Exmas Read online

  Wild eyes. His and mine.

  Held tongues. His and mine.

  “This can’t happen again.” I break the silence and smooth my hands over my skirt and put my desk back together. “I don’t get involved with people I work with.”

  Reed straightens his tie. “Sure, Joa. Whatever you say.”

  An hour ago we were poring over spreadsheets, sharing my computer monitor. He kept reaching over me, his arm brushing mine, his intoxicating cologne invading my space like he owned it.

  Every time he leaned in a little closer, my heart sped a little faster.

  There’s no denying he’s unfairly attractive. Tall. Runner’s body. Chiseled jaw. Blue eyes that damn near shimmer when he looks my way.

  And the way he struts around the office, so confident, so sure of himself. It both irritates and turns me on—and always at the same time.

  I’ve only been here three weeks, and already he’s sparked not one but two arguments with me in front of the entire team at our weekly sit-down meeting.

  I’m not sure if my intelligence intimidates him or if he’s trying to impress me with his own. Either way, if I spend more than an hour with him, I find myself wanting to slap the smirk off his face and wondering what it’d be like to kiss his full lips.

  Tonight, I got my answer.

  But it can’t happen again.

  And it won’t.

  4

  Reed

  I punch the six-digit code into the lock at the apartment I AirBnB’d for my trip. The code box beeps a second later and the lock releases with a metallic clunk. I could’ve rented a suite at the Four Seasons, but there’s something sad and depressing about staying in a hotel—alone—over the holidays. Plus, this place is two blocks from the office.

  Pushing the door open, I roll my luggage in and let it shut behind me before getting the lights.

  The couple who own the place are spending the month in Istanbul, visiting family for the holidays, so why the hell they’d decorate the place for Christmas is beyond me, but sure enough, there are garlands and silver tinsel and faux trees and chunky knit stockings and little ceramic snowman figurines shoved and crammed in every corner of this place—so not what was pictured.

  “Nice.” I groan, unloading my pockets onto the kitchen counter. Billfold. Keys from home, because I feel naked without them. Phone. Some loose change.

  I’m quite certain that under all this holiday cheer is a pretty decent place, though it’s hard to appreciate all the marble and hardwood and high-end furnishings with all this green and red elf vomit clouding up the view.

  I take a look around, familiarizing myself with the layout, before unpacking my things in the bedroom. The owners have cleared out a few drawers and half a closet for my stay, and the bathroom is spotless, so there’s that.

  Kicking my shoes off, I make myself comfortable on their four-poster king-sized bed and reach for the remote. Scanning the listings, I find nothing but shitty Christmas movies and bad reality show re-runs. If I were back in LA, I’d be meeting up for drinks with friends or trying to hit some golf balls while there’s still daylight, but it’s late here now. And dark. And I don’t know a single person in the area besides the one who wants nothing to do with me, so … Christmas Vacation it is.

  My phone chimes with a text from my younger sister, Bijou, asking what the plans are for Christmas this year. The last eight years, my parents have booked solo trips to places like Tahiti and the Maldives or St. Croix, leaving the two of us to fend for ourselves—which is fine. We’re grown adults pushing thirty, but somehow that’s morphed into my sister expecting me to make plans for the two of us, and if I’m being honest, Christmas is just another day to me.

  New Year’s Eve though, that’s my night.

  Expensive drinks, a beautiful girl to kiss at midnight, and a party so big it spans the entire world.

  I rub my heavy eyes and read her message again before deciding to call her. She answers in the middle of the second ring before converting the call to FaceTime.

  “Reeeeeed,” she says, adjusting her phone on some kind of stand. Her face is covered in some avocado-looking facemask and I almost want to tell her she looks like The Grinch when she smiles, her big, white teeth contrasting against the bright, garish green. “You get my text?”

  “Obviously. That’s why I’m calling.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Anyway. What’s the plan for Thursday? Should we do brunch somewhere?”

