“Mom, this is Mr. Capulet, my boss.” Janie appears in the doorway. Once again, she shoves past me. I really should take her over my knee, the naughty little brat.
She continues, “He’s here to exchange the carry-ons we mixed up.”
She’s holding a similar bag to the one Christopher holds, and she passes it to Christopher.
“Mr. Capulet, do stay for dinner,” Demelza says. “I made plenty of food.”
“Call me Christopher, please,” he says with a charming grin that for some reason makes me want to slug him in the jaw. “But I couldn’t possibly impose?—”
“Please,” Demelza says. “I won’t take no for an answer, and neither will Janie.”
Janie beams at Christopher. Turning to look at him again, I can see the moment he crumbles. He’s as much a sucker for her as I am.
“Sure,” he says with a smile. “I’ll stay, if you insist.”
“We do.” Demelza grabs his wrist and drags him inside. “Come on, Tag—you know your way around.”
Janie gives me a blank look as she steps aside so I can enter the house. I’m surprised she doesn’t hurl her carry-on into my path to trip me.
There’s no way Christopher is going to believe I’m her boyfriend, not with the way she’s treating me. I don’t care much what Christopher thinks, except I’ll look like a sociopath for lying about it.
Also, I didn’t like the way he looked at Janie. He’s interested in her. I can tell from the way his gaze lingered slightly too long on her red lips, on the way he carefully kept space between them as he went past her into the house.
We eat dinner at the large table in the dining room. I exchange a few words with Joe, Janie’s older brother. He looks like a wreck, but doesn’t seem interested in sharing what’s bothering him. Anna had mentioned her theory about him holing up with some girl. That’s not the impression that I get; it seems to me that if there was a girl involved, she destroyed the poor guy.
Conversation flows freely and easily, although Janie evades all of my gambits to engage her. Christopher looks fascinated, which only irritates me further. I never should have lied and said I’m her boyfriend.
Wishful thinking from the world’s dumbest ex.
I bristle every time Janie calls him “Mr. Capulet.” The name from her red, red lips sounds like a sexy honorific. She’s obviously besotted with him. She’d probably happily call him “daddy” if she knew anything about that scene.
He knows about the scene, though. I finally figured out where I’ve seen him before—Salt—the high-class BDSM club owned by Edmund Layton. Christopher Capulet is there nearly every weekend, running scenes with a rotating list of subs who all seem to clamor for his touch and attention.
They approach me, too, but I haven’t played with anyone since I started dating Janie. Not even after I broke up with her. The idea feels wrong somehow, like I’d be cheating.
He’s kinky, I’m kinky. I should take solace in the fact that neither of us is a good match for little Janie.
JANIE
This is great, just great. My hopeless crush and my heartbreaker ex are at the same party...with my meddling sister.
We retire to the giant family room to exchange gifts and have dessert. Finally I get to feast on sugar cookies. I don’t care much about presents—it’s the cookies I look forward to every year.
I don’t even shove Tag away when he sits down next to me on the couch, although I’m tempted.
We exchange gifts. My parents give me a gift card to my favorite make-up store. This is a long-standing traditional gift, and I’m grateful every time. Anna gives me a charm bracelet I’d been eyeing, handmade by a local artist. Joe gives me his usual, which is a coupon for a brother-sister movie date to a movie of my choosing. I think I’ll be extra evil this year and make him watch a horror flick. He nearly peed his pants last time.
Tag gives me a tin of sugar cookies. I want to glare, because he knows me too well. Instead I graciously thank him.
“I, uh, got you something too.” Mr. Capulet looks embarrassed.
But that can’t be possible—why should he be embarrassed?
When he hands me a small tin of sugar cookies, we all laugh. Tag’s laughter sounds forced. Good.
My dad finds a rom-com for us to watch, but nobody’s really paying attention. Soon, Joe makes an excuse about needing to get up early tomorrow. He says goodbye to everyone and leaves. My dad starts snoring in his recliner, so Mom wakes him up and they both say goodnight.
Not two seconds after they leave the room, Mr. Capulet stands up. “I should probably get going, too?—”
