6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

December 14th

Nellie

A s far as I was concerned, there were two kinds of people in this world—the weirdos who believed Die Hard was NOT a Christmas movie and the rest of us who knew better. I could deliver a Ted Talk about my feelings on the subject and was prepared to do so at any point this evening.

Nora’s friends, Devin and Riley, had invited her and Bowie to join them for a special screening of the Bruce Willis classic, and in typical third-wheeler fashion—or in this case, fifth-wheeler—I had invited myself along.

To be fair, I was in it more for the movie theater snacks. As far as I was concerned, no movie going experience was complete without a bucket of popcorn drenched in butter and salt. I even kept a miniature saltshaker in my purse at all times, just in case.

“This is gorgeous,” Riley said, admiring the theater’s art deco style. “Who knew this place was buried between skyscrapers?”

I nodded. It really was beautiful. Magical, some might say. Floor-to-ceiling decorative columns decked out in garland, a grand staircase leading up to the balcony seats, and a domed ceiling that would make Michelangelo weep. And that was just the lobby.

Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been inside a theater, let alone gone to see a movie. Until recently, it had been months since I’d spent an evening beyond my apartment or the four half-walls of my cubicle. Yet here I was, spending another night out with friends, exploring a part of town I hadn’t been to before, even after nearly a year of living in L.A.

Maybe there was something to this work-life balance thing. God, I hate it when my sister’s right.

“Should we shop first?” Devin asked, arm entwined with their wife’s. The two of them were coming up on their second wedding anniversary, and they still acted like newlyweds. “Or find seats?”

“Ooo!” Nora shouted excitedly, pointing in the direction of what looked like a life-sized snow globe. “Let’s check out the photo booth.”

She pulled Bowie along and the rest of us followed, carving a path through the festive moviegoers like salmon swimming upstream. This place was packed. Milkshakes might have brought the boys to the yard, but thirty-five-year-old action flicks and overpriced snacks brought millennials back to the movie theater. It had worked for me, at least.

That was something unique to our generation, the thirty and fortysomething “kids” caught between digital and analog—we longed for experience. Memories, not stuff.

Which was why along with tonight’s screening of the so-called holiday classic, local artisans had gathered throughout the lobby to hock their wares and treats, everything from hand poured candles—some of which were shaped and painted like candy cane dicks—to boozy cake pops. I was more than ready to knock back a few of those.

Cake pops, I meant. Not dicks. There was only one dick on my mind these days.

As we waited in line for the photo booth, I couldn’t help but think about a certain photographer who lived next door. More specifically, about the showstopping kiss he had planted on me earlier in the week.

The first kiss to end all first kisses.

And it had happened under the mistletoe, of all places. In front of my sister and our friends. No wonder Austin had turned tail and bolted for his door the second after it had ended. He wasn’t the only one who had been embarrassed.

I had thought about kissing my sexy Santa for months now, but in all of my dreams and fantasies—and there were a lot to choose from—none had included an audience. Well, maybe one, but that was a very, very different kind of fantasy, one that had come on the tail end of reading one of Leighton’s spicy romances that took place in a sex club.

Our kiss in my apartment wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned, and yet, I wouldn’t take it back for all the presents in Santa’s . . . sack. That was another new development—I had somewhat of a Santa kink. Though, was it really a kink if I only wanted to fuck one particular Santa?

Inquiring minds need to know.

The sudden waft of some nutty, sweet concoction had me spinning in my heels. Well, heel , since I was still rocking the Aircast. “Something smells incredible,” Riley said.

Bowie pointed to a small cart just beyond the photo booth. “Chestnuts.”

“Roasted on an open fire, I presume?”

He shrugged. “In West Hollywood? Doubtful. More like toasted in a microwave oven.”

Nora and I both giggled at his Jonathan Bailey-esque pronunciation of mick-ro-wave . For someone who had never been to the U.K., I had somehow surrounded myself with British transplants. Then again, that wasn’t difficult to do in Los Angeles. There was a Tom Holland hopeful lurking in every Coffee Bean Sloane was already shoving us both into the snow globe. “I don’t—”

“You don’t like having your picture taken, I know. But you owe me one for being here on what should have been my night off, so smile pretty.”

He reluctantly sidled up next to me in the pile of faux snow. From the looks of it, his hesitation had less to do with me and more to do with being on the opposite end of the lens.

