by Wendy Knight
He had no luck with any of them.
They had no leads.
Plus, the guy was a freaking creep.
Azura dropped her head into her hands, moaning. “What now? How am I supposed to break the curse if I don’t even know who this guy is?”
She expected Leah or Katrina or Crew to argue, to tell her the curse wasn’t real and it didn’t matter who this guy was, but she’d forgotten that this was the family that capitalized on Christmas lore and traditions. No one argued. Crew drummed his fingers on the coffee table, Katrina gnawed on the end of a pencil and Leah had her phone out, scrolling through the guest list. “No, no, no,” she kept murmuring. “Not him, either.”
“It’s okay.” Katrina dropped the pencil and sat forward, pulling Azura up by the shoulder so she could see her. “It’s okay, because I work for the biggest magazine in the country and I know the girl who runs their social media, and also, I have like ten thousand followers on Instagram and most of them are from this area. And Crew has more followers than I do, Mr. Football.” She sent her brother a lopsided, teasing smile. “I’ll post Mystery Man’s pic on Being Beautiful’s page and mine. We can all do that. Social media is powerful. We’ll find him. Crew, take a screen shot of that guy and send it to us all.”
“I—I don’t have social media.” Azura dropped her head back to her hands. “It’s too social.”
Katrina regarded her skeptically. “You have serious issues. But no matter. I do, and I can fix this.”
Azura’s phone beeped with the incoming message and she studied the picture of Mystery Man, hoping something would seem familiar. She didn’t want the fate of her curse to be riding on a magazine and Instagram followers.
But no. Nothing.
“I can print him out on a poster and see if I can hang it up at the mall. It’s so crowded right now, someone is bound to know him!” Holly squealed and clapped her hands. “We’ll find him!”
This was a grand adventure to all of them, and Azura—who up until that morning hadn’t even believed in the curse, could only feel it closing in on her by the minute. A year of falling, crashing, dropping, tripping, calling people the wrong name, forgetting finals, randomly freaking out and drowning in panic attacks—who knew what else waited.
No. She couldn’t.
She had to break the curse.
To break the curse, she had to believe in it.
So believe, she did.
“Got it posted on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook,” Crew murmured. “I’m sending an email to Abe now...”
Azura wasn’t even sure he realized he was talking out loud. Everyone else was typing away on their phones and she could only sit there, watching.
“Honestly, I don’t know how you survive without social media. How do you find people in your classes? Or network with future work contacts? You want to be a mechanical engineer, but you don’t—do you even have LinkedIn?” Katrina asked while she tapped at her phone, fingers on fire.
Azura shook her head.
Katrina shook her head. “Girl.”
Crew nudged Azura with his knee. “She lives for social media. You don’t have to.”
“Garrett posted it too.” Katrina smiled down at her phone. “He’s such a sweetie.”
Azura wondered if Garrett hated her now, as Katrina had. Not that she blamed any of them, and actually, it was pretty adorable how protective they were of each other.
“While we’re waiting, let’s track down some of these other guys.” Holly scrolled through Instagram and Azura leaned back to watch. “Evan posted a half hour ago. He’s at work—at the theater. Are you ready?”
Azura’s blood ran cold. Her mouth opened, but no words escaped.
Crew slid an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Butterfly. I’ll be right there to punch him in the face if he tries anything.”
Holly bounced on her seat. “Yessss. This will be fun.”
“Stop calling me Butterfly,” Azura murmured half-heartedly.
Crew pushed to his feet, shrugging his coat back on. “Too late now. Butterfly has stuck.”
“Auntie Leah, are you coming?” Katrina paused by the door, untangling her long hair from her coat collar.
“Um, no. As fun as this sounds—” Leah pulled a face. “—I will sit this one out. But good luck.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Holly had more energy than anyone Crew had ever met, and the prospect of a kissing adventure, as she called it, seemed to make her even crazier than normal. He half-wondered if maybe she was somehow siphoning all of Azura’s energy, because the beautiful brunette sitting next to him seemed to wilt more by the minute. “You okay, Butterfly?”
