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Christmas Bubble: a standalone age gap MM Christmas romance, page 1

 

Christmas Bubble: a standalone age gap MM Christmas romance
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Christmas Bubble: a standalone age gap MM Christmas romance


  CHRISTMAS BUBBLE

  ANA ASHLEY

  COPYRIGHT

  Christmas Bubble

  © 2022 by Ana Ashley

  First Edition: Nov 2022

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopy, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Christmas Bubble is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Rhys, Ethereal Design

  Editor: Abbie Nicole

  Join Ana’s Facebook Group Café RoMMance for exclusive content, and to learn more about her latest books at anawritesmm.com!

  DEDICATION

  To all the larger-than-life and kind-hearted people of this world.

  To all the Bubbles.

  May all your Christmas wishes come true.

  Ana

  x

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About Christmas Bubble

  1. Coach

  2. Bubble

  3. Coach

  4. Bubble

  5. Coach

  6. Bubble

  7. Coach

  8. Bubble

  9. Coach

  10. Bubble

  11. Coach

  12. Bubble

  13. Coach

  14. Bubble

  15. Coach

  16. Bubble

  17. Coach

  18. Bubble

  19. Coach

  20. Bubble

  21. Coach

  22. Bubble

  23. Coach

  24. Bubble

  25. Coach

  26. Bubble

  27. Coach

  28. Bubble

  29. Coach

  30. Bubble

  31. Coach

  32. Bubble

  Also by Ana Ashley

  Who is Ana Ashley

  ABOUT CHRISTMAS BUBBLE

  A Christmas snowstorm.

  Two opposites that most definitely attract.

  Only one bed.

  When the man of your absolute dreams slams their mouth into yours, there is only one course of action. Yours truly–that’s me–has broken it down into four easy steps for your convenience.

  You're welcome.

  Step one: make sure he really is attached to you. Lips to lips. You're a clam. Do not let go.

  Step two: climb him like a tree.

  Step three: thank your past self for all the squats that gave you those thunder thighs.

  Step four: enjoy every second of that kiss before said (maybe-not-so-straight) man realizes what he's doing and has a freakout.

  Christmas Bubble is a low angst, standalone, Christmas novel featuring a petite but larger-than-life cheerleader, an older demisexual football coach and a winter cabin by the lake with only one bed.

  Will this be the season when all their wishes will come true?

  1

  COACH

  Do one thing that scares you each day.

  Start a conversation with a stranger.

  Wear your team’s uniform and sit with the other team.

  Blow Bubble.

  The only one stopping you is yourself.

  “That’s not right. It should be blow bubbles. Because you know, you don’t just blow one bubble, right? You blow lots of bubbles.”

  I swivel my chair to see one of my star players staring at the motivational poster on the wall behind my desk. A poster I didn’t hang, but I one hundred percent know who did.

  “Jackson, how can I help?”

  The kid seems uncharacteristically lost for words as he takes his eyes off the wall and looks at me, fidgeting with his hands.

  “My um…mom said that if you don’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving next week, you could come to our place since you’re kinda new in town and all.”

  I rub the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes.

  “I appreciate the invite. Thank your mom for me, but I have other plans already.”

  “But the guys said—”

  I raise my brow, and he gets the message. I don’t care what anyone says. Unless they have access to my personal diary, they don’t know a thing. Such as, I really have no other plans but to put a frozen pizza in the oven and drink a few beers as I watch football on TV.

  Jackson looks like he’s about to say something else but thinks better of it and goes back into the locker room. I catch one of the gym teachers staring at me and give him the finger.

  He laughs. “Dude, this is the third invite for Thanksgiving that you’ve declined. Are you wearing some special cologne or something?”

  “It’s the fourth, and no, no cologne,” I reply, hoping he’ll leave me alone to work on the lineup for the Thanksgiving Day game.

  “I’m just sayin’, all these invites. What’s all that about?”

  I groan. “How should I know? I’m new around here, remember?”

  He gets up to leave our shared office. “Ah, of course, the welcome committee. Man, those were the good times. I remember someone dropping off a casserole or a homemade cake almost daily when I moved here. You should make the most of it before you’re the new old news. Although you’re like a movie star here. The former Marinos coach here in Windsor coaching our kids? You can milk it for all you got.”

  “Not really interested.”

  He closes the door behind him, leaving me on my own. I share the office with the gym teachers and the other coaches, which makes for much tighter quarters than the office I was used to at the Marinos.

  Not that I mind my colleagues. It’s just an adjustment I wasn’t ready for when I upended my whole life and said goodbye to my career in San Diego to start over in Windsor, a small town in middle-of-nowhere Connecticut.

