Chapter 17 Misty
MISTY
“Now I see why you didn’t want to come watch the movie, Misty.”
I stifle a squeak. The Hershey’s kisses fly all over the floor, some banging up against Ryan’s foot.
“I, uh… I have more cookies to bake.” I kneel down right in front of Talbot’s Christmas package then quickly turn my face away because I do not need people to get the wrong idea—and of course, I bang my head right into the open utensil drawer.
“Ow!” I yelp, clutching my head. “I’m good, I’m good.”
My stepdad steps toward me in concern.
“Watch the candy. I need those for Talbot’s cookies,” I beg.
“Get her some ice,” Ryan barks.
“Really, I’m good. I can take a hit.”
Something dark filters across Talbot’s face.
“I’ll come watch the movie with you. You’re watching Elf, right?” I babble.
It’s not like I was doing anything wrong. It’s not like Austen and I are in a relationship and I just stuck my fingers in some guy’s mouth.
Not some guy—Talbot.
“We have ice packs downstairs,” Ryan tells Talbot while I scurry around on my knees trying to pick up all the chocolate.
“W-we have to get these into the cookies before they cool.”
“Misty.”
Something cold is pressed against the side of my head.
“I’ll do it, Misty,” Ryan offers and starts unwrapping the chocolate kisses while I try to duck away from Talbot.
I really shouldn’t have fed him that cookie. I could have put it on a plate like a normal person.
“Do you want me to put them in the boxes or on a platter?” Ryan offers uncertainly.
“No!” I’m too loud. “They’re not for everyone.”
“I won’t eat them.” A smile plays around Ryan’s mouth.
I’m trying to get the stupid assassin off me who’s suddenly become fixated with ice.
“Er, no, I mean, you can have one, of course. Just, I made them for Talbot.”
“Talbot, you’re moving up in the world. Your own batch of cookies,” my stepfather jokes.
“It was a thank-you gift. Hold still,” Talbot growls, trapping me against the kitchen island so he can play doctor.
It’s embarrassing. I’m not a helpless girl. I am an independent self-sufficient woman… who still lives in her parents’ house, but who’s really counting?
I snatch the ice from Talbot and toss it into the sink.
With a growl, he fishes it out and presses it back onto my head, his large hand holding the back of my neck while the other cups the ice to my temple.
“Does she need concussion protocol?” Ryan asks from where he’s carefully sticking chocolate kisses into the peanut butter blossoms.
Talbot grunts a laugh. He’s pressed his chest against my back, and the sound rumbles through him.
“She didn’t lose consciousness. How many cookies is he holding up?”
“Do these meet your standard, Misty?” Ryan shows me the cookies.
“Yep! Look great. Ryan, you can go watch the movie. I know the kids miss you, and, Talbot?” I dump the cookies into a brown paper sack. “Here are your cookies. Thank you very much. You can go home now. It’s late,” I add as I shove the bag at him.
I need him out of the kitchen, need to be alone so I can calm down as I do some dish-washing therapy and really consider where it was that I went wrong in life that I’m mildly semi sort of attracted to a hitman.
It’s because I made cookies for him. It’s like Sienna says: I’m addicted to codependency.
“You don’t have to leave, Talbot. Brielle has Austen staying over.” Ryan flashes me a guilty look.
“Austen’s different,” I automatically reply. He doesn’t have a concealed, probably illegal, weapon on his person.
“I think Talbot earned the right to stay, what with all these cookies. He was with you ’til the bitter end,” my stepdad jokes. “And you’re going to turn him out in the cold and the snow.”
Talbot’s leveling that cold, wintery gaze at me. I know he’s plotting Austen’s bloody demise.
I could wake up in the morning in the middle of a not-so-cozy holiday murder mystery.
“It’s up to you.” Ryan grabs two waters from the fridge.
“Don’t tell me I heard you say you’re leaving.” Brielle has her hair in two perfect pigtails because she’s been taking “candid” Instagram shots. And yes, that’s a push-up bra she’s wearing under her pj’s with the cute Harbor Hawks Christmas slippers.
I’m in my yellow Crocs. My hair is in not a cute messy bun but a utilitarian, batter-crusted messy ponytail.
Talbot still thought I was semiattractive. That has to count for something, right?
Or not, when I’m compared to Brielle. There’s a giant bruise forming where I hit my head. I can feel a stress pimple appearing on my chin. I’ve consumed way too much sugar, and I’d kill Austen myself for a slice of greasy, salty pizza and a Coke.
“Brielle,” my stepfather says in a desperate yet joking tone. “You didn’t come here to volunteer with dishes, did you?”
“Seems Misty’s got poor Talbot to do it.”
