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Neither mistletoe nor spinning bottles could make that happen.
Timothy snorts. “Jessie wishes he would.”
My stomach swoops. “I do not.”
He shrugs and knocks back his beer, which is more maddening than if he’d tried to argue with me.
My mother laughs on her way back to the butler’s pantry. “Maybe next time, hon.”
“I’ll kill him. Bludgeon him to death with a dildo from the factory reject pile.” No way am I wasting a perfectly good sex toy on him.
Timothy wraps me in a bone-crushing hug of muscle and cable-knit sweater until I shove him away, reaching to muss his shaggy honey-blonde hair because that stupid head injury nearly took him away from me. A second later, I’m in a headlock.
He has seventeen minutes on me, several inches, and probably seventy pounds. I haven’t stood a chance against him since puberty. I slap my hand twice on the counter in surrender, squealing at him to let me go.
Releasing me, he laughs. “Whatever, J.”
Timothy never figured out the protective brother role. He’d laugh his ass off if Nic had kissed me. Or he’d make gagging noises. Hopefully, he’d question Nic’s state of mind. Or…
Wait, why am I thinking about this?
I elbow my twin. Hard. “What’shedoing here, anyway? Shouldn’t he be off celebrating his divorce by screwing his way through another modeling agency?” I can’t judge him because glass houses and all. Except I’m not pulling men hot enough to have a career in modeling, which is wildly unfair. And I haven’t had a hookup in months. So I will be judging him. Respectfully.
Timothy laughs. “He’s gone through them all.”
I grumble under my breath and my brother gives me an obnoxious smile, letting me know he’s going to enjoy every minute of my suffering.
And I’m going to have to take it if I’m going to fix my relationship with my twin.
“Be nice,” he says mildly. “He’s had a rough year.”
My firstbe nice. Hell, I should turn this holiday into a drinking game—drink every time someone tells me tobe niceto Nic. Two drinks if they bring up sleeping with models like that defines a ‘rough year.’
Nic is the favorite of everyone in this family, except for me. If they only loved him for being a moderating influence on Timothy—which I used to be—I might be okay with it. But they side with Nic, seem to enjoy his company more than mine, and shower him with attention.
The thing is, Nic hates me as much as I hate him, but no one else sees it. No one tells him tobe nice. He can insult me and say things that hurt me, and no one blinks. We’ve never gotten along, and after the shitshow five years ago, we never will.
But, I need these two weeks to fix things with my twin.
“I’ll try,” I mutter. I’ll pretend Nic is somewhere else. Far, far away. The moon, perhaps.
A horde thunders into the kitchen, kids clamoring about pie and ice cream, saving me from what would no doubt be a lecture from my brother on the merits of Nic Fontana. The kids gather around the island, jostling for the best barstools, while the adults file into the room, talking and laughing. Hazel catches Amanda in the doorway for a quick kiss under the mistletoe.
My mother catches the direction of my gaze in passing and stops, pointing. “It stays up.”
She would never take it down anyway. The sheer delight she takes in other people’s terror at getting caught beneath it is the reason it’s there. With only family around tonight, I’m safe, but at the wild Christmas Eve Folly, with my mother’s infamous punch flowing, and Nic lurking…
He walks back in on cue, through the dining room to avoid the mistletoe.
My face is on fire, and he hasn’t even looked my way. I need a drink.
There’s always mulled wine in a slow cooker over the holiday, mugs on the counter. My mug is bright pink, the wordsBlow Me, I’m Hotprinted across it. Everyone has a unique mug, from my mother’sBoss B*tchto Timbo’s Christmas T. rex. Nic’sFestive as F*ckmug is on the counter, pulled from the back of a shelf after four years of gathering dust.
My skin prickles as a phantom breath whispers across the nape of my neck. I can’t see him, but I know he’s watching me. He always does, trying to unnerve me. It’s not going to work.
By the time my mug is full and I turn to glare at him, he’s no longer looking at me. His shoulders are tense though. I hate the way his shirt pulls tight on his chest when he reaches back to rub the base of his skull as he pretends to listen to Lauren and Timothy. It’s obvious he’s pretending. He’s a shitty actor.
I take a big drink and spit the wine back into the mug, along with ten thousand incinerated taste buds.Dammit.