  That’s become our tradition the last few years. Brunch and a matinee. Like we’re some old married couple and not a brother and sister who grew up with all the advantages life had to offer except for a true sense of family togetherness.

  If it was free, it was never of any value to Redford and Bebe York.

  “I’m in Chicago,” I say.

  Bijou blinks. “What? Chicago? Why?”

  “Work.”

  “Your boss made you travel over the holidays? What kind of—”

  “Bij, I am the boss,” I say. “I needed to take care of a few things that came up this past week. They couldn’t wait. I’m sorry. Raincheck?”

  Her nose wrinkles through her drying, flaking mask. “You can’t raincheck Christmas. Who does that? Maybe I can come out there and see you?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “What, are you spending the holidays with someone special?” she asks in a teasing, kid-sister tone. “I didn’t think you were dating anyone.”

  “No. And I’m not.”

  “Then why are you forcing me to spend Christmas Day alone like a loser?” she asks. “Mom and Dad are in freaking Fiji right now, soaking up the sun and swimming in clear water, and you’re in some Winter Wonderland, and I’m just supposed to sit back here in LA and not care about the fact that everyone forgot about me this year?”

  “No one forgot about you,” I say with a chuckle. Growing up, Bijou put the Drama in Drama Queen and even at twenty-six, she’s yet to shed that title.

  “I’m going to have to stay in that day,” she says. “Like a shut-in.”

  “Order some takeout. Watch some movies. Hell, read a damn book for once. You’ll be fine.”

  “Can we at least FaceTime that day?” she asks.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good.” Bijou smiles, making the mask around her mouth flake. “Ugh. I need to wash this off. It’s starting to itch. Anyway, what are you going to do that day? You never said.”

  I shrug. “Haven’t given it much thought.”

  The movie on the TV goes to commercial, and I climb off the bed. Not feeling the Griswold’s tonight and I need to unpack anyway, so I might as well.

  “Would you kill me if I just … showed up in Chicago that day?” Bijou carries her phone to the bathroom, and the sound of running water fills the background.

  “Yes.”

  Her smile fades. “Seriously, Reed, why are you acting like you’re on some secret mission or something? Stop being weird.”

  “I’m tired,” I lie. Kind of. “Been traveling all day. I need to unpack. Order some pizza.”

  “See. You are being weird. The Reed I know wouldn’t stay in on a Friday night.”

  “I’ll FaceTime you Thursday, all right?” I ask before ending the call.

  “You really suck, you know that?” she asks. If I know my sister, and I do, she’s going to hold this against me for the rest of our lives, just like she’s never let me forget about the time I chased her with a Super Soaker filled with hot tap water on a ninety-degree day. “Love you, jerk face.”

  “Same.” I hang up and retrieve my suitcase from the entryway, wheeling it back to the bedroom and working the lock on the zipper.

  Though I’d hardly call myself nostalgic and I tend to leave the past in the past, I was strategic in my packing for this trip.

  The mint green tie I wore the first time I had sex with Joa after a late night in the office.

  The Creed Pure White cologne I used to wear that drove her wild
and made it impossible for her to keep her hands off me.

  The Burberry watch she picked out for me during one of our “sex-cations” in Saint Thomas.

  Come Monday morning when I strut into the Chicago office, I’m going to be a walking, talking blast from the past, and I can’t fucking wait to see the look on her face when she sees me.

  I chuckle to myself as I hang up my navy suit. I bet she’s wracking her brain, trying to figure out why I’d come all the way out here on such short notice. And knowing the class act that she is, I’m sure she intends to be professional and keep her distance and pretend like we didn’t have sex seven times in one weekend in Napa two Septembers ago.

  But I can’t pretend. Couldn’t if I tried. Truth be told, she’s all I’ve thought about since the moment she walked out of the LA office and never came back.

