CHAPTER EIGHT Killjoy
CHAPTER EIGHT
Killjoy
The first bite I took, I nearly melted into the floor. It was all I could do not to moan with pleasure. Those homemade ravioli… damn.
So maybe having Danny here wasn’t turning out to be such a horrible thing.
Though I’d rather cut out my tongue than admit it out loud.
“You know my name, but I’ve been here a whole day now, and I still don’t know what to call you,” Danny said about three bites into the meal.
“Killjoy works.”
“Kill. Joy.” There was a definite pause between the two parts, as if he couldn’t understand how it all fit together. “I’ll just call you Joy.”
He brightened at the idea, but soon lost his large smile when he saw my scowling face.
“Mr. Joy? Joy Boy?” He just kept going, and I was startin’ to wonder if there wasn’t something wrong with him.
I was questioning if he’d been up here all day, drinking the hours away while he…
fuck, how had I missed all those decorations and lights?
“No, you’re not a boy, so that one doesn’t work.
How about Joy Maaan? Hm, no, that doesn’t have the same ring. ”
“How about Killjoy,” I cut, not an ounce of a question in my tone, as I glared at the soft white little lights twinkling at me from behind some fake-ass garland, that so happened to be wrapped around the banister of the stairs and the whole way across the railing of the loft.
When he noticed that my attention wasn’t on him, he twisted in his seat to see what I was looking at.
“Oh! Yes! I did that,” he said very proudly. “I kept getting tangled in it, and I almost went over the top balcony once, but I think it turned out great. Don’t you?”
He turned back around to face me, and there was so much fucking joy on his face.
“Yeah, you did a good job,” I said, forcing my lips to curl up in a smile that came off as tight. It did look nice, but that wasn’t my issue.
“So, um, what’s the problem with it?” He twisted back around, studying it like he was trying to figure something out. “Do you not like it there? I wasn’t sure where else it could—”
“The problem is that it’s there at all,” I told him, causing his head to whip back around, his eyes wide as he looked at me.
“Oh,” he said brokenly. “I’ll take it all down after I finish eating.”
I opened my mouth to say… well, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was going to say. I just knew I didn’t like the dejected tone he had going on, and I wanted to fix it. Wasn’t like it mattered, since he went on talkin’.
“Do you not, like, celebrate Christmas? I think the lights and garland give it more of a cozy feel, not necessarily Christmas-y, ya know? I didn’t mean to offend you.
It’s just that I really like the whole winter vibe, and I’ve never had a white Christmas before.
I had this whole plan to come here and have this amazing time to myself and do with it what I wanted—like decorate and drink a ton of hot chocolate.
And now I don’t really know what I’m doing or how my Christmas is going to end up…
or where I’ll end up for Christmas, rather.
” He cut himself off, looking at me with sad eyes.
A second later, a smile was plastered on his face, but it wasn’t a real one, and I didn’t like it. “I’ll take it down.”
I sighed heavily before saying, “Kid—”
“Not a kid,” he cut in.
I huffed this time, glaring at him.
“Kid—” I started, only to have him run right over me again.
“I’ll be thirty in eight months. I think that hardly makes me a kid. And even if you wanted to go by age, it still wouldn’t work. Not unless you are somehow, like, forty years older than me. Then, okay, yeah, everyone under thirty would be a kid to you.”
“You’re twenty-nine?” I asked, unable to keep the shock out of my voice.
He preened, a cute little blush hitting the apples of his cheeks.
“I moisturize,” he supplied, as if that was the reason he looked so young. I mean, I knew he wasn’t a kid, but I would have put him in his early twenties. Drinking age at least, twenty-three at most.
And for some reason, doing the quick math in my head and realizing he was only twelve years younger than me, and not closer to twenty, had things goin’ on in my head that I had no right entertaining.
Shaking away the strangeness, I focused hard on him.
“That’s not the point,” I said gruffly. “I need you to just… simmer a little.”
“Simmer?” he asked, head tilted down as his brows went up in confusion.
“Yeah, like take it down a notch. Chill out. Whatever the youngsters say nowadays.”
To that, he snorted. And I had to admit, I heard how “old man” it made me sound.
“I just mean you’re a lot for someone like me,” I said, trying to make my tone a little softer.
“Someone like you?” he countered with a lopsided grin. “A shut-in? An anti-social grumpy pants? Or do you mean more like… grandpa, you know, shaking your fist at the neighborhood kids because they’re playing ball in the street and disturbing your peppermint candy time?”
Mouth parted and hand paused midair in front of my face with a ravioli preciously perched on the fork, I glared at him.
“Was that offensive?” he asked, not sounding like he really cared if it stung me.
He was somethin’, alright. He made even the most cutting remarks seem like someone was handing you a bowl full of candy. I wanted to hate him, yet… looking at his face, I couldn’t. That said, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle him around constantly. He was a lot for… someone like me.
“The decorations can stay,” I told him, doing my best to keep the sour out of my expression and tone.
“Really?” His eyes danced with excitement, and I couldn’t deny how my chest puffed up at the fact that I had made the light come back to him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, then stuffed the ravioli in my mouth and chewed before I could say anything else. Like, give him the okay to put up more shit. Or worse, tell him I’d go cut him down a tree to decorate as long as it made him happy. That would have been fuckin’ stupid.
“So… do you live out here alone?” he asked, and when I cut my eyes at him, he nodded once, slamming his mouth shut in the process. “Right. Yeah. No, I get it. You’re a lone wolf kind of guy.” There was a beat of silence as he shoved a ravioli into his mouth and chewed. “Do you have any siblings?”
“Yes,” I grunted, standing up abruptly, making the chair legs scrape across the wood floor in a way that made us both cringe. “Beer?” I asked, stomping my way over to the fridge.
“Do you have anything stronger?” he asked with nervous laughter ringing through. I didn’t, but I fuckin’ wished I did, because I was sure we were feeling the same thing right now.
This shit was awkward. We were two different people who liked two totally different things and two completely different ways of life, forced to share a space. The easiest way to get through it would be to face it three sheets to the wind.
“I’m kidding. Beer is good. Thanks.” His words had me shaking out of my thoughts and reaching for two bottles that had been shoved to the back because all of his groceries were taking up space in my small refrigerator.
I cracked ’em open, tossing the caps in the trash, then walked back over to the table.
I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to sit down because I didn’t know if I could handle more of perky Danny and all his talking and his million-and-one questions.
But I had to. Especially if I wanted to finish eating. And I was fucking hungry.
“How many siblings do you have?” he asked.
I kept the sigh internal, but I was sure it was written all over my face. After I took a long pull of my beer, I answered, “Six.” I hated myself because I damn well knew it would only lead to more questions.
And just like I thought, he kept trying to ask me questions about myself throughout the short meal.
I kept giving him clipped answers, hoping it would cause him to give up, but it didn’t.
By the time I was cleaning up the dishes while he showered, I realized that he hadn’t really learned anything major, but he now knew more than most people.
As I stood there drying the last plate and sliding it into its rightful place on the open shelf, it struck me so hard I damn near paused for a minute.
He’d dug into me, trying to get to know me, and I’d been a total asshole. Sure, it wasn’t surprising, but this time I actually felt like I deserved that title. Because while he was trying so fucking hard to get to know me, I hadn’t asked a damn thing about him.
Maybe I wanted quiet and solitude, but I didn’t think anyone should ever be invisible unless they wanted to be.
Danny was the sun. He was joy and radiated wild energy—good, but still wild. It was clear he craved human contact. He wasn’t like me at all, and I’d probably made him feel like he didn’t matter a single bit.
So, yeah.
Might as well tattoo asshole right across my forehead.