Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Trevor scratches his chin, then leans in the doorway, tucking his thumbs into his pockets, taking me back to the first time I saw him, which was in baseball pants, and shew. Hot flash. Why are men so attractive when they stand like that?
And why do I keep forgetting that this man is my brother’s best friend? While it totally earns Trevor points for having good taste in friends—Jude is pretty awesome—I’m aware of the fact that he sees me as nothing more than an overly jolly pest.
“Never mind,” I mutter. I switch my attention back to my computer. “None of my business. Sorry.”
“My parents were—are party planners.”
I don’t immediately see the connection. I also don’t know what my face is saying while I try to find the link, but whatever it is, it’s apparently amusing. A ghost of a smile crosses his features in the dim light.
It’s a trick, I tell myself. Definitely a trick of the light.
“They made sure everyone else’s holidays were picture-perfect,” he explains with far more patience than he probably feels with me today, but that reminds me of the guy I always thought he was until I moved in here with him. “As soon as I was old enough to help, that’s what I did. Every year. Made sure strangers loved their parties, only to have Christmas day roll around and spend it watching my parents nap all day while I played by myself with whatever last-minute gifts they found for Old Saint Nick to bring.”
“Oh, Trevor, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs with more movement in his good shoulder than his pitching arm. “It’s all commercial bullshit, and I got more than a lot of kids. Doesn’t usually annoy me this much. Maybe I’m getting grinchy in my old age.”
Or maybe his injury and coming to terms with retirement from baseball is making the holidays worse for him this year. “Lots of people struggle with the holidays.”
“You don’t.”
“Jude says I was born with a candy cane in my mouth.”
“He failed to mention that part when he said you were a good roommate.”
I grimace despite recognizing that he’s trying to make a joke.
And then I start to wonder if my brother knew this would happen, and if he failed to mention to me that he wanted to make sure Trevor wasn’t alone this holiday season.
That’s totally something Jude would’ve done.
“Are you seeing your parents this year?” He’s from…somewhere in the Midwest? I can’t recall off the top of my head.
He shakes his head. “We don’t do the holidays.”
“Never?”
“Busy time of year for them.”
“They still work?”
“They were born with holiday party planner hats on their heads, and they will die with their holiday party planner hats on their heads. They still have a mission in life.”
Hello, bitterness.
But at least I kinda get it now. I force myself to sit still and not launch myself at him to hug his pain away. “So what do you do on the big holidays?”
He shrugs again, the neighbor’s lights making him look like hunchbacked Grinch Trevor. “Just another day.”
I slouch deeper into the couch. “I guess it’s that for me too this year.”
He sighs.
I sigh.
And then I sit up. “What if we both do something different?”
He doesn’t sigh again, but I can see him holding it at the ready. Even his arms are twitching like he wants to scrub his hands over his face and wipe away this whole conversation.
“You hate Christmas. My family’s all busy this year, and no amount of trees or cookies or music will make up for missing them. So what if we do our own made-up holiday? Like…Dogmas. Or Game-ukah. Or Prankza.”
My computer screen times out and blinks off since I haven’t moved the mouse in too long, plunging the whole room into darkness.
I reach into my blanket and flick the switch to light it up, because yes, I have a light-up Christmas blanket.
I know.
I know.
Trevor’s cheek twitches. “Did you just say Game-ukah like Hannukah for games?”
“Yes.”
He gives in and scrubs a hand over his face.
Called it.
“Or we can pretend it’s summer. Camp out in here for a day at the beach while I read romance novels and you watch Baywatch and pretend you’re gawking at all the pretty ladies.”
He stares at me.
I don’t know if that’s a stare of this is even worse, or if it’s a stare of she wins, send her back to the kitchen to bake more.
“Um, we could have ourselves a grumpy little Christmas? I can pretend to be super grinchy, and we can sing pop songs but all in grunts, like Zeus’s brother did at the holiday party they had last weekend, and eat s’mores and pretend it’s the middle of summer, and trade birthday presents that are all awful, terrible presents that our aunts and uncles who don’t know us at all would’ve given us?”