The Holidate Switch

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

Conventional Book Babe? wisdom suggests that nothing is sexier than a man in gray sweatpants hung dangerously low on his hips, a backward baseball hat perched on his head.

But babes, I see your gray sweatpants and raise you a man who knows his way around the kitchen, the aroma of sizzling bacon filling the air as he playfully discusses absurd topics with you.

“The chicken lived for eighteen months, really? Without its head?” Caden Sinclair, best friend and sexy-chef for Book Babe consideration, asks.

He brings an egg to the edge of his faux granite counter with a quick rap, cracking it open with one hand like it is second nature and emptying its contents into a small mixing bowl.

Recessed lighting casts down from the ceiling and catches his dark brown hair in a glittering halo.

“I’m telling you, that’s how evil those beady-eyed demons are!” I say, leaning against the cool, smooth surface of the breakfast bar, just as I have every morning since my roommate Tessa and I moved next door to the Sinclair brothers.

With what little strength I have, I push aside my thoughts of unnerving, creepy chickens to more pleasant thoughts, like Caden finally realizing we’re soulmates or penguins in cute knitwear.

A teasing grin spreads across Caden’s face. “That’s a dramatic leap to make, Nat. It’s not the chicken’s fault it lost its head.”

“I don’t care. If I’ve learned anything from all those Headless Horseman movies, it’s that anything that can survive without its head for that long is not to be trusted. Headless Horseman in? Natalie out. Same goes for those feathered freaks-of-nature.”

“Right, and your fear of chickens has nothing to do with the time you house-sat and accidentally poured water and feed all over yourself in a locked pen, does it?”

“Who puts gates that lock the minute they’re shut in a chicken coop? Don’t they know sudden gusts of wind exist? And then you’re locked in a chicken coop and there’s henarchy!”

“Henarchy? Really?”

“I regretted it the minute it left my mouth, but I tell ya the joke landed up here.” I motion to where my brain should be. It’s been twenty years and I’m still trying to find it.

Maybe someday I’ll stumble upon it in the hollows of my skull, but the outlook is trending poorly.

Caden shakes his head, pushing up the long sleeves of his forest green shirt.

Pine Valley University Gymnastics is printed in gold lettering across the front.

“I don’t think clumsy women with an insane fear of birds and the ability to say no were their target audience when they were building that coop. ”

“They could have at least considered me,” I mutter. “And my fear of birds is very valid, like you have any ground to stand, Mr. Globophobia.”

“Hey! My fear of balloons is totally valid. They just pop! Randomly! Who wants to live in constant suspense when they’re trying to celebrate something?” He opens a drawer and grabs a fork, delicately resting the bowl on his forearm.

I’m mesmerized by his graceful, fluid movements, fixated on his corded right arm as he whisks the eggs in a blurred frenzy. Caden’s physique is the product of countless years of gymnastics training—and it’s…admirable.

But maybe even more alluring than his toned arms and calloused hands is the competency of his movements.

Everything Caden Sinclair does, he does well.

He’ll never settle for anything less. That’s why, since we met our late freshman year at Pine Valley University, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with him.

Three years ago, Caden became my knight in shining armor, rescuing me from an unfortunate it-was-ambitious-of-me-to-wear-white-shorts-with-a-period-gremlin-of-chaos-living-inside-me incident.

Na?ve, foolish, or simply optimistic—name it whatever you like—the consequence was me stuck in a co-ed bathroom, my ex-boyfriend smugly waiting for me in the hall, and the unmistakable presence of the Red Sea on my ass and dripping down my leg.

I swear I was fine when I left my dorm room for the ten-minute walk. But between then and the hallway filled with male athletes, I must have sneezed—or I don’t know, existed—and all hell broke loose below.

In my panic, the shower room seemed like the perfect place to take refuge, but it was swiftly turning into a prison.

There were no windows to crawl out of and no way to avoid Dillon calling for me in the hall.

To make matters worse, someone was clearly in here trying to shower in peace, and my panic was about to ruin that for them.

Then, Caden emerged from the shower, steam trailing behind him like a romantic movie cliché.

With a towel wrapped around his midsection and one in his hand, he tousled his wet hair.

