Page 3 of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
I avoided Thanksgiving this year. I doubt my luck will hold to escape Christmas.
“Christmas?”
She sighs. “Yes, Lilah. It’s not like we celebrate anything else in December.”
Fucking ouch. My birthday was last week. Must have slipped her mind.
“What about it?”
“Your father and I are expecting you for our annual party on Christmas Day. I’ll have your room readied, and you can spend the week with us. There’s someone I’d love—”
“I can’t, Mother.”
“Can’t?”
I swear her slow blink is audible through the phone. Like she doesn’t understand why I don’t immediately drop everything to do as she says.
“I have plans,” I hedge.
I don’t. But she doesn’t know that.
“What plans? It’s Christmas, and we’re your family.”
“The band is recording all month.” Lie number two. “And then we’re meeting with the label to discuss the tour that starts this spring.”
“Lilah—”
Chris’s gate is in sight, and I wave to the guard who lets me through.
“I gotta go, Mom. Bye.”
I hang up on her sputtering and pull my car to the side of the road so I can lean my head against the steering wheel.
That won’t be the last time Christmas and my “invitation” to come home for the holidays will come up. But I’ll take my small reprieve.
Maybe I’ll head to Montana to see Aunt Sarah.
The blast of a car horn jars me into an upright position. Evan’s Jeep is behind me, and he flashes his lights like I don’t see him.
“Asshole,” I mutter to the rearview mirror.
It may be childish, but I keep my foot on the brake. If he can act like a four-year-old, then I will too.
Six months. One hundred and eighty days I’ve spent dealing with his not-so-veiled hostility. Since the day Chris called to tell me I had the job. No, before that. He barely looked at me during theaudition. Why he hates me so much is a mystery. I tried getting to know him. Tried being his friend. When that failed, I gave it back as good as I got. No matter what I do, his behavior hasn’t changed.
In response to another blast of his horn, I throw my car in reverse, the white lights illuminating the surprised expression on his face.
“Take that.”
He shakes his head, peeling out and around my car, then speeding around the first curve and out of sight.
As soon as his taillights fade, my triumph does too. What good did that do? No doubt made him more pissed at me than he was before.
I shift my car into drive and follow Evan, albeit at a much slower speed. He’s waiting in the driveway when I pull behind him, but I don’t see Finn’s motorcycle or Milo’s car. At least I’m not the last one here. Had Evan not shot past me at the gate, I would have gotten here first.
“Glad to see you finally made it, princess,” he sneers as soon as I open my door.
My fingers itch to flip him off, but instead, I take a deep breath and ignore his taunt.