  As much as I’ve wanted to write her off, as much as I’ve spent the past year convincing myself she was nothing but a fuck buddy who meant nothing to me, I can’t any longer. If she meant nothing to me, I wouldn’t be so hung up on her after all this time. Pining for the one thing I can’t have, the one thing I never knew I wanted until it was too late.

  I know why she left.

  I know what she thinks of me.

  I know what I did and how it looks.

  But she doesn’t know the truth. And quite frankly, I’m not in a position to share that with her … yet.

  If I close my eyes, I can picture her crystalline baby blues and feel the silky soft waves of her dark-as-midnight hair in my hands. I can almost smell the sugar-sweet softness of her skin, can almost taste the honey musk of her arousal on my tongue.

  But it’s her voice I miss the most. The Liv Tyler-esque way she’d speak. Her words slow and intentional when we’d talk, like she had all the time in the world and I was the only person worthy of her undivided attention. No one else mattered. The outside world? Non-existent. And she could bring the most intense blanket of calmness to the most chaotic of days.

  In the year that’s passed, I’ve yet to meet another human being like Joa Jolivet. But that’s okay because I refuse to settle for cheap knockoffs when only the original will do.

  I hang the last of my suits in the closet before grabbing the final item from my luggage: a silver wrapped box tied with a blue satin bow—the one she’d tossed in the trash last December, unopened.

  If all goes as planned this week, if I can get her to understand … then maybe she’ll finally get a chance to see what’s inside. And if she likes it?

  It’ll change everything.

  Past

  Reed

  The first time is never the last time—at least not in my experience.

  They always come back for more.

  Joa buttons her blouse, standing before my office window, backlit by the lights of downtown LA and a moonlit sky.

  Her dark hair covers her pale blue eyes and she dresses like she’s got somewhere else to be.

  “It’s the fifth time in two weeks,” I say.

  “And your point?” She looks up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “If this is going to be a regular occurrence, we need to set some ground rules.”

  “Like?”

  “This thing we’re doing, it’s monogamous,” I say. “But we’re not dating. We’re not a couple.”

  “Good, because we’d probably murder each other before our first anniversary.” She sniffs, searching my office floor for her heels.

  “No selfies. That’s boyfriend/girlfriend territory. And apartments are off-limits. You don’t come to mine, I don’t come to yours.”

  “Okay. Can I ask why?”

  “Just … trust me. If this little arrangement is going to work, it’s just the way it has to be. You start hanging out at each other’s places and next thing you know, the lines begin to blur and you have to cut and run before it turns into a full-blown relationship.”

  “Sounds like you speak from experience.”

  “I just want this to work.” I swipe one of her heels off the top of my desk, handing it to her. “Don’t you?”

  “So are we only ever going to hook up here? In the office?” She ignores my question in favor of one of her own. “I mean, if our places are off-limits, this whole thing could get stale quick.”

  I chuff. “Joa, I promise, nothing about this will ever be stale. And I’m more than happy to find us some other options—just no hotels.”

  Her nose wrinkles. “Why not?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “I’m sure we could find something nice.”

  “No,” I say. “That’s a hard limit.”

  “Hotels are a hard limit for you?” Her arms fold across her chest and her head cocks as she studies me. I bet she thinks I’m teasing. “For real, Reed?”

  I check my watch. It’s almost nine o’clock. Seems like lately we’ve been finding every excuse to stay late and bury ourselves in one of our offices until the place is empty and the cleaning crew has long gone home.

  “Maybe we can mix it up a little,” I say. “Once a month, we can take a trip somewhere for a long weekend.”

  Joa nods. “It’d be a way burn off some of this OT we’ve been racking up.”

  “I have credit card miles. We could go anywhere you want.”

  “That sounds like boyfriend/girlfriend territory.”

  “Not if we’re careful.”

  5

  Joa

  “Aunt Joa, can we watch another movie?” My six-year-old niece, Emmeline, clasps her hands together, a fleece Minnie Mouse blanket covering her lap and remnants of this morning’s sticky rolls on her rosy cheeks.