  It was your choice, Riley. Live with it.

  I stare at my phone and the piling notifications I’m ignoring from my parents. Who’d have thought that at the grand old age of forty-six, I’d still be playing hide and seek with them like a teenager in trouble?

  The problem is I know exactly why they’re calling. They want to know if I’m going back to the West Coast for Thanksgiving, and especially if I’m going to try to save my twenty-three-year marriage.

  They don’t know why Mel and I divorced, and there’s no reason to destroy yet another relationship just because mine failed.

  Mel has always been close to my parents, especially since she lost hers. Despite what happened with us, I can’t bring myself to take that away from her.

  I put thoughts of Mel, my parents, and my old life aside and grab my heavy coat.

  Winter in Connecticut is much less kind than in California. Something else that’s changed.

  What made you think this was a good idea, Riley? I ask myself for the millionth time as I walk past the team in the locker room. We still practice most days, even though there are no official games until the new year, apart from the Thanksgiving Day friendly, of course.

  It keeps the kids focused and out of trouble. Or maybe it’s just good for my sanity to focus on something else rather than the fuck-up that is my life.

  “Hey, Coach, have you seen this?” one kid calls as I reach the other end of the locker room.

  “Seen what?” Even as I ask, I see what they’re talking about. All over the walls are sheets of paper covered in googly eyes, and right above them, it says Earthquake Detection Kit.

  The kids are all jumping around, trying to make the eyes move.

  “Get back to your showers and get dressed. It stinks like a locker room in here,” I say to get them moving.

  “This is a locker room, Coach,” another kid points out.

  “It doesn’t need to smell like one. Now stop messing around before I get those things taken down.”

  They all scramble, and I smile as I walk out the door. I miss the Marinos’ locker-room antics, but these kids can give the twenty-something-year-olds a run for their money.

  They are more focused and hardworking than my generation ever was. One good reason I am happy to have made this move.

  There’s only one person who could be responsible for the posters. The same person I try to avoid like the plague. A fruitless exercise since he seems to have taken it upon himself to be up in my business any time he wants.

  Case in point, right now…

  Even though there’s a fresh layer of snow on the ground, the coach of the cheerleading team, Bubble—whose real name I don’t know—leans against my car.

  He looks like a human burrito, wrapped to his eyeballs in layers of coats, multiple scarves, and two knitted beanies, one of which has Christmas trees all over it.

  “How may I help you…?” I say, just like I do every time I speak to him.

  “Bubble. Just Bubble,” he says, giving the B a more pronounced sound and scanning me from head to toe.

  His green eyes are so big and deep. They’re the color of the rainforest. Weirdly, I’ve never before given anyone’s eye color a second thought.

  “I’m sorry. I c
an’t call you that.”

  “Why not? Everyone else does.”

  I see the challenge in his eyes, but I refuse to take the bait.

  “I’m not everyone else, and I prefer to call people by their names.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Anyway, did you like it?” he asks, changing the subject.

  “Like what?”

  “The present I left for you, of course.” He frowns and crosses his arms as if he’s annoyed that I don’t immediately know what he’s talking about. Which, of course, is bullshit.

  “It’s hard to say which one because two weeks ago, the wall behind my desk was bare, and now I’m hard-pressed to remember the color of the paint beneath all those posters.”

  “If we can’t find our own inspiration, it’s okay to find it in others.”

  I chuckle. “What makes you think I need inspiration?”

  “We all need a little inspiration every once in a while.” I don’t know what to make of the way he smiles at me. He seems to genuinely want me to believe all the words he’s stuck on the wall behind my desk. He takes a box out of his gym bag. “Here. I made this for you.”

  “Why?”

  He huffs and mumbles under his breath as he holds out the box, “You didn’t need to bake the most delicious cream-filled Shaabiyat just for me, Bubble. But I’ll take it anyway and devour every bite of your specially-made gastronomical orgy.”

  I stare at him and then burst into laughter. “Did you just say gastronomical orgy?”

  “Open the box, and you’ll find out.”

  I do, and I’m immediately teased with the scent of orange, rose, and buttery, flakey pastry.

  “What is this?”

  “I told you. It’s Shaabiyat. I saw the recipe on a blog.”

  “Shay-what?”

  “Never mind. Have a bite and tell me if it doesn’t taste like the swinging sixties are making a return in your mouth.”

  I raise a brow. “What do you know about the sixties? You’re a kid.”

  He shakes his head, kissing his teeth. “Oh, Coach, Coach, Coach…I could show you aaall the ways in which I’m definitely not a kid. Just say the word, and I’ll give you a free ticket to the Bubble's Privates Member Club.”

  I snort. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  His gaze runs again from my eyes to the tips of my shoes. My winter coat suddenly feels too hot as Bubble’s eyes travel to mine again. I feel exposed in ways I can’t explain or understand.

  “Am I?” he asks in a sultry voice, and I swear my dick reacts.

  What the fuck?

  Maybe it’s the cold. It’s getting to my head.

  “I should get home,” I say, pointing at my car.

  He moves around me, leaving a waft of strawberry scent in the air.

  “Think of me when you’re licking the cream off…” He nods to the box in my hand. He walks toward the building for his cheerleading practice with strangely compelling confidence.

  The kid can’t even be thirty yet, but he walks and talks like he’s sussed out the world and found it ripe for his taking.

  2

  BUBBLE

  I clap my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, my supple cupcakes, let’s nail this pyramid like you’re a soft-serve ice cream.”

  “Melting in the sun, leaving your hands all creamy and sticky?” one kid says.

  The entire team laughs. Even Justin, the assistant coach. I elbow him, and he snorts.

  “No, we want a good sturdy base, a nice swirl, and those perfect cherries on top. Girls, are you ready?”

  They get into formation, and I press play on the stereo. Music with a steady beat fills the large room. This routine isn’t new, but I tweaked the ending. I know it’ll push them a little out of their comfort zone, but I have faith. We’re focusing on pyramid lifts today, which will be tough on them.

  It takes the full practice to get it right, but they do it. Not that I had any doubt.

  A year ago, this high school didn’t even have a cheerleading team. And now they’re well on their way to reaching the level needed to compete at the cheerleading high school nationals if they want to.

  “Gather round my little muffins of amazingness,” I call out to them as I turn the music off.

  They all sit on the mat, slouching against each other, gathering their breath. Every single one of them looks exhausted and exhilarated. The best feeling in the whole world. After good sex, of course. But I can’t tell them that, or I’d be fired.

  “Okay, can you tell me what you need to work on?”

  “We’re still a bit wobbly,” Terry says.

  I nod. “How do we fix that?”

  Everyone looks around as if the person next to them holds the answer, which they do.

  “You’re a team, and you need to trust your teammates one hundred percent. Mary, Selina, Hannah, and Petra, the guys will hold you up, and they’ll catch you if you fall. But if you don’t trust them, then you won’t fall right, which means you might do something that’ll hurt them. If they stop trusting you, they’ll be afraid of what you might do when you’re up there. You all see how wrong it can go?”

  The team nods.

  “One team. One hundred percent trust. Now tell me what went well,” I say. “Can anyone tell me what went well?”

  “No one fell and broke their neck,” Sasha says.

  “True, but let’s go for something a little less dramatic.”

  “I didn’t have to call the nurse,” Justin mutters next to me.

  “Come on, people. A year ago, you couldn’t do a cartwheel, and look at you nailing a twenty-person pyramid. Now, can I have a cheer for that?” I shout and jump on the spot.

  They all stand and cheer, and the energy is electric. I soak it up like my own personal sunshine.

  “Okay, okay, we’ll keep working sections this week and building for a full run on Friday. You all up for that?”

  “Yes, Coach!” they all shout.

  “What was that?” I ask, putting my hand to my ear.

  “Yes, Bubble!”

  “That’s better. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  As the kids all spill into the locker room, Justin shows me the footage he captured with his tablet.

  “I think Taylor needs to take a rest. Look at his face there. He’s clearly in pain but doesn’t want to let the team down,” he says, rewinding the clip to the moment Petra is flying down from the pyramid. You’d never notice Taylor’s pain unless you’re looking for it.

  “Can you have a word with him?” I ask.

  “I sure can. I reviewed some earlier clips during the practice and saw nothing else wrong. I think they just need more time on the mat.”

  “Can you send me what you have?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  We walk together to the coaches’ office via the locker room.

  “Your earthquake detection kit still makes me laugh every time I walk past,” he says.

  “I have my moments.”

  He bumps my shoulder.

  “You more than have your moments, Bubble. Since you got here, it’s like this place has lit up with happiness and joy. I know it sounds sappy as shit, but it’s true. The kids are focused, and they work hard. Even the teachers. All they talk about is you.”

  I laugh. “That’s because I bake them cake. Everyone loves cake.”

  “This is true.”

  I think about the sullen football coach who only appears to smile when he’s coaching his team.

  Not that I’ve been watching or anything. Okay, there was this one time when I forgot my lucky Sailor Moon keychain in the office, so I had to drive back to the school to get it.

 
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