?”

  “He’s already out there.”

  She says it with such complete certainty, I have to ask, “How do you know? If he pulled up, it must have been while we were in the bedroom, because I don’t see any lights out front.”

  “I’m wearing vibrating panties, and he has the remote. He just turned them on for a second to let me know he’s here.”

  There’s so much to unpack from that statement, not least of all that vibrating panties do exist—good call, manufacturers—that I don’t know where to start. She takes pity on me and pats my shoulder.

  “Just in case you get chatty, I’ll send you the address for the wedding a half hour before the ceremony on Saturday. We’re starting at seven.”

  This throws my mind into a tizzy. We’re not going to know until a half hour before? What if we’re late? What if we get lost? What if we find out it’s somewhere we can’t possibly go?

  The smirk on her face tells me it’s intentional, that this is part of my challenge—to learn how to corral the what-ifs that swamp my brain.

  “Well, congratulations,” I say as she slings her bag over her shoulder. “Do you have a registry?”

  She laughs at me on her way out the door.

  I finish my hot chocolate on the couch, staring at the Christmas tree. My eyes linger on that star, then skip down to a bronze roadrunner, an ornament I bought in New Mex
ico on a “family trip” that turned into me and Aidan sightseeing, most of which he did not enjoy, while Glenn hung out at the pool or took work calls in our hotel room. Then there’s the ornament with the family picture I took with my parents and Maisie and Molly, huge smiles on our faces. Back then, we didn’t know there was a storm at our door, but I suppose you never do until it’s blowing it down. There’s something remarkably personal about a Christmas tree, I realize. Each of the ornaments has significance, each is a blip along the timeline of a person’s life, and my life might have started out slow and safe, but it’s taken a turn that I’m starting to like. A lot.

  There’s a powerful longing to text Jace—no, to call him—but I’m not ready for that yet. I haven’t yet processed what I want to say. So instead, I find my laptop and return to my spot on the couch. I spend several minutes Christmas shopping online, finding some last-minute gifts, including some Tea of Fortune merch for the gift exchange at work.

  I stow my laptop and head to my bedroom, washing up and tucking in beneath the emerald duvet. It’s nearly ten, so maybe it’s too late to call Jace—actually, it’s certainly too late to call—but I find myself pulling up his number anyway.

  He’ll be home now, and I imagine him in his apartment, wearing…

  When he slept over at my house, he wore nothing at all. Does he usually sleep that way? Will he be answering his phone naked? The thought sends pleasure skittering across my skin, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had similar thoughts every single night since our time together. Before I can second-guess or maybe third-guess myself, I’m dialing his number.

  It only takes one ring for him to answer.

  “Mary? Is everything okay?”

  There’s concern in his voice, and it cascades warmth through me. This man cares about us. That’s not just what I want to believe. It’s true.

  “We’re fine. Totally fine. I’m sorry for calling so late, I just…” Suddenly my throat is tight, but I squeeze out, “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh,” he says, his tone turning warm and honeyed. “Oh.”

  “Is that okay?”

  “It’s more than okay.”

  I can tell he means it—he’s actually happy to hear from me, even this late on a Wednesday night—and I find myself telling him about Nicole and the Bad Luck Club and her challenges. For some reason, it hasn’t come up before, or maybe I was too embarrassed to tell him, but he listens in a way that emboldens me, only commenting or making sounds of assent when a response is appropriate.

  “Let me guess,” he says, his voice suddenly throaty. “Buying that vibrator was one of your challenges?”

  “It was,” I admit. “And it wasn’t easy. Do you know how many vibrators there are on Amazon alone? It’s like there’s this whole shadow world out there I had no idea existed.”

  He laughs, a deep rumble in his chest, and I can practically feel the echoes of it in my body. In my toes, for goodness’ sake. “Have you used it yet, Mary? I’ve wondered.”

  Oh goodness.

  I pause for a moment, practically feeling the presence of the vibrator in my nightstand drawer, and then say, “Yes. Several times.”

  I’m proud that my voice doesn’t waver, because it feels like every part of me is blowing in the wind. Or at least the parts that aren’t suddenly on fire.

  “Were you thinking of me when you did?”

  From the way he says it, I can tell that he’s not sure he should be asking me. He can’t help himself, just like I couldn’t stop myself from making this call.

  “I was,” I admit. “The first time, I put on those black panties and the matching bra. I saw the way you were looking at them the other day.”

  His groan reverberates through the line. “I regret asking.”

  Feeling an unexpected surge of feminine power, I say, “No, you don’t.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  There’s a pause over the line, and I wonder if maybe he’s stroking himself. If maybe that beautiful, sculpture-worthy dick of his is hard because of me, and he’s naked in bed, just waiting for me to come over and climb on top of him, and I’m so turned on that I know I’ll be pulling the vibrator out after this call. He does this to me. Am I really willing to give that up? To give up the chance to be happy in that way?

  I don’t know. There are still so many unknowns.

  “Jace,” I say, breaking the silence.