  “Can we, can we?” her twin sister, Ellison, joins along, her big blue eyes as wide as they are round.

  I know my sister and brother-in-law have strict screen time rules in their house, but he’s at work and she’s wrapping gifts at our parents’ house and I’m in charge, so …

  “Sure, why not?” I grab the remote off the coffee table and navigate through Netflix until we get to some Angelina Ballerina movie and they tell me to stop.

  “You’re the best aunt in the whole world!” Emmeline wraps her arms around my neck.

  “Except that one time when you made us go to bed early,” Ellison says, crossing her arms and pouting her lower lip.

  “It was Daylight Saving Time,” I say.

  “It was still light out,” she says.

  “Watch your rat movie,” I tease, reaching across Emmeline and roughing Ellison’s wild blonde mane.

  “She’s a mouse!” they both yell.

  “My bad.” I lift my palms in the air, pretending to surrender, and then I head to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee.

  I couldn’t get comfortable last night, couldn’t stop tossing and turning. And my mind wouldn’t shut off for two seconds. I popped a Benadryl around nine. By midnight it still hadn’t kicked in, so I brewed a cup of Sleepy Time Tea and chewed a melatonin tab out of desperation. I managed to get approximately four hours of sleep, but now I’m feeling worse than if I’d have downed a bottle of wine and passed out. I’d still feel hungover, but the process might have been a little more enjoyable.

  I grab a cinnamon dolce pod from the Keurig carousel and pop it in. Sliding my phone from my pocket, I aimlessly tap on apps. Texts and emails are all caught up. Social media is same old random nothingness.

  My coffee finishes, the machine squirting out the last few drops in good faith, and I return to the sofa beside my nieces. Outside, the wind blows hard against the house, whistling through the windows and creating near white-out conditions every time there’s a gust, but the moments when it settles, it’s the most beautiful thing with some of the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen.

  Taking a sip, I wrap my palms around the mug and think about whether or not I want to turn the fireplace on. It’s gas, and Cole can be such a cheap ass sometimes. Never mind that he’s an industrial engineer who commutes to work in a Mercedes SUV, but tha
t’s none of my business … or at least that’s what my sister tells me when I tease her about it.

  The girls are holding hands, glued to Angelina Ballerina with giant smiles on their faces, and it’s quite possibly one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life, so I grab my phone and snap a picture, sending it to my parents, Neve and her husband, and my brother, Logan. When I’m finished, I add the picture to my E + E album on my phone … only instead of closing out of the app, my thumb hovers over another album: RY.

  Reed York.

  Why I haven’t brought myself to delete them yet, I’m not sure, but there they are. All five hundred pictures from our numerous weekend romps and sex-cations. I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world that I kept them. There are no pictures of the two of us. Selfies were always against our self-made rules.

  Thumbing through the album, my gaze lingers on pristine beaches, rolling vineyards, and cliché snaps of some of the most amazing dinners I’ve had the privilege of enjoying.

  And while Reed might not be in any of the photos, his presence is undeniable. Invisibly imprinted, almost. It’s just … there.

  The screech and rattle of the garage doors signal that someone’s home, and a minute later, my sister strolls in, dropping her bag and keys on the kitchen counter. The girls fling their shared blanket off their laps and run into her arms like they didn’t just see her a couple of hours ago, and I pause the movie before joining them in the kitchen.

  “How were they?” Neve asks, hoisting Ellison on one hip with practiced ease.

  “Do you even have to ask that question at this point?” I wink, taking a sip of my coffee as I lean against the island.

  “Mom wants to know if you’re bringing that guy over for Christmas dinner.”

  My brows rise before narrowing. “That’s random. And what guy?”

  “The one you were dating.”

  “Jeremiah? The one I went on two dates with last month before he blew me off after Thanksgiving so he could go Black Friday shopping with his ex-girlfriend? That guy?” I scoff. “Please feel free to inform our mother that no, I will not be bringing that guy to our Christmas dinner.”