Page 17 of Erotic Temptations 2
Ryan set the mugs down and leaned in, close enough to rest his forehead against mine. Soft morning light made his eyes bizarrely blue. “Best Christmas ever,” he said, and I agreed.
The kiss was gentle, slow, not rushed. No fireworks, just warmth and the steady press of his mouth to mine.
We dated long distance for eight months. Then Ryan transferred to a school in Chicago. We made sure to go home every Christmas, but the rest of the year? Disgustingly happy.
THE END
All I Want for Christmas
“Bingo time!” I announced when Mabel, Estell, and Sophia met me in our apartment hallway. “I’m feeling lucky tonight.”
The three were like grandmothers to me. I spent my Friday nights with them because my love life was hopelessly pathetic.
“You say that every Friday night, yet you’re still single, Elijah,” Mabel said, looking inside her purse.
“That’s because I’m dating you three,” I teased, knowing there was no heat behind her words. She was just a sarcastic old lady who spoke her mind. Maybe a little too often. “Don’t tick me off, old woman, or I’ll hide your dentures.”
I shuffled them to the elevator, where Sophia punched the button at least several dozen times. “What’s taking so long?”
“We’ve been standing here for five seconds,” Estell said. “Maybe if you got lucky, you could get rid of that tick.”
There was some mathematical formula, hidden deep in the wrinkles of the universe, that determined how long it took for an elevator to arrive, directly proportional to how badly you needed it. If it was just me, I could have bolted down the stairs and made it to the parking lot in under a minute, but with three old women and an armful of bingo bags, I was basically one bad hip away from starring in my own tragic disabled puppy commercial.
At seven seconds, Sophia started jamming her thumb into the elevator button like it owed her money.
“You’ll break it,” Estell muttered, shaking her head in disapproval, which meant she probably approved of it but couldn’t say so out loud because some sort of senior citizen union would revoke her scolding privileges.
“It’s not coming,” Sophia declared. “I bet it’s stuck.”
“Probably ’cause you mashed the button like a lunatic,” I said, then stepped back and gestured with a grand sweep whenthe elevator final arrived. “Ladies, after you. Try not to get into a fistfight with the doors.”
Mabel shuffled in first, still rooting around in her purse. I peeked inside once to find a black hole filled with a spare pair of pantyhose, a plastic-wrapped fruitcake, and, I’m pretty sure, last week’s mail.
“Ignore him,” Sophia huffed, but she was smirking. Estell caught my eye and winked. For a pack of old bats, they were kind of adorable.
We crammed into the elevator, hips bumping. Someone