Jingle Bell Cxck! (Holiday Flings & Naughty Things #1)

Chapter 1

SHILOH

FROSTBITE AND NOSTALGIA

Fuck, it’s cold.

I should’ve known that coming home for the holidays was a bad idea. Nothing good ever happens when I return to this snow-covered mountain hellhole, especially when the locals think “tattoo artist" is code for “criminal degenerate with questionable morals”.

God forbid I make art for a living.

It’s that exact thought that has me wishing I were literally anywhere else—like, say, I don’t know, getting a root canal by some backyard dentist with questionable hygiene.

Instead, I’m standing in line outside Carol’s, the only bar in town, while every nosy soul in Blue River stares at me like I crashed their Sunday sermon.

I'm freezing my tits off, and the line just keeps growing with faces I barely recognize anymore as I search the crowd for Jovi, my best friend since middle school.

When I spot the Santa hats and flashing reindeer earrings, I instantly cringe. This is a fucking rock concert! Couldn't this town go one night without embarrassing itself? We are in the presence of rock royalty.

Tonight, Stone Cold is playing, a masked rock band Jovi and I have been obsessed with for years, and she got me a backstage pass for Christmas.

I’m still giddy just thinking about it.

They’re here for some sort of “Home For The Holidays” concert, and honestly, it’s kind of bizarre to realize that my favorite band hails from the same tiny shithole town I do.

So yeah… Here I am.

Home for the holidays.

Coming back here was definitely not on my end-of-year bingo card, but after my ex, Cam, and I broke up, I figured it was as good a reason as any to finally drag myself away from the city and make a trip home to visit my parents.

Meeting my favorite band in person should at least make the experience of being back here somewhat bearable.

The moment I got here, the first thing out of my parents' mouths was, “Where’s Cameron?” The look on their faces when they learned that he had ended things with me made me feel about two feet tall.

Apparently, I was too much for him.

He wanted someone he could bring home to his mother, not a twenty-four-year-old woman who owns a tattoo shop.

Honestly, it’s his loss, even if my parents see it differently.

I'm not about to lose sleep over some asshat with a pin cock who came in literally three pumps every time we had sex.

Nope. Tonight, Jovi and I have plans for the first time in years, and I am not going to let this town, or my lame as fuck ex, get in my way of a good time.

A lot has changed in the six years I’ve lived in the city.

For starters, I’m not that awkward girl in high school anymore.

I’ve built a life I can actually be proud of.

I skipped college, much to my parents' disgust, and worked my damn ass off, squandering almost every penny I ever earned to qualify for a business loan.

Yet, no matter what I accomplished, how many awards I received for my art, Cam still never took me seriously.

Screw him.

It’s a rare day in Hell for me to care what somebody thinks of me, though it took some growth to get there, let me tell you.

And yet, the moment I start scanning the crowd for my best friend, my thoughts drift immediately to the three people whose opinions of me ever mattered.

The ones who have haunted my every waking thought since I left Blue River.

My heart starts thudding like a drum in my chest, my teeth chattering from the cold, as I sweep my gaze across the growing crowd behind me, half hoping, half dreading to spot them.

Axl, Phoenix, and Zane.

The ones who star in my most sinful and depraved fantasies, still occupying my mind all these years later.

God, just saying their names in my head makes my stomach somersault and my thighs clench in ways they absolutely shouldn’t.

They were as effortlessly magnetic as they were mystifying, and calling what I had for them a crush would be a severe understatement.

I spent years fantasizing about their sharp edges and perfectly sculpted muscles, wondering what it would feel like to have them wrapped around me.

Owning me and claiming me in ways that no one else ever could.

I tried for so long to ignore the way my heart basically flatlined every time they were near, because it meant that the feelings I had for them were way more than I was prepared to unpack, and I couldn’t risk my heart like that.

Zane, Axl, and Phoenix were the reasons that no other man ever felt right to me. Not when I had witnessed the love they shared for each other. It was raw, honest, and powerful in ways that nobody around here ever seemed to understand.

The town almost imploded when they found out that the Stone brothers shared a boyfriend. Yet, they didn’t care what anyone thought about it. Well, if they did, they never showed it, and it sure as shit didn’t stop them from being together.

They inspired me in ways they’ll never know, because life really does go on, with or without the approval of others.

I haven't seen them since I stuffed my thrift-store suitcase in the car, left this town in my rear-view mirror, and no one, not even Jovi, can know that they were the reason I couldn't breathe half the time growing up.

Not only were they way too cool for me, Axl and Phoenix were my best friend’s older brothers.

They never saw me as anything more than their younger sister’s best friend.

And Zane? Well… wherever Axl and Phoenix went, he followed, and I never stood a chance.

Though something in me still craved them anyway.

Never wanting one without the other. I know, I know…

it sounds greedy, even to me. But I’ve never been the kind of woman my parents wanted me to be.

I am flawed, I am different, and I wanted them all to myself.

Growing up, I would hang out in Jovi’s kitchen, pretending to help her with homework while secretly memorizing every crooked smile, every laugh, and every fleeting glance with her brothers that I probably almost always read way too much into.

Not exactly my proudest moment. I was borderline obsessed with them. Then again, so was half the school. Even if their love looked different to everyone else, they always had a silent fan in me. Nobody ever understood them like I did, though they’ll never know any of this.

Who knows where they are now, or what their lives look like.

In the three times I’ve been back to Blue River since moving away, I haven’t run into them.

Jovi doesn’t talk about Zane or her brothers, and I’ve never had the nerve to ask.

Some things are easier to leave buried, and I sure as fuck don’t want anyone thinking I’ve been pining after them since high school.

Jovi: OMG, Babe! I am so sorry.

Jovi: I’m stuck in traffic.

Jovi: The snow is bullshit, and I don’t know how long I’ll be.

Jovi: Still in traffic. I'm bumper to bumper on the highway. Just go in without me. Find a guy and fuck his brains out until I get there.

Jovi: Shi. I am so sorry. I'm not going to make it! Please try to have fun. I love you, xo.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me!” I stare down at my best friend’s text messages, my stomach sinking a little at the thought of seeing our favorite band without her.

If I had known she wasn’t going to be here, I probably would have stayed home because music is our thing.

Though if I’m being honest, I am kind of glad I didn’t.

The alternative to being out was to stay at the house with my parents and sit through one of their lectures about how I’d somehow managed to screw things up with Cam. So, yeah. It could be worse.

“Ma’am?” A deep voice cuts through my thoughts, and I drag my gaze from my phone to the guy standing at the door, one gloved hand holding a ticket scanner, the other an admissions stamp. Oh, right.

The cold bites through my body as I step into the glow of the neon entrance, and all I can think about is the warmth on the other side of that door. I reach into my coat pocket, pull out my backstage pass, as well as my ticket, and hold them up for the door guy to scan.

Maybe Jovi is right.

Maybe I should just find a guy and blow off some steam. God fucking knows that I haven't had an orgasm since I got with Cam two years ago.

Well… of course I've had an orgasm. Though it would be nice not to have to orchestrate the damn thing myself. Fuck it. I'm doing it. I may as well give the town gossipers something new to talk about.

When in Rome and all that jazz.

I'm going to go in there, meet my favorite band of all time, and lose myself in a complete stranger. One that makes me forget the ghosts of my past that still haunt the corners of my mind. Reminding me of all the things that could've been, but never were. Because let’s face it, those three ghosts only belong to me in ways no one outside my dreams will ever know, and to them, I’ll only ever be their sister’s best friend.