Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by Myracle, John (good book club books TXT) 📕

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Adds. Ever since you broke up with Jeb—and I’m sorry about that, by the way—I’ve been hoping we could, you know, give it a go.”

“That’s not going to happen, and seriously, shut up.”

“Why?”

I ignored him. Bichener, Biggers, Bilson . . .

“Addie,” Charlie said. “I dropped everything to come pick you up. Think you could at least talk to me?”

“I’m sorry, but no.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re an asshat.”

He guffawed. “Since when have you been hanging out with JP Kim?” He shut the phone book, and I just barely managed to keep my finger in it to mark my place.

“Hey!” I said.

“Seriously, why don’t you want to go out with me?” he asked.

I lifted my head and glared. Surely he knew how much I regretted our kiss, and how much I hated just being here in this ridiculous Hummer with him. But as I took in his expression, I faltered. Was that . . . ? Oh good grief. Was that plaintiveness in those green eyes?

“I like you, Addie, and you know why? ’Cause you’re zesty.” He said “zesty” with the same intentional cheesiness as when he’d said “venti.”

“Don’t call me zesty,” I said. “I am not zesty.”

“You’re zesty, all right. And you’re a good kisser.”

“That was a mistake. That was me being drunk and stupid.” My throat closed, and I had to gaze out the window until I pulled myself together. I turned back and attempted to divert the conversation. “Anyway, what happened to Brenna?”

“Brenna,” he mused. He leaned back against the headrest. “Brenna, Brenna, Brenna.”

“You’re still into her, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “She seems to be . . . involved with someone else, as I’m sure you know. At least, that’s what she tells me. I, myself, can’t see it.” He swiveled his head. “If you had the choice, would you pick Jeb over me?”

“In a heartbeat,” I said.

“Ouch,” he said. He gazed at me, and beneath his posturing, I saw that plaintiveness again. “Once, Brenna would have picked me. But I was a cad.”

“Um, yeah,” I said glumly. “I was there. I was an even bigger cad.”

“Which is why we’d be great together. We might as well make lemonade, right?”

“Huh?”

“Out of our lemons,” he explained. “Which is us. We’re the lemons.”

“Yeah, I got the reference. I just . . . ” I didn’t finish my sentence. If I had, it would have gone something like, “I just didn’t know you saw yourself that way. As a lemon.”

He snapped out of it. “So what do you say, Pink? Trixie’s having a rocking New Year’s Eve party. Want to go?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He put his hand on my thigh. “I know you’re having a rough time. Let me comfort you.”

I pushed him off. “Charlie, I’m in love with Jeb.”

“That didn’t stop you before. Anyway, Jeb dumped you.”

I was silent, because everything he said was true. Except, I wasn’t that girl anymore. I refused to be.

“Charlie . . . I can’t go out with you if I’m in love with someone else,” I finally said. “Even if he no longer wants me.”

“Whoa,” he said, drawing his hand to his heart. “Now that’s rejection.” He laughed, and just like that, he was back to being obnoxious Charlie. “What about Tegan? She’s hot. Think she’d go to Trixie’s party with me?”

“Give me back the phone book,” I demanded.

He let go of it, and I pulled it into my lap. I opened it back up, scanned the entries and—aha!

“Billingsley, Constance,” I read out loud. “108 Teal Eye Court. Do you know where Teal Eye Court is?”

“No clue,” he said. “But never fear, Lola is here.”

“Do guys always name their cars?”

He punched commands into his GPS system. “Quickest way, or most use of highways?”

“Quickest.”

He hit SELECT, and a sexy female voice said, “Please proceed to the highlighted route.”

“Ahhh,” I said. “Hello, Lola.”

“She’s my girl,” Charlie said. He shifted the Hummer into gear and bumped over the ridges of snow, slowing when he reached the parking lot’s exit. At Lola’s prompting, he took a right, drove half a block, and took another right into the narrow alley behind the stores.

“Prepare for a left turn in point one miles,” Lola purred. “Turn left now.”

Charlie wrenched the wheel to the left, taking the Hummer down a dinky, unplowed cul-de-sac.

There was a bing, and Lola said, “You have reached your destination.”

Charlie stopped the Hummer. He turned to me and lifted his eyebrows. “This is where you needed a ride to?”

I was as baffled as he was. I craned my neck to read the street sign at the corner of the cul-de-sac, and sure enough, it said Teal Eye Court. A hundred feet away was the back of the Starbucks. The entire ride had taken thirty seconds, tops.

A laugh rolled out of Charlie.

“Shut up,” I said, willing myself to stop blushing. “You didn’t know where it was either, or you wouldn’t have had to use Lola.”

“Don’t you tell me you’re not zesty,” Charlie said. “You are zesty with a capital Z.”

I opened the door of the Hummer and hopped out, sinking deep into several feet of snow.

“Want me to wait for you?” he called.

“I think I can make it back on my own.”

“You sure? It’s a long way back.”

I shut the door and started walking.

He rolled down the passenger’s-side window. “See you at Starbucks—I’ll be waiting for my chai!”

Chapter Fifteen

I waded across the snowy alley to the apartment complex at 108 Teal Court, praying that Constance Billingsley didn’t have a little kid, because I didn’t know if I could take a baby pig from a little kid.

I also prayed she wasn’t blind, or paralyzed, or a dwarf like that lady I saw on the Discovery Channel who was less than three feet tall. I could not take a teeny-tiny pig from a teeny-tiny woman, no way.

Someone had shoveled the walkway leading to the individual apartments, and I climbed over the ridge of packed snow and hopped down to the much less treacherous pavement. One-oh-four, one-oh-six . . . one-oh-eight.

I set my shoulders and rang the bell.

“Why, hello, Addie!” exclaimed the gray-braided woman who