40. Christmas Dicksicles #2
“There are children here,” I rush out. “We’re not whipping our dicks out.”
“Of course not.” He walks to the snow-covered grass and turns his back on us, the sound of his zipper echoing through the frigid Christmas Eve air. He smiles at us over his shoulder, and then spreads his arms wide, face-planting in the snow.
“ Ooou, fuck
!” He scrambles to his feet, jumping back and forth as he tucks himself away. Then, with a grin, he points at the snow, some sort of distorted snow angel, and, uh…a perfectly shaped imprint of his cock. “Beat that, fuckers.”
“No. No way.”
I shake my head, backing away.
“I’m twenty-six. I’m not dipping my dick in the snow to compare sizes.”
* * *
I dipped my dick in the snow to compare sizes.
Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.
“That’s clear shrinkage!” Carter shrieks. “From the snow! ’Cause it’s cold!”
“If you have shrinkage, we all have shrinkage!” Garrett screams back, arms flailing. “That doesn’t change the fact that Adam’s a half inch bigger than you!”
“Three-eighths! Three-eighths of an inch, not a half!”
The patio door slides open, four beautiful, concerned women staring back at us with mugs of boozy hot chocolate in their hands.
“What’s going on out here?” Olivia asks, shifty eyes moving between us as we shiver, wet with snow.
“Nothing,” Carter lies quickly. “Nothing, Ollie.”
Cara looks at Emmett, raising a brow, and that motherfucker folds like a lawn chair. “We were comparing dicks by dipping them in the snow,” he blurts, then breathes out a deep sigh of relief. “Adam’s got Carter beat by a half inch.”
“ Three-eighths
!”
Rosie’s amused gaze comes to mine. “Adam, you didn’t participate in this, did you?”
Heat rises to my cheeks, even though my junk is fucking frozen solid. With an anxious chuckle, and a sheepish grin I hope is equally charming, I sidestep to the right, showing her my slutty snow angel.
“Sweet holy mother of Jesus,” Cara murmurs. “Look at that dicksicle. Rosie, how are you upright?”
She opens her mouth to tell everyone how sweet and respectfully I fuck her, but the trill of my phone slices through the night air. My heartbeat thumps in my chest at the name on my screen.
“It’s my lawyer.”
Rosie rushes to my side, and my friends crowd around me as I answer the phone.
“I know it’s Christmas Eve, Adam, but I figured you’d want answers as soon as I had them,” my lawyer tells me. “Courtney refused the paternity test.”
“Of course she did,” I growl, and Rosie slides her hand into mine, squeezing gently.
“She refused the paternity test because the baby isn’t yours, Adam.”
“What?”
“You didn’t sleep with her that night. You were asleep in your bedroom, and she snapped that picture to make it look like you two had been together. She was five weeks pregnant already.”
I didn’t sleep with her.
“I also issued her a no-contact order for you and Rosie, and was explicitly clear what types of ramifications there might be on her Canadian visa should she choose to break it. This is over, Adam, for good. And if you need a little proof to help you feel confident in that, I suggest hopping on Twitter. A minute of scrolling will give you all the satisfaction you need.”
I pull up the app as soon as we disconnect, my heart racing at the content littering my feed.
Links to gossip articles detailing Courtney’s scheming, all her lies.
Posts in support of Rosie and me, people sending their best wishes to our family.
I click on a video that has tens of thousands of shares, watching a repeat of yesterday from a different view: me and Rosie, a united front, and Courtney, desperate and caught in her lies.
“How did they get this footage?” Rosie asks.
I look up at her, at my friends surrounding me, and my hands tremble. “I don’t know. But they’re incredible.”
“Wow,” Cara murmurs, doing a piss-poor job of hiding her sneaky smile behind her boozy hot chocolate.
“It’s almost as if someone knew you’d be there, at that exact coffee shop, at that exact time, and made sure they were situated within earshot of that exact devil, so they could record that exact conversation, only to turn around and leak it.
Hmmm.” She sips her drink, licking the whipped cream from her top lip.
“I wonder who that possibly could’ve been. ”
“That was you?” I ask quietly. “You did this?”
“Rather easily, my man. And quite frankly, I’m insulted you two didn’t notice me.
Yes, I had my big sunglasses on, and yes, I was wearing Emmett’s hideous scarf his nana knit him that I’d usually never be caught dead in.
But there’s no one alive with hair this gorgeous, and you should be able to spot it from a mile away. ”
“You did this for Adam?” Rosie whispers, green eyes glassy.
“I did it for my family. For Adam, and Connor, and you. Because nobody gets away with hurting the people I love.”
Rosie throws herself at Cara, wrapping her arms around her neck, burying her face in Cara’s long blonde hair, while I stand here, too shocked to move.
“There’s one more thing,” Cara says. “Search the hashtag deportcourt
.”
My feed floods with pictures of my ex. The same picture, over and over again, of her with a baseball cap pulled down low, a baggy sweater, and a scarf wrapped around her neck, covering half her face, like she’s trying to go unnoticed.
There’s no mistaking that red hair, though.
Just like there’s no mistaking the luggage at her feet.
Or the runway behind her.
My feed updates, a new tweet appearing with the same hashtag. A simple picture of a plane taking off, and two words I was beginning to think I’d never see.
She’s gone
.
I toss my phone at Carter’s chest, wrap Cara in the tightest, best hug, and take Rosie’s face in my hands.
“She’s gone?” she whispers. “Really?”
“She’s fucking gone.”
A sprig of mistletoe appears above us, held up by Carter. “I really wanna have a group hug, so we all need you to hurry up and kiss.”
Rosie giggles, that adorable scrunch of her nose making me smile. I kiss that first, then the dimple in her chin, before finally— fucking finally
—taking her mouth. It’s soft and sweet, unhurried and tender, and it tastes like freedom. Freedom to love with everything I have. Freedom in letting go. Freedom to be who I am and to know with certainty that all of me is loved.
Then, our friends come around us, winding arms and tender squeezes.
And this? This feels like family.