Chapter 1 #2
“Do I need a tree skirt?” I asked, not waiting for Johnny’s answer before adding one to the cart.
Before long I was running out of things to buy, but it still didn’t seem like enough. Sure, the cart was full, but by the time everything had been spread out over my house, it wouldn’t look like much. “Maybe I need a second tree for the porch,” I said.
Johnny put an arm around my shoulders. “I think what you need is to relax.” He leaned in close and murmured in a low voice, “Once we finish up here, how about I take you home and blow you?”
A shiver ran up my spine, and I wanted to say yes, but what came out of my stupid mouth instead was, “I still have so much to do!”
Johnny slid one hand around to my hip. “I can make it fast.”
“That’s not the selling point you think it is,” I said, but I was fighting back a smile. We’d come a long way since Johnny had first turned up on my doorstep and blurted out, “Fingering.”
When he spoke again, it was barely more than a breath, but I heard him just fine. “How about I wear the cowboy hat?”
He shot me a filthy grin, and yeah.
Yeah.
“Well, I guess that maybe I don’t need to look at towels after all,” I said with studied casualness, and Johnny burst out laughing as he ushered me toward the checkouts.
If there was a downside to an amazing blowjob—a wild idea, I know—then it was the fact that as soon as I came, I crashed into a deep sleep.
I woke up sometime later because of a strange sound I couldn’t place.
I was hugging Johnny’s cowboy hat, and the light was too bright.
A flash of panic had me reaching for my phone.
How much of the day had I wasted by falling asleep like that?
I squinted at the screen, then sat up and grabbed for my glasses and shoved them on to check what I was seeing.
How had I been asleep for almost two hours?
Sure, I’d lain awake last night waiting for Johnny to get home, and then for a while longer while I low-key stressed out over today, so I’d obviously needed the sleep, but that didn’t mean I had time for a two-hour nap! I still had so much to do!
I found my jeans in a pile on the floor from where Johnny had peeled them down my thighs earlier, and I pulled them on and had my sweater halfway over my head when I heard it again—the sound that had woken me up in the first place. I froze with one arm shoved into a sleeve.
Thud.
Whatever it was, it sounded like it was coming from overhead.
Oh god. Was this the day I’d finally have to deal with a raccoon in my ceiling?
I finished dressing and pulled on my shoes, my heart thumping against my ribs the whole time.
I heard the sound again not once but twice before I made it out of the bedroom.
The sound was louder in the living room, and it sounded too heavy for a raccoon, unless it was a giant mutant raccoon—and who was to say it wasn’t?
This was Goose Run. It wasn’t impossible that Bobby was experimenting with exotic breeds for the Adventurama, was all I was saying.
I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the front porch to find a ladder that I knew wasn’t mine leaning against the house.
I walked onto the front lawn and turned around, shading my eyes as I looked up, only to see Johnny’s silhouette outlined as he knelt down.
There was another dull thud, then another, and it was then that I figured out what he was doing.
My boyfriend was putting up Christmas lights, which might actually make him the best boyfriend ever.
I’d resigned myself to not having lights this year—see, “does not own a ladder or lights” and also “has never been on a roof in his life”—but Johnny knew I loved Christmas, and so he’d gotten hold of lights from somewhere.
Now there was a string of plastic icicles hanging down along the front of the porch, and it looked like he was working his way across the roof and adding more.
The thunk I’d been hearing was the sound of a staple gun.
Definitely the best boyfriend ever.
I wanted to call out, but I also didn’t want to startle him while he was up there, so I just watched as he walked across the roof, his movements sure and graceful. I could have looked at him all day.
He glanced down and saw me, so I gave a little wave. “Hey.”
“Hey. I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asked as he climbed down the ladder.
“No,” I lied. I gestured toward the roof. “This looks great. But since when do we own lights?”
Johnny gave me an awkward smile. “They were on sale, so I grabbed them.” A crease appeared between his brows. “I hope they’re okay. I don’t have any of those special roof clips, and I can’t do fancy arrangements, so it’s just colored bulbs in straight lines—”
I shut him up by throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him, and his lips curved into a smile as he kissed me back. When we parted I leaned my head against his chest and said, “They’re perfect, Johnny.”
He rested a hand on my back and held me close, and I stayed like that for a minute, soaking up the warmth of him before pulling back reluctantly. “Do you want me to help put them up?”
Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Babe, you fell off a kitchen chair last week changing a light bulb. Leave the ladder to me.”
Okay, that was fair. “Fine,” I said. “I’m going to put up the rest of the decorations.”
I stayed outside long enough to watch Johnny’s ass as he climbed up the ladder, then headed back inside.
I wrestled the tree skirt into position to the steady accompaniment of boots on my roof, and it was more comforting than it had any right to be.
I still had a whole lot left to do, but the sound reminded me that I wasn’t doing this alone.
By the time I’d added more ornaments to the tree and checked that the bathroom was still clean and rearranged the towels in there, the noise on the roof had been replaced by the sounds of Johnny descending the ladder. A minute later he called, “You wanna check the lights out?”
I hurried out front and Johnny turned the power on and came over to stand next to me, grinning the whole time. “It looks pretty good!”
And yeah, it did. It wasn’t super fancy, and it didn’t have half a dozen light-up reindeer in the yard or anything, but it was warm and welcoming.
It took me back to when I was little and my dad would spend all weekend putting up the lights.
Then we kids would stand around and make admiring noises, pretending we didn’t see that one of the strings was crooked, while we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate.
I put an arm around Johnny’s waist. “It’s amazing. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said, kissing my temple. “Now can we go inside? It’s fucking freezing.”
I laughed and led him inside.
I made us some sandwiches for lunch while Johnny strung up the garlands and fairy lights, since I was apparently banned from climbing on chairs in my own house.
After we’d eaten I set up the rest of the decorations and added another layer of tinsel to the tree, and the place looked pretty good once we were done.
But of course I still spent the next ten minutes flitting around the house in a mild panic, trying to find anything I might have missed in my cleaning frenzy.
Johnny looked like he was fighting a smile when he caught me checking my cutlery drawer for crumbs. He put a hand on top of mine and slid the drawer gently closed, and he didn’t have to say anything for me to know I was being ridiculous.
I let out a sigh. “I’m just nervous.”
“I know, babe. But if you can survive teaching a class full of five-year-olds, you can do this. And I’m right here with you.” He squeezed my hand where it was still in his and led me out of the kitchen.
“Maybe I should change my sweater,” I said doubtfully, looking down at myself.
But then there was the sound of a car door slamming. Wilder’s face split into a grin as he hurried to the front door, and there was no more time to panic.
Ready or not, I was meeting Gracie’s mom.