“Stop calling me that,” she muttered, twisting her phone over and over in her hands. “Isn’t it weird that I’m going to just show up there and tell him I need to kiss him? That seems weird. Like sexual harassment weird.”
Katrina rode in the back quietly, but Crew could feel her dark eyes on them the whole way. She spoke up then, indignance breaking her silence. “Technically, he tried to kiss you first without your consent. Even if it is a Christmas tradition, one should not force one to kiss one against one’s will.”
“That’s a lot of ones,” Crew teased, grinning at her in the rearview mirror. Katrina rolled her eyes.
“It was a Christmas party though. Everyone was doing it. They were caught up in the Christmas spirit, and I can hardly blame them for that.”
Everyone in the truck fell silent, staring at Azura in shock. Had the anti-Christmas Butterfly just defended Christmas?
“What?” She shoved her dark waves over her shoulder, and up close Crew could see the extent of her injuries much better. The candy cane rash was healing, but slowly. The black eye looked painful.
And still, she was mind-numbingly beautiful. Every time the truck turned and she brushed against him, his thigh and whole right arm lit as if warmed from the kiss of a hundred fires. It was a fight to keep the truck on the road, honestly.
“Nothing.” Crew turned back to the road, navigating the almost empty theater parking lot. Not a lot of movie-goers at eleven thirty in the morning. He parked the truck and leaned back against his seat. “Ready?”
Azura swallowed hard.
“Yes, she is,” Holly chirped, bouncing out of the truck. “Come on, Crew. You have to play bodyguard.”
In other words, he had to go watch the girl he was infatuated with kiss some other guy.
Azura followed Holly more slowly, shutting the truck behind her as her friend disappeared inside.
Katrina leaned forward, squeezing his shoulder, reading his mind. “She doesn’t want to. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Crew unsnapped his seat belt and shoved the key in his pocket. “She doesn’t want to kiss anyone.” Including me.
Katrina followed him out of the truck. “She’s got a lot to deal with. I have a feeling she doesn’t let a lot of people in. But she let us in today. That’s a step in the right direction.”
“She let us in because she thought she had to, thanks to you leading her to believe it was the only way I would accept her apology and help her break a curse.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and ducked his head against the chill, watching Azura stumble along in front of them. It was like watching Bambi learning to walk. “A curse I don’t even believe in.”
Katrina looped her arm through his, pulling her faux fur hood up over her head. “Really?”
Crew managed to tear his gaze from Azura to look to his sister in surprise. “No. You do?”
Katrina laughed, patting his hand with her free one. “Of course I do. What’s not to believe? The fun will be watching it break.”
Right. Fun. Because watching Azura run around their small town kissing guys was Crew’s very definition of a great time.
Or not.
Holly bounced backward, motioning him forward as they hit the doors to the theater. Crew sucked in a breath, prayed for strength, and jogged after them.
It smelled like popcorn and pretzels, and the concession stand was a flurry of activity—except that there was no one to serve. Crew recognized Evan from the video, all light curly hair, blue eyes and freckles and barely taller than Azura, although he outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. He’s probably never lifted a football in his life—Crew reminded himself not to be a jerk just because jealousy raged through his blood. There was a possibility that Evan had, indeed, picked up a football.
But not thrown it.
Shut up.
Evan stood behind the cash register, waiting for them to choose a movie.
Too bad they weren’t gonna.
“Evan! Hi! Do you remember me? We met at Leah Sanders’s Christmas party last week.” Holly skipped up to him, more elf-like than usual, her red curls bouncing recklessly, attempting to escape the ponytail she’d tied them up in.
Evan grinned easily, his gaze jumping from Azura to Holly and back again. Crew’s fist tightened in his pocket and Katrina patted his hand before she let him go to dig the mistletoe out of Holly’s purse that luckily she’d thought to grab from the truck. “Holly, right? I never forget an elf.”
