Page 14 of How My Neighbour Stole Christmas
“Storee…”
“The chicken?”
“For fuck’s sake,” I say, turning on her.
She smiles up at me. “Sorry, but like I said, it’s really hard for me to be quiet.”
“Well, let me make it easy for you,” I say as I step out of line, ignoring my craving for a chicken parm sandwich and settling for the leftovers in my fridge. “I’ll leave.”
“But your sandwich!”
“Not worth it,” I reply.
“Okay, but if you change your mind, I’m not letting you back in line. You leave now, you lose your spot.”
“Well aware,” I say as I walk away and push the door open, freeing myself from her irritating presence.
It’s going to be a long fucking holiday if this is how it’s going to go.
CHAPTER THREE
Storee
Cole tried, he truly did; he attempted to keep his poise.
But how could he with her? All that noise, noise, noise.
She was very unpleasant; he couldn’t stand her in the least.
Especially after she took away his chicken parm feast.
“She’s headed over right now,”Taran says. “Can you stop fumbling with that soup?”
“I’m not fumbling, I’m eating,” I say after a gulp of tomato bisque. “I’m starving.”
“It’s rude to eat before everyone is present for dinner.”
“It’s rude to hold off on showing up untilJeopardy!is over. You and I both know she’s terrible and doesn’t know a single question,” I say.
Not to mention the Kringle Krampus was soooooo slow. By the time I got up to the register to order, I was gnawing a part of my arm off. Didn’t help that I ran into Cole. Totally misjudged the dynamic. Man, the look he gave me—pure murder.
He’s sort of always been like that—a touch on the grumpy side—but this time? It was like he took on a whole persona of “look at me and die.”
But the brief look that I did take, umm…let’s just say the boy grew into aman. I’ve always thought Cole was cute. How could I not with that brown hair that he liked to flip to the side and those penetrating blue eyes that always had a heavy set of brows over them? Not to mention I’ve always tended to flock toward the grumpier sort. But wow, I wasn’t expecting to be bowled over by just how handsome he is now. How sharp his jawline is, peppered in a thick scruff, how tall…how broad. The deep tone of his voice and the even surlier disposition. Talk about the kind of hero you look for in a Lovemark movie.
In a huff, Taran turns toward me. “Can you please, please try not to be difficult?”
“How am I being difficult? I wasn’t aware we needed to stand in a single file, waiting for our aunt to greet us as if we’re the house staff.” I take another slurp of my soup. “When shefinallyshows up, I’ll be there to greet her—”
The front door opens, startling me, and I jump, my spoon clattering into the bowl in front of me. Anxiety zings through me as I bolt over to Taran and stand at her side, our arms pressing together as the door swings open, revealing Aunt Cindy with a walker, Martha and Mae standing on either side.
And it’s a sight to behold.
Martha and Mae both sport their signature high-rise hair—that’s what I like to call it. They like to say the higher the hair, the closer to the North Pole. But it’s the matching cerulean-blue, velour track suits that send me, because Aunt Cindy is wearing one as well.
“My girls,” Aunt Cindy coos with more enthusiasm than I expected. I might have been totally wrong to assume, but I just thought that we’d be coming here to care for an elderly woman in her bed, her shaky arm lifting up to point to her ice water for a palate cleanse. Sure, Mom said she’d had some recovery time in an assisted living facility where they focused on getting her up and walking. But this…this vibrant, smiling, velour-track-suit-wearing woman in her tinted blue glasses is not the human I was expecting.
“Aren’t they magnificent?” Aunt Cindy says, gesturing to me and Taran.