In a trance, I traced the sharp edges of his jawline before lowering my gaze to his broad, defined chest as he walked closer to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, a genuine look of concern on his face.

I wasn’t.

My hockey-playing dick of a high school and now college boyfriend, Dillon—the one I had chosen this godforsaken college to be with—had cheated on me and then been the one to dump me.

I’d failed my first coding exam—which didn’t bode well for my web designer dreams.

I had no friends on campus because I was the most socially awkward human to ever exist.

On top of everything else, I’d bled through the perfect pair of white Daisy Dukes I’d worn as a revenge outfit—a fact that I showed Caden by turning my literally bloody ass around and sticking it in his face.

Hi, socially awkward peoples committee. I’ll be accepting my lifetime achievement award, please.

Now, soaked in blood, there was no way Dillon was going to show an ounce of remorse, let alone drop to his knees and beg me to take him back like I’d envisioned.

All he was going to see was what he said I was—and maybe he had a point: I was mess and chaos personified (he, of course, put it less eloquently).

To his credit, Caden didn’t flinch or tell me I was too much. He smiled and said, “I see the problem. People will naturally be looking there.”

Approximately two seconds later, I broke down sobbing on his freshly showered chest about everything—about how I missed my home of Wellsport, Maine, and my parents so much, how everyone here called me “Nat” and I hated how it made me sound like a little bug, how my peanut allergy was exhausting in a dorm room because my roommate loved peanut butter and jellies and I didn’t feel comfortable asking her to stop, and now I had blood dripping down my leg and I should probably just stay in this bathroom forever and become one with the moldy floor, like I deserved.

Without a word, he swept me up in his arms, carrying me to the shower stall.

“What are you doing? I’m bleeding all over you.” I sniffed.

“You should wash yourself off,” he said softly.

“I don’t have a change of clothes.”

“You can have mine.”

“I’ll just bleed all over them.”

“I’ll find something for you.”

“But what will you wear?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a dude’s walked this hall in his towel.” Gently, he placed me down in the stall, catching the towel hanging on his mid-drift before it fell loose.

With that small, sympathetic smile he’s worn so many times since, he handed me his washcloth.

I gratefully took it, shut the curtain, and continued my nervous babbles, ignoring the fact that none of this was sanitary, but like my mom who also had a pelvic region from hell and an all-encompassing inflammatory disease taught me, living in the less-than-ideal means not having to deal with worst case scenarios.

There was an awkward silence when I shut off the water, both of us realizing I needed a towel at the same time, and the only two available were a tiny hand towel Caden had used on his hair, and the one wrapped around his waist. Caden went into the next stall and handed me the larger one, and we laughed through the awkwardness.

Finally dry, I drew my curtain back and found his clothes folded into neat piles, waiting for me.

A sanitary pad from I don’t even know where sat on the top.

Unlike most guys, Caden didn’t shy away from acknowledging a natural part of my life.

A part of my life that had been distressingly aggressive lately.

That was the moment I started falling for him.

With a grateful heart, I dressed, feeling an unknown comfort in Caden’s clothes, like they were just the right amount of baggy, just the right amount of worn. Like I was meant to wear them.

Grimacing, I flung him back his towel, now extra unsanitary, wet, and…dotted with blood.

He emerged from his shower stall, thin gold-framed glasses perched on his nose and a soft smile, gazing at me.

A weird, incandescent happiness bubbled in my chest until it sprung out of my mouth in tiny giggles.

He laughed right back, faint laugh lines that have only grown deeper edging the corners of what my roommate Tessa and I have nicknamed bedroom eyes—because all he has to do is look at you, no heat, no sultry desire clear behind his gaze, and you’ll still feel thoroughly seduced and begging for a moment alone with him.

We stood like that, laughing, for what felt like an eternity, ignoring my impending interaction with Dillon. And what had the makings of one of the worst days of my life ended up being one of the best.

After a blizzard held our campus hostage for the next few days, I ran into Caden again and asked if I could buy him a coffee.

He agreed, and he was such a gentleman that he didn’t even bring up the incident.

I thought we were flirting and he was into me—except here we are, three years later, and Caden still hasn’t made a move.