He laughed and laughed at his own joke and Crew groaned inwardly. Azura fell back to stand next to him, and her nearness alone did amazing things to bolster his mood, like a shot of caffeine through his veins. He draped an arm across her shoulders. “You got this, Butterfly?”
She took a breath and nodded. “I got this.”
“Well,” Holly was saying. “You tried to kiss my friend, and she rejected you because she is a huge Christmas grinch.”
“Thanks,” Azura muttered only loud enough that Crew could hear. He raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged.
Evan’s smile died as he took in Azura, with Crew’s arm around her. “Oh dude. I didn’t realize she was your girl. I would never have—”
“I’m not,” Azura interrupted.
“We’re still working on that.” Crew winked at her and she elbowed him playfully in the ribs.
“Look,” Azura strode forward, the feistiness Crew adored so much finally making an appearance. She’d play it quiet and cool for awhile, but she had her limits, and apparently they’d reached it. “I rejected your kiss under the mistletoe and now I’m cursed. I have to kiss you to break it. Believe me or not, but there it is. You got time?”
Katrina choked on a laugh and Holly covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide. “Not exactly how I’d go about it,” she whispered through her fingers, dancing from foot to foot.
“To—to kiss you?” Evan leaned forward, his hands braced on either side of the register as if getting three inches closer made the whole situation easier to understand. “With—with him here?”
Azura nodded, crossing her arms over her chest.
Why the guy was even hesitating was beyond Crew’s capability to understand. If Azura marched up all spitfire and fury and demanded to kiss him, he’d be throwing himself at her feet.
“He’s just hired muscle.” Holly waved her hand through the air as if that explained Crew’s presence completely. Crew ran a hand through his dark hair, resisting the urge to pull it all out.
Katrina hurried forward. “I’ve got mistletoe,” she sang, holding the plant out in front of her. “It’ll just take a second of your time.”
Evan looked from one woman to the next, clearly overwhelmed. “What do I get out of it?”
Crew resisted slapping himself in the forehead. “You get kissed by one of the most gorgeous women in town. Maybe the world. That’s not enough for you?”
Azura snickered, wiping the amusement off her face before she turned to face Evan. “You get to help me break a curse that is literally ruining my life. Since that party, I’ve lost my car, my job, failed my finals, run into a giant candy cane, fallen down a flight of stairs, broken our living room window, and been hit in the face by a flying shoe. Among other things. If I don’t break the curse, I live like this for a year. You can help save me.”
She turned those huge green and gorgeous eyes on him, and if she’d asked Crew to bring her the moon with eyes like that, he would have found a way.
Evan was not immune either.
He leaned forward, Katrina held the mistletoe, and Crew had to watch Azura kiss another guy.
He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
It lasted probably less than two seconds, but it felt like an eternity with her lips—those lips Crew had been dreaming about since they met—against Evan’s. Everything in Crew wanted to rush forward and—and do what? Tackle the guy like they were in the middle of a football game?
Yeah, that would go over great.
“Thank you,” Azura chirped, pulling away. “One down, three to go.”
Evan stayed where he was, eyes half-open and dazed, mouth still puckered.
“Have a great Christmas, Evan!” Holly called, rousing him from his Azura-induced stupor as she waved and bounded out the door.
He shook his head, and Crew was pretty sure he could literally hear the gears bouncing around inside his skull, not connected and definitely not working.
Shut up. Why are you being such a jerk?
He knew why.
“Wait, that’s it? You’re—you’re just going to leave now? I didn’t even get your number.”
Azura turned on her heel, walking backward out the door as she waved goodbye. Crew wanted to yell at her to watch out, that she could barely walk forward without crashing and backward was just asking for trouble, but he was too slow.
She smacked into the center pole between the doors. It clanged loud enough that the other three employees all turned toward her.
Azura sighed, rubbing the back of her head. “Curse is still active, folks,” she said while still walking backward.
“Azura—” Crew started forward, but by then, she’d fallen off the curb into a tangled heap in the parking lot.