“Wow, she wasn’t kidding. You really don’t like being in front of the camera.”

“Not at all.”

He blew out a breath and wiped his palms awkwardly up and down his side, almost as if he weren’t quite sure what to do with them. But that didn’t matter. I would be more than happy to show him what to do with his hands.

“Here,” I said, threading my fingers through his and wrapping them around my side. He stiffened when I tucked myself against him and rested my other hand over his middle, just above the swell of his belly. “That’s better. Now, just pretend you like me for a few seconds.”

His eyes darkened. It was like a switch had been flipped. I let out a small squeak when the fingers around my waist tightened, digging into the velvet material draped across my body.

“Oh, Janelle,” he crooned, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. His hand skimmed the side of my neck, lower still until he met the collar of my dress. Goose bumps pricked my skin. “We both know there’s no need to pretend.”

It was a wonder we didn’t set the snow globe ablaze.

Even after Sloane took our picture, his fingers stayed laced with mine. “C’mon,” he said as he guided me out. “I’ll buy you some popcorn.”

Be still my beating vagina.

The man knew how to press all of my buttons.

Austin

I hadn’t been this nervous around a girl since ninth grade, when Penny Moore had invited me over for her “make-out party.” The night had ended with me receiving my first ever blow job on her Lisa Frank bedspread, which had lasted for all of seven seconds.

A lot had changed since then, most notably my staying power. However, my lack of dating prowess remained the same.

This isn’t even a date , I reminded myself.

Yet here I was, clinging to my gingerbread slushie with one hand while searching for the courage to wrap the other around the woman next to me. Thankfully, she was too focused on her bucket of popcorn—well, her commemorative Nakatomi Tower of popcorn—to notice.

“I’m never going to be able to let this one go,” she whispered, turning in her seat to face me. “ Die Hard is obviously a Christmas movie.”

“Are we really having this conversation?”

She bypassed my question, diving into her well-crafted argument. Something told me she’d had this conversation more than once. “First of all, the movie takes place during a Christmas party, on Christmas Eve. On top of that, it’s full of popular Christmas songs, memorable one-liners about Santa, and family dysfunction, all of which are classic Christmas tropes.”

“Plus, his wife’s name is Holly.”

She threw her hand up in the air. “I rest my case.”

“I knew you were a good lawyer.”

“I’m not that kind of lawyer. I deal mostly in contract disputes and angry actors.”

“But you love it?”

Her pink, plump lips turned up. “Yeah, I do. I appreciate the order and how black and white it is. It’s the gray bits that tend to get messy.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

She mulled over my question. I resisted the urge to lean forward and press my lips to the wrinkle between her brows. “I used to think so, but I’m starting to see things a little differently.”

Because of me. She didn’t have to say it; it was written all over her face. And it made me feel fucking amazing.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“How does a man who hates having his photo taken decide to become a photographer?”

I scanned the seats closest to us to make sure we weren’t disturbing anybody. Nothing irked me quite like people talking through a movie, except maybe the assholes who didn’t properly return their shopping carts. Those people could fuck all the way off by way of a path of Legos.

Fortunately, the few people scattered across the balcony were mostly couples more caught up in each other than the movie on screen.

“It starts with being the only boy in a sea of sisters and ends with dropping out of business school.”

She blinked up at me. “I’m not sure which of those is more surprising.”

I snagged another handful of popcorn before continuing. “Let’s just say my sisters are a lot more gregarious than I am. There was never really an opportunity to be the center of attention, so I sort of just . . . disappeared into the background.”

Understanding dawned on her face. “And business school?”

“Just trying to live up to familial expectations, I guess.”

“Classic.”

“Believe me,” I told her around a mouthful of popcorn. “I would have made a shitty analyst.”

That was an understatement. Unlike Nellie or my sister, Char, my brain didn’t adequately process black and white. There was a reason I photographed in color.

“Well, it all worked out for the best,” she said definitively. “You make one hell of a photographer.”

“Thank you.”

She held my gaze for another second or two before turning back to the movie. There was no missing the way she squirmed in her seat, adjusting the thighs that I longed to feel wrapped around my waist. There was a certain comfort in knowing that she was just as affected as I was.

Feeling suddenly emboldened, I feigned a stretch and wrapped an arm around her seat, resting it on her shoulders.

“Smooth,” she said, eyes still focused on the screen.

“I thought so.”