  “Yes,” he says, his voice slightly strained.

  “I need time. I mean, assuming that you’re still…”

  “Oh, I’m still interested. I’ll always be interested.”

  I feel like I’m dancing in a spotlight. I feel like a Christmas song someone is humming. I feel like that star on top of the tree.

  “I was hoping you’d say that. Because I have a very strange invitation to issue.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jace

  “You look so handsome,” Mrs. Rosa gushes as I emerge from my bedroom.

  I tug at my shirt collar. The last time I wore a suit was—God, I can’t remember…probably to my father’s funeral, but when Mary asked me to go to this wedding, I headed to a men’s store after work the next day, then paid the rush alteration fee so it would be done in time. I picked it up a couple of hours ago.

  “She’s right,” Roger says from a chair at my kitchen table. “But we need to redo your tie. Come over here. Let me have a go at it.”

  I walk over to the table, and he gets up, motioning for me to take his seat.

  “I need to stand behind you. Never tied one head-on,” he says.

  “Whatever you do will be better than what I managed,” I say, grateful for his help. I sit down and unfasten the tie I just spent five minutes on.

  “Didn’t your dad ever teach you how to tie a tie?” Mrs. Rosa asks, standing next to the sofa.

  “My dad wasn’t exactly a suit kind of guy. More the salt of the earth type.” He didn’t own a suit when he died, so we buried him in one of his Hagan Construction polos and a pair of jeans. Mom said, quite rightly, it’s what he would have wanted.

  “No worries,” Roger says as he reaches around my neck. His hands are shaking, but they seem better than they have for the past few days. It takes him a minute or so to tie it, and I take a video with my phone for future reference. Just in case Mary invites me as her plus-one to any future events.

  When Roger finishes, he walks around to look at me and smiles. “You clean up good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s the wedding?” Mrs. Rosa asks.

  “That’s a good question,” I say as I get to my feet. “The bride told Mary she would text her the location a half hour before the ceremony.”

  Excitement fills her eyes. “Is it a celebrity wedding? Is the bride hiding from the paparazzi?”

  Picking up my wallet and keys from the kitchen table, I let out a short laugh. “I’m pretty sure the bride isn’t a celebrity. Mary says she’s just…different.”

  Curious about this wedding, I asked Mary plenty of questions on Thursday when I went over to help Aidan make his Christmas presents. She told me that she has no idea what to expect, especially since we’re apparently the only two people they invited.

  After our phone conversation Wednesday night, which ended with me jerking off thinking about her in black lingerie, it’s been harder and harder not to touch her. Not to kiss her. Not to pin her against a wall, hike up one of her sexy skirts and take her. (Not that I would ever do such a thing with Aidan around.) Based on the long looks she’s been sending me, she feels the same way.

  Aidan’s grandparents picked him up last night for another weekend in Charlotte, and tonight will be the first time we’ve been alone since that call. No six-year-old chaperone to keep us from ripping each other’s clothes off.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Rosa says, pressing a hand to her chest. “You look stunning. Mary won’t be able to resist you.”

  “We’re just friends, Mrs. Rosa,” I sa
y with a sigh. Because at the moment, that’s all we are.

  She walks over to me and lifts a hand to pat my cheek. “She might say that now, but when she sees you…” Her eyes dance with suggestion.

  I laugh and pat her hand. From her lips to God’s ears, as my mother used to say.

  Mrs. Rosa drops her hand. “You got everything you need?”

  “I’m not off to my high school prom, Mrs. Rosa,” I say with a wry grin.

  She puts her hands on her hips. “I should hope not.” She sizes me up, looking at me speculatively. “I didn’t see you stuff any condoms into those pockets.”

  My mouth drops open. “Mrs. Rosa!”

  “What?” she asks with a nonchalant shrug. “You better take some. Just to be safe.”

  “Gotta cover it up,” Roger says, his head bobbing.

  “What the hell is happening right now?” I ask. This is so out of character for both of them all I can think to do is run for it.

  I start for the door, and Bingo catches my eye from the back of the sofa, giving me a stern look and a feed-me-right-now meow. “Shit. I need to feed Bingo.”

  Mrs. Rosa gives me a soft push. “Go. We’ll take care of it.”

  “His food is in the—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she grumbles, pushing me harder. “Go already. And get a photo of the two of you. I want to see you together.”

  “We’ll see,” I say, then burst out the door before she can give me a handful of condoms in assorted colors and textures.

  I’m nervous when I pull into Mary’s driveway. Will she approve of my suit? It was the best I could afford, although I’m sure she’s accustomed to something much finer. Sure, Mrs. Rosa and Roger said I look good, but they sort of have to.

  Mary’s porch light is on, and I can see the Christmas tree in the window. My chest warms with a feeling I can’t name. Something between joy and belonging. It’s a feeling that’s grown over the past week, but tonight it’s more intense.

  I take a breath and hold it as I knock. Mary opens the door seconds later, and all doubt flees from my head.