Evan and two of the other employees followed Crew out, but she waved them off while Katrina and Holly tried to get her back on her feet. Crew strode over and lifted her off the ground, cradling her next to his chest. “You probably have a freaking concussion now.”
She touched the back of her head gently, nearly elbowing him in the face as she did so. He dodged out of the way, his sister snickering and Holly trying to see the damage, but she was barely tall enough to reach Crew’s collarbone, let alone the back of Azura’s head. “No blood,” Azura said, somehow optimistic despite her epic crash and burn. “The curse is weakening!”
“Dear sweet heavens,” Crew murmured. “This is going to be a long week.”
SAFELY back at Azura’s apartment, Crew finally felt the situation was secure enough to check his email. Azura was armed with an ice pack, a huge blanket and hot chocolate. Katrina fussed over her like she was a lost puppy while Holly went to get ready for work.
Abe from statistics hadn’t responded yet to Crew’s email, so he checked all his social media to see if anyone had a hit on the mystery guy.
Nothing.
Well, not nothing. There were a lot of people who said they’d seen him around and several others wishing them good luck, but no one who actually knew where to find him.
“I’m off to work. Don’t leave the house until I get back unless Crew or Katrina is with you, understand?” Holly tugged her elf hat down low on her ears, looking for all the world like a legitimate, highly adorable Santa helper. She kissed Azura on the forehead and gave her a stern look before she backed away, pointing at Crew and Katrina both. “You think I’m kidding. I’m not. She’ll die out there alone.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Azura sighed, waving as Holly disappeared out the door. Crew could swear she left behind the smell of fresh snow and gingerbread and the sound of bells wafting through the apartment. It was baffling that Azura, the epitome of the grinch, was roommates and best friends with the very embodiment of Christmas spirit.
“So, who’s next on our list? Any word from statistics guy?” Katrina sat gingerly on th
e couch next to Azura, as if afraid Azura’s curse would spread to the cushions and the whole thing might collapse and swallow them both whole.
Crew checked his email again. “Nothing from Abe. I was going to call Mom and see if she has Carter’s parents’ number. We can call them to get in touch with Carter.”
Katrina nodded. “I’m on it. Does Abe have Instagram? Facebook? Any other way to stalk him and/or find out where he is? It worked really well for Holly’s Evan. That guy was weird, by the way.”
“You see why I didn’t kiss him the first time. Stupid mistletoe.” Azura scrubbed at her mouth and Crew would have given anything to be her hand that close to those lips.
Yes. He was officially losing his mind.
He turned to his phone while he paced the apartment, searching for any sign of Abe anywhere. Katrina scrolled through her phone, as well, randomly looking up to check on Azura.
His sister amused him.
“Your apartment is so cute. Did you decorate it?”
Azura nodded. “Holly is an amazing cook. The kitchen is her domain. She leaves the rest of the apartment to me.”
“I work with a lot of the designers for our magazine. You’d fit right in,” Katrina said distractedly, most of her attention on her phone, but Crew sucked in a breath, hardly daring to breathe. Azura hated their magazine.
She met his eyes and her cheeks flushed. “That’s so sweet of you to say,” she said softly, looking away from Crew in shame.
Katrina shrugged. “If you ever wanted to change your major, I could hook you up with some internships.”
Azura smiled. “It’s just a hobby. Math is my one true love.”
Switching from mechanical engineering to design was about as extreme as she could get.
“Math. A worthy calling.” Katrina sighed, flopping back against the couch. “Nothing. No Abe from statistics, no Carter from home, no Mystery Man leads. This is ridiculous. But don’t you worry, Z. We will find them and break this curse. You’ll see.”
Azura blinked, scrubbed gingerly at her eyes and it took Crew several seconds to realize she was fighting tears. In all the time he’d spent with her and all the things he’d watched her go through, she’d never once cried. “Why are you people so nice? No offense, but you are the exact thing that my mother said was the root of all evil. And you’re nice. It’s like my whole life is a lie.”