Her rumble of laughter vibrated against my side, right where she belonged.

There was no talking after that. Instead, we spent the next hour or so chowing down on popcorn while watching Bruce Willis take down terrorists. By the time we descended the stairs to the balcony hand in hand, Nellie had shifted gears from convincing me that Die Hard was a Christmas movie to arguing that Alan Rickman was sexier than Bruce Willis.

“You’re absolutely insane,” I told her. “In what world is Alan Rickman hotter?”

“You clearly know nothing about the feminine gaze.”

We had just cleared the bottom step when she stopped. The color drained from her face, along with the fun, flirty attitude I had come to know so well over the past couple of weeks.

“Nellie, what is it?”

“Tabitha, hello,” she said, forcing a smile.

I turned to find a tall blonde woman standing behind me. She was an imposing figure in her mid-forties, maybe, wearing a pristine pantsuit that was far too formal for a night at the movies. Her sleek hairstyle and impeccable posture were the picture-perfect definition of class. She reminded me of my sister, in the worst way possible.

“Janelle,” she said curtly. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Likewise.”

“It’s my stepson’s birthday. Die Hard is his favorite movie.”

Nellie nodded but said nothing. In the time we had known each other, I had never seen her scared silent, and truth be told, I didn’t like it one bit.

Tabitha relinquished the death grip on her designer purse and gestured to me. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your—”

“Neighbor,” Nellie finished, quickly releasing my hand from hers. “This is my neighbor, Austin.”

Neighbor. Got it.

She might as well have built a picket fence between the two of us then and there. It might have been less painful.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” Tabitha said without a hint of emotion. Come to think of it, she bore a startling resemblance to one of the terrorists from the movie. “By the way, Janelle, not to add more to your plate during the weekend, but I have to say, I wasn’t really impressed with any of your ideas for the holiday hoopla.”

“Oh.” Her smile waned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

What the fuck is a holiday hoopla?

This must have been the end of the year office party thing Nellie had mentioned during our first photo session. And from the sounds of things, it wasn’t going well.

“If you’re not up to planning it, that’s fine, but I need to know sooner rather than later. Bennett Studios is still giving us the runaround, and my in-laws are coming to town this week, so the last thing I want to worry about is the godforsaken holiday party.” Nellie squirmed under her gaze. “I could always ask Geoffrey—”

“No,” Nellie interrupted. “No, I can do it. Just . . . please, give me another chance.”

“Of course. We’ll talk on Monday.” Tabitha tipped her head in lieu of a goodbye, and then she was gone, just as quickly as she had appeared.

“Wow,” I said. It was all I could come up with. “So, that was—”

“My boss.”

“Got it.”

People continued filtering out of the balcony and down the stairs, dodging us and the impromptu roadblock we had created. Nellie didn’t seem to notice. She was still frozen to that bottom step, eyes staring blankly across the room. I would have swept her up in my arms and carried her back to that snow globe if I thought she would let me.

But this wasn’t one of my nieces’ favorite Disney films, and she wasn’t a princess waiting to be rescued. That didn’t make me want to protect her from the monsters any less.

“How about I take you home? We can even brainstorm ideas for this holiday hoopla thing over some hot chocolate, if you want.”

She snapped out of her stupor instantaneously.

“No.”

“Apple cider, then?”

“I mean no to all of it.”

There was an edge to her tone that I hadn’t heard before. Well, maybe once, that day I’d brought over the gift basket and she’d snapped at me.

“This isn’t working.”

Ouch. It was a phrase I had heard before, more than once, in fact. Though, by my calculations, we were about four months too early for this conversation.

She sighed. “I like you, Austin. You know I do, but I have to focus on work right now. I can’t afford any more mistakes.”

“Can’t we at least enjoy the rest of the evening?”

“You don’t get it,” she scolded. “You don’t have anybody to answer to but yourself. This is everything I’ve been working for since I was eighteen, and I won’t let this ruin my plans.” My stomach dropped when she gestured between the two of us. “The last thing I need right now is a distraction.”

Double ouch.

That wasn’t what any guy wanted to hear from the girl he was falling for. Distraction was second only to disappointment.

“Okay, then.” The regret on her face would be my undoing. I had to get out of here. Fast. I took a step back. “I’ll see you around.”

“Wait, Austin. That’s not what I meant. You’re—”

“A distraction, I know.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I won’t knock on your door again. Promise.”