Page 74 of Not Home Alone

TWENTY-THREE

MERRILY

Grant Moody is being weird.

He was so nice last night, ever since the winery. Always smiling when he looks at me, and not in that cocky Yeah, I’m hot, I know you want me kind of way. In a Yeah, I think you’re hot and I don’t care if you know that I want you kind of way.

I must be even better at sex than I thought I was! Oh my god—what if my vagina is magic?! What if it has the power to transform dickheads into sweet guys with loving, grateful penises?

He suggested we sleep together last night when we got home from the ski resort. Actually sleep together. In the same bed. And we did. He wasn’t here when I woke up, but I vaguely remember him kissing the top of my head and telling me he was going down to the kitchen.

I care about him so much. Lines are getting blurred. We like each other, but I’m getting so confused. I’m happy he’s not being a dickhead, but there’s no way things can work out for us after the holidays. I know that. But I wasn’t ready to hear it last night. That’s why I shut him up, as soon as he started talking about when the two weeks are over, by sitting on his cock.

I might not be brave enough to ask him if this thing between us could ever be more, but I do have the courage and the good sense to tell the man to whip his dick out when I don’t want to talk about our impending fake breakup.

I’m still in bed, in my room, stretching and yawning and finally getting used to waking up without an alarm. That is another thing I can’t get used to. But it’s my Christmas vacation! This is what people do when they’re on vacation. I’m such a badass, I didn’t even respond to my boss’s texts last night. Because Grant highly recommended I shouldn’t, unless she was telling me she loved my proposal and wanted to give me a promotion. I agreed. And I still haven’t responded. Take that, Karla!

I feel my breaths getting more and more shallow as I think about what life will be like for me when I go back to Ann Arbor. I won’t be the same person I was when I left there, so I can’t even imagine going back to that job. I’m not sure that I’d want to even if Karla tells me I can start using my theater skills more.

Just as I’m reaching for my phone, there’s a confident, and not at all cocky, knock at the door.

“You awake?” Grant asks, from the other side of it.

“I am. Good morning! I’ll be down in a minute!” I sit up, combing my fingers through my hair and checking my breath, which is surprisingly wonderful because I am a devoted flosser.

“I brought you something.”

“Is it an erection? Because I’d like to shower before receiving it.”

“It’s not, but I could add that to the menu in about thirty seconds as soon as I see you.”

“I’m still wearing my gingerbread pajamas, so I doubt it. Come in.”

He opens the door, holding one side of a serving tray and resting the other side of it against his abs. His bare abs. The ones that are several inches above the waistband of his sweatpants. Abs. He’s bringing me abs and sweatpants and messy hair and stubble. I am not ready for this. “Morning, beautiful,” he says, without a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“Mmmpffffhuhhhh” is the noise I make, as I stare at his bare feet. His feet are gorgeous. They’re sculpted. He must do hot guy foot workouts or something. Are foot squats a thing? He probably has a personal foot trainer in Manhattan.

This is insane. This will never work. I have feet like a cartoon character. My vagina might be magical, but my feet are fat. Of course this could never really work between us. People say things when they’re kissing each other. It doesn’t mean they aren’t true, but it also doesn’t mean it changes everything. This is transactional, with benefits. Suck it up, Tucker! Suck. It. Up.

“You okay?” He places the tray on my lap, over the comforter, sits down facing me, and leans in to kiss me on the mouth.

“Yes. Back to being shirtless again, huh?”

“Would you like me to put a shirt on?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Because…” He glances down, and I follow his gaze and realize that I’m fondling his pecs.

“Oh,” I say. I would remove my hands from his pecs, but I don’t want to. “Just making sure they still feel as good as they look. Yup. All good.” I wrestle my hands away and finally look at the breakfast tray he’s brought me. Warm, buttered waffles with the perfect amount of maple syrup, and hot chocolate with a candy cane resting against the side of the mug. The mug is one of the crazy ones from the back room of the Barn. It says “Most likely to be on the naughty list” and there’s a grinning cartoon squirrel wearing a Santa hat. It’s very illogical, but almost everything about the way we celebrate Christmas is illogical, and that’s kind of what I love about it. We tell children to avoid stranger danger, but to leave out milk and cookies for the stranger who’s going to sneak into their house at night through the chimney. We carefully wrap gifts with pretty paper that’s going to be torn apart and thrown away. We pretend to be dating the person we spent ten years hating to save our dad’s failing Christmas store, and then question why that person is making you breakfast after you had sex with him on top of a fake mountain.

I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I thoroughly enjoyed our remaining time together. “This is beautiful and perfect, thank you.”

“So are you,” he says, again, without irony.

And I mean, it would be rude not to kiss him and paw at his bare chest when he’s being this sweet. After not being rude to him for a solid minute or two, he reminds me, between kisses, that my waffles are getting cold. So I eat my buttered waffles. This is what love tastes like to me. It’s such a familiar taste, but it’s been so long since someone has made them for me. And it has been never since a gorgeous shirtless someone with a marvelous penis has presented them to me while wearing sweatpants.

I kiss Grant, mouth full, heart full, and only a little hesitant.