There’s no way. Dammit, Mandy, tell me there’s no way.
Except Mandy looks at Justin, asking a silent question with her eyes, and I’m waiting for Justin to shake his head, or tell her they can’t because they have plans when he smiles and nods.
What. The. Fuck?
“We’d love to.” Mandy grins at Mom and they turn toward the exit. Justin grabs my case and follows behind the moms leaving me standing wondering what the hell just happened.
I wouldn’t fucking love to. I can think of eleventy billion other things I’d rather do than have Thanksgiving dinner with the Ashes.
Jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet for example.
Or using a cheese grater on my fucking lady garden.
How did this happen?
Mom doesn’t even pause or stop to check I’m following her. She’s so engaged in her conversation with Mandy that it’s kind of cute.
Justin, on the other hand, stops and casts a glance back over his shoulder. His mouth tips up again in that infuriatingly smug smile and he shrugs.
I know Mom’s plan. She’s playing matchmaker, thinking it’s cute. She thinks I need a boyfriend, that I need to settle down with a nice boy and give her thirteen grandbabies after I graduate college. I hope that’s what happens, too, but not with him.
He throws me one more smile before turning back and following the moms out the door. I’m left with nothing else to do but follow behind.
My feet carry me toward the exit, but what I really want is to do a 180 turn and get my ass back on a plane to flee the impending clusterfuck of a Thanksgiving I’m facing.
CHAPTER9
Justin
Maybe I’m living my very own forced proximity romance novel after all. This is all working out perfectly. Sitting next to Savannah on the plane I realized that I do care what she thinks about me. I don’t just want to change her mind about me, I want her.
All of her.
I want to take her on dates, figure out what makes her smile, and help her chase her every dream. Yup. It’s a lot, way too fast, way too soon. I want to kiss those tantalizing lips, I want to tangle my fingers in her honey gold hair, and I want to drag my tongue over every single inch of skin on her body.
I’m crushing. Hard.
And the conflict was written across her features. Like she was trying to process the Justin she heard about in high school against the one she saw sitting with her on the plane.
The look on her face when her mom invited us for Thanksgiving dinner was priceless. It took everything I had not to laugh out loud at the stunned disgust painted on her delicate eyebrows. We don’t usually do much for the holiday. We eat turkey, we watch football, and Dad and I pass out in a meat coma on the sofa the way God intended.
Mom does the Black Friday thing with her sister and comes home with a bunch of shit she doesn’t need, just ’cause it was on deep discount. Then she spends the weekend trying to figure out who’s getting what for Christmas. She’s gifted so many waffle irons that I’ve lost count. By this point I think a few people have been given two.
The idea of spending the holiday across the table from a girl who’s trying so hard to hate me has my muse in overdrive.
I pull out my phone on the ride home and start a new note, frantically typing as Mom drives and tries to make small talk. It’s not the book I should be working on, but sometimes the ideas that come to you in a moment of inspiration? Sometimes those are even better than the ones you’d planned out to the letter.
Fingers crossed this is one of them.
I guess Mom sees I’m writing and goes quiet, knowing that when I’m creating I need to concentrate. Instead she sings along under her breath to the Christmas music radio channel she switches on at the start of November every year without fail.
By the time we get home, I’m ready to take a break. We have dinner, I unpack—giving Dad most of the 6-packs of Spotted Cow I picked up from Glarus Brewing Co. in Wisconsin while I was in town for a game.
“I’m going to bring a couple to the Bowen’s house tomorrow.”
Dad’s jaw drops open and he clutches a 6-pack to his chest. “You…what? My precious Spotted Cow? You wouldn’t!”
Mom rubs my arm, laughing. “I think that’s a great idea, sweetie. You brought more than enough for your dad. I told Abby I’d make my chocolate mud pie for dessert and bring a couple of sides, too. You want to help me in the kitchen?”
