Holiday Unscripted, page 6
I look in the mirror at myself, fluffing my hair on one side as I spray it with hairspray. “This is as good as it’s going to get.” I look over at Baby Cat, who jumped off the counter when I sprayed my hair the first time. I look at my hair that is blonder than before thanks to the hair appointment my mother made for me right before she took me shopping and insisted she pay for all my stuff. The least she could do after everything that’s happened since I got back.
She ended up dropping me off at Nate’s place and I walked in with four big bags of clothes. I dumped them all in the spare room, where the bag I forced him to bring with us this morning is now waiting for me. Needless to say, there was no room for me at my house.
Now I am putting the final touches on my makeup and turning to see how my hair looks from the back. I also get on my tippy-toes to see how my ass looks in these jeans. I bought them today just for tonight and they fit me like a glove on my hips and ass and then go straight down, stopping at my ankles where I am wearing little black booties with a small heel. It started to snow a bit when I was out, and the last thing I want to do is slip in heels and end up breaking something, so I went with comfort instead of sexy. The black bodysuit is tight and is off the shoulders. “What do you think, Baby Cat?” I turn back around. “Good enough, right?” The cat just looks at me and then gets up to go to the bathroom door where he scratches it with one paw, then looks at me to let him out.
I open the door, and he scrambles out towards the stairs. I look over at Nate’s room and notice the door is open and the lights are on. The need to move over to his room and stick my head in is strong. I can smell a hint of his cologne in the air, so I know he’s already downstairs. I follow Baby Cat down the stairs and hear the back door open, then shut. Strutting down the hallway, I stop when I see Nate look up at me while he rubs Whiskey’s head. He’s wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that hang annoyingly perfectly on his hips. A dark-blue knitted sweater is pushed up at the sleeves to his mid-forearm, the crewneck of his white T-shirt peeking out also. “Ready?” I ask him and he nods, giving me his grin.
“I charged your phone,” he says, getting up and walking over to it. “You left it on the counter when you walked in, and I figured you might want it charged.” He looks at it and then looks at me. “I think your boyfriend is trying to get a hold of you.” He hands me the phone and I look down to see Ty has texted me, his text on the top of the text messages.
Ty: Are you alive????
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I mumble to him opening my text app, “we work together. Not that I owe you an explanation.”
“If you say so,” he replies and my head whips up.
“What does that mean?” I ask him and he avoids answering me.
“We should go before we’re late.” That’s all he says, turning on the light over the stove before walking to the wall and shutting off the bright light that was on before. He walks past me to the front door with Whiskey following him. “Be good.” He rubs his neck. “And stop trying to get into the cat’s room,” he scolds as I reach for my black jacket that I hung up when I got here.
Nate opens the front door and waits for me to step out before turning and slamming the door behind him. He presses something on the keypad before we walk to the truck together, neither of us saying anything. “Can I have the code for the door?” I ask him. “You know, just in the event I want to Irish goodbye.”
“No,” he states. “You want to Irish goodbye, let me know and I’ll leave with you.”
“What if you are having the best night of your life?” I say exaggerating a bit. “Then I’m going to put a damper on it.”
“I’ll survive,” he deadpans, starting the truck and backing out of his garage.
“Suit yourself,” I huff out and then look outside. “It’s probably one-two-three-four.”
“Yes, how did you know?” My head whips around to look at him and I see he’s smirking.
I roll my eyes and look out the window as the snow falls softly, hitting the street and then melting. After a silent ride to the bar, he pulls into the parking lot and there is a big sign in the front that says: Closed for a Private Party.
Once he turns the truck off, I get out and my phone buzzes in my hand, I see Ty has texted me again.
Ty: We’re taking bets on how happy you are to be home.
I snort and take a picture of myself with my thumb down and send it to him.
Me: Who has horrible as the winner?
“Texting your boyfriend?” Nate asks from beside me.
“No, he’s now my husband. We got married while I was in the truck with you.” I pull open the door. “At this rate, I might be pregnant by the end of the night.” I hold up both hands and cross my fingers. “I think it’s happening right now.” He looks right at me. “I would look away if I were you.”
“Hey, you two.” I look over to see my brother Jack walking to us, wearing his jeans and an untucked white button-down with a bottle of beer in his hand. “Was wondering when you would show up.”
“She took forever to get ready.” Nate shocks the fuck out of me. “I was waiting for an hour.”
“Um, excuse me, I didn’t know we had a set time to leave.” I shake my head.
“I don’t know about you,” Nate says, grabbing a bottle of beer from the side of the bar that is there for us to take, “but when it says seven thirty, it means you have to be there at seven thirty, not leave the house at eight.”
“You could have left me at your house,” I remind him.
“If you want to be home alone in my house,” he replies, bringing the beer to his mouth, “all you had to do was ask.”
“I don’t even know what is going on right now”—Jack looks at us—“but I don’t want any part of it.” He looks at Nate. “You’re like a brother to me and she’s my sister.”
“Eww,” I say, grabbing my own bottle of beer and bringing it to my lips as he walks away.
“You didn’t exactly say eww that night,” he mumbles and my head whips over to look at him, shocked he’s bringing it up again after all these years. All. These. Years. Later. After everything that went down. The nerve of him.
“You said nothing the next day,” I throw in his face and shock fills his features, “or the day after that or the day after that.” I take five pulls of the beer and put it on the bar top, grabbing a shot from a waiter who is going around with them. I take the shot and cough as soon as I swallow it, looking around for a bottle of water and not seeing any.
“You better not throw up in my truck.” He sits on a stool, bringing his beer to his lips. His legs are open and perfect for me to step in between them. I look away as soon as the thought pops up in my head, blaming the alcohol.
Turning back to him, so as not to let him have the last word, I snap, “You better not bring anyone home so I have to hear you doing the nasty, which will in fact make me throw up.” I pick my beer back up trying to change the taste in my mouth from the vile tequila I just drank.
He doesn’t have a chance to say anything to me since Joshua and Macy come up to us. Joshua is wearing the “I’m the Groom” shirt while Macy wears “I’m the Bride.”
“It’s a good thing you have those shirts.” I motion to Joshua with a chin up. “I’d be confused on who is who.”
“Yeah,” Nate interjects, “she gets confused often.” He motions towards me with his head. “Your sister got married on her way here.”
I roll my eyes. “Wait, you’re dating someone?” Joshua doesn’t get the sarcasm. “Why didn’t you bring him to meet the family?”
“I’m not dating anyone,” I deny. “Nate is just being pissy because he can’t bring anyone home tonight since I’m staying with him. Where are all our cousins?” I ask looking around.
“They get here in two days,” he informs us. “The hockey season only ends the twenty-third, so a couple of the wives are coming down and then everyone else is coming when the games are over, since the last games are played on the twenty-second.”
“What song do you want to sing with me?” Evie asks me when she comes up to my side. “It’s between ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ and ‘Dancing Queen.’”
“Oh, I would love ‘Dancing Queen,’” Macy says to us.
“I guess that’s our answer.” I look at Evie, who nods at me.
“What are you two going to sing for us?” Joshua looks at Jack and Nate.
“Yeah,” I push, “what are you two going to sing for them?”
“Um,” Jack starts mumbling.
“I think you guys should sing ‘Shallow.’” I point my bottle of beer at them.
“I think they should do ‘All The Single Ladies.’” Evie gets in with me.
“I think you need to stop talking,” Jack tells her as we hear someone tapping the microphone.
“Okay, everyone,” one of the waitresses starts, “we are ready to kick off karaoke night with soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Morrow.” She points at them and Joshua raises his hands in the air. “Let’s kick it off with them singing ‘You’re the One that I Want.’”
We cheer for them as they walk over to the stage. Joshua is limping as he follows her up on the stairs. I can’t help but burst out laughing at them as they get up there and try to do their John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John impressions. Most of the time, Joshua is falling to the side since he can’t put too much weight on his foot.
Everyone cheers them on as they finish with him grabbing her around the waist and dipping her for a kiss at the end. “Try to top that.” I push Nate’s shoulder. “I think you need to just grab Jack and lay one on him.”
“As hot as I think you are,” Jack says to Nate, “you’re like a little brother to me, so that would be eeew.”
All of us burst out laughing as the girl now calls Evie and me to the stage. “Here we go,” I say, grabbing a shot on the way to the stage. “This is going to be fun.”
“You should introduce yourself,” Macy yells from her table and I look over at Evie.
“My name is Elizabeth,” I start, “not Lizzy. Don’t call me Lizzy, I will throat punch you.” I point to everyone, and they laugh. “I’m the groom’s favorite sister. I’m also his only sister, so there’s that.” I point to Joshua. “And this is my favorite sister-in-law”—I point to Evie—“for now.” I wink at Macy, who holds up her hand and points to her finger. “She’s also my favorite because she didn’t force me to do karaoke when she was getting married.”
The two of us start to sing and go off-key as soon as the chorus starts, making me laugh so hard I’m crying by the end of the song. Evie holds up her hand for me to give her a high five. I look back over to where we left Jack and Nate and see Jack on his feet standing and clapping, while Nate is leaning on the top of the bar, talking to the maid of honor. Saying something that makes her laugh, she puts her hand on top of his arm, which I know is fake because he’s not funny at all.
I shake my head and try not to let seeing him with her bother me. It’s been almost seven years since we had one night together. I walk down the steps and look around. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell Evie, and she nods at me as I walk to the back of the bar.
I push open the door and walk to the sink to rinse my hands, looking down at the water and I’m taken back to that one night, the one night that will forever be one of the best and one of the worst nights of my life. More so the best than the worst, even though we haven’t been the same since.
Nate and Joshua had just gotten home for winter break after beating the number one team to move up in the standings. Nate wasn’t even supposed to be at the bar that night. He had plans to go with Joshua and Jack to join our cousins at the hockey rink that night for a pick-up game. But now here he was with a couple of his friends from high school just sitting on a barstool laughing. It was the first time I’d seen him since he was back.
“Hey.” I walked up to him and smiled big. My heart hammering in my chest as I walked into the middle of his legs and leaned in to kiss his cheek. It was something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I mean when he’d come into the house and seen me after a couple of days, he would always give me a side hug or sometimes hold up his hand so I could give him a high five. This was very different and for the life of me I don’t know why I did it. I just did.
“Hey,” he said smiling at me, “this is a surprise.” He hadn’t seen me since he headed back to school at the beginning of August.
“You can say that.” I looked at the guys next to them remembering them from coming to my house a couple of times, but whose names I was blanking on. It could be that it was because I was still in the middle of Nate’s legs and my hand was on his thigh. It was an intimate gesture that I’d never done before.
“Hey.” I held up one of my hands to the guys who are around us. They replied back with a chin lift instead of any verbal words. I was about to move away from Nate and head back to my friends when a guy who was walking past us was pushed into us and Nate wrapped his arm that was holding the beer around my waist and pulled me to him while he extended his other hand to protect me from anyone else that was going to bump into me.
“Watch it,” one of Nate’s friends told the guy and all I could do was look up at Nate.
“You okay?” he asked me and all the words that I learned my whole life were just stuck and jumbled in my head. The only thing that I could do was nod my head.
He smirked at me and the hold around my waist relaxed a bit but it didn’t let me go. “You want something to drink?”
“Sure,” I said and then someone called my name from across the bar, and when I looked up, it was one of the girls that I came with. “I should”—I pointed to the girl, my mouth dry—“get back to my friends.”
He looked straight into my eyes and butterflies took flight in my stomach. “Yeah, you should,” he said, bringing the beer to his lips and then his tongue came out to lick the drop of beer that was on his bottom lip. My hand itched to come up and hold his face and kiss him, but I knew that I needed to get away from him before I did something that I would forever be embarrassed about.
“I’ll see you around.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I groaned inwardly at them and he chuckled.
“Yeah,” is all he said as I slowly disengaged myself from him. I walked back to my friends and the whole time I felt like his eyes were on me. One look over my shoulder when I got to my friend proved to me that I was right.
I spent the night chatting with my friends, in between looking over to where he was, and it’s as if he knew when I was looking at him because his eyes would come to mine and we would share a look. A couple of times it was reversed, and I could feel him staring at me.
I saw him put the beer down on the bar and he got up, shaking his friends’ hands before I saw him walking over to me. My heartbeat hammered so hard, it’s a wonder that it didn’t come out of my chest. His eyes stared into mine as he made his way to me. “Do you want a lift home?” he asked when he was leaving, and I nodded my head, even though I was not ready to go. I said goodbye to the girls who all looked at me as if they knew something was up, but also knew that Nate was like a brother to me.
I smiled up at him. “Lead the way,” I said and he slid his hand into mine and pulled me with him as I followed him out.
I thought once we were outside he would let my hand go, but he didn’t; he kept it in his until we got to his truck and he unlocked the doors. “Get in, Elizabeth.” His voice was tight.
I got in and watched him walk around the front of the truck before opening his own door and getting in. He started the truck and then looked over at me. “You look really good tonight.” His voice was husky. “Actually, you look good all the time.”
“You’re one to talk.” I tried to flirt back but my flirting game was at a solid two. He reached for me at the same time I reached for him, and in the middle of the parking lot, we shared our first kiss. His tongue slid into my mouth as his hand went to the lever under his seat to push it all the way back as he pulled me into his lap. Our mouths never letting the other go as the kiss was everything that I’ve ever thought it would be and more. I shivered on top of him, and it had nothing to do with the fact that it was freezing cold outside and all I had on was a tank top and an oversized zip-up sweater. It had to do with the fact that his hands were now moving from my hips to my ass.
“Fuck,” he hissed out as my eyes slowly peeled open, “Elizabeth.”
“Nate.” I put my hands on his chest, as I felt his heart hammering as much as mine was.
“You want to come home with me?” The question was one that I thought I would never hear. It was also one that I knew the answer to without even having to think about it.
“Yes.” I said the words out loud and then I kissed him again. This time it was me who kissed him first, but it was definitely him that ended the kiss, only to put my ass back in my seat and drive us to his house.
The bathroom door is pushed opened, ripping me from the past, and Macy comes in with another one of her bridesmaids and I just smile at them. “Your performance was so good,” Macy compliments me. “Thank you for doing it for me.”
“Of course,” I reply and then shake the water off my hands, before grabbing a couple of paper towels to dry them off. I pull open the door and step back into the bar. My eyes roam over everyone, but I know I’m looking for him, even if I want to tell myself I’m not.
He and the maid of honor are exactly where they were before, this time the two of them have their heads closer to each other, and I don’t even know why but my stomach sinks. “Hey,” Jack says, walking out of the bathroom, “you okay?”
I swallow down the lump. “Yeah, just jet-lagged,” I tell him and put on a fake smile, trying not to look over at the bar.
CHAPTER 8
Nate
WINTER WONDERLAND