Cries of “Daaaad!” can be heard from the living room. Ryan shoots me a helpless look then abandons the kitchen. No one can stand up to Brielle.
“Of course Misty is kicking you out after making you do all the work.” Brielle bats her eyelashes at Talbot.
“He did part of the work.”
“Mmm, I’d say a solid plurality,” he corrects.
“Hitmen know SAT words now?” I mutter under my breath, turning on the water. The pans in the sink clash noisily.
Talbot leans on the counter, his mouth forming a slow, smoldering smile—directed at Brielle, who else? “You have to give me the secret of how to get Misty to roll over and stop fighting me.”
“It’s easy.” Brielle matches his motions, leaning forward. “She’s intimidated by attractive people. It’s been such a hardship being her sister.”
“Stepsister,” I snap.
Talbot’s not paying attention.
“Oops!” Brielle laughs her fake flirty laugh. “Lost one of my buttons.”
I watch her reflection in the dark window.
She makes a big show of tossing her hair, feeling herself up, to slowly adjust the pajama top and button it.
“Don’t look,” she teases Talbot. “These are for my fiancé’s eyes only.”
She’s sexy and sweet. That’s what my mom always told me to aspire to. That’s what men want. The big, real diamond ring gleams on Brielle’s finger.
Suddenly, yonder, a backbone appears!
“Actually, Talbot?” I abruptly shut off the water. “The weather looks bad outside. Maybe you should stay over.”
I regret letting my stepsister get in my head twenty minutes later when I’m slowly climbing the stairs up to the third-floor finished attic. I used to not mind that I had the smallest bedroom in the house. Shoot, it isn’t even legally a bedroom. It doesn’t have a closet, just a big walnut wardrobe.
But now?
Will Talbot even fit?
“The question,” Talbot whispers as he creeps up the stairs behind me, “is if you want me to stay over so I can smother Austen in his sleep or if you’re going to try and coerce me into performing lewd sex acts on you.”
“None of the above.”
“Really? It’s an old house. I could swing electrocuting him in the shower.”
The floor creaks as Talbot follows me into my room.
Talbot’s gaze sweeps the room like he’s checking for hidden gunmen. The ghostly silver eyes slide over me to the fireplace in one corner flanked by a small armchair.
“Can I light this? Does it work?”
“Yeah, it’s the only source of heat up here.” Other than canoodling in bed.
Logs pop, and the first embers of heat warm the chilly room.
I glance back from where I’m pulling out my pj’s—not cute matching ones like the WAGs have with their husbands’-slash-boyfriends’ numbers monogrammed on them.
They are faded flannel, probably a skosh too small, with faded scenes of happy-in-love reindeer.
A reminder of a simpler time when I thought at this point in my life, Austen and I would be planning the nursery.
Sienna: You finally getting your money’s worth?!!?
Misty: He’s more interested in the fire than me.
Misty: Probably mad that I told him to stay.
Misty: Probably was about to try to convince Brielle to sneak out with him to have dirty, filthy sex in the back of his pickup truck.
Sienna: Just whip off your top and ask him if he wants to eat your Christmas cookies.
Whip off my top? I’m covered in frosting and chocolate. I haven’t had any sort of action in months, not since that ill-fated blind date Granny Keagan set me up on with her shop neighbor’s nephew who has an unhealthy obsession with collecting special-edition sneakers.
And that comes from someone who’s had to move all her clothes to giant Tupperware containers so that she can store her ever-multiplying collection of yarn in her wardrobe.
I rummage for my crocheting. No better time to get started on next year’s Christmas-cookie-box decorations than right now.
I try not to notice Talbot as he walks behind me. The walls of the oblong room feel like they’re closing in, smothering me in the whiskey gunpowder scent of him.
I’m not an impulsive person by nature, and this is why. This is why I don’t like change, why I don’t make rash decisions without considering allll the facts and potential fallout. Because if you don’t, you end up with a hired gun sleeping in your room.
Sleeping in… crap, I have a full-sized bed… like, two twin beds would be better compared to this.
Now it’s just me, the cookies, and Talbot all alone in my room that’s even tinier with him in it and too warm with the roaring fire.
Talbot flops down on the bed. “You’re not seriously crocheting, are you, Gumdrop?”
“I don’t judge your life choices.”
“All you do is judge me.” He rubs his hand over the front of his black jeans lazily, silver eyes half closed. “I could go for a blow job. Maybe eat some pussy right now.”
My crochet hook clatters to the floor. “Is that how you go through life, just drifting from one hedonism to another?” I snap, rushing to pick up my crocheting.
“Rule followers and good girls don’t get rewarded. They just get more workload. Speaking of… did he fuck you in this bed?”
“Who?” I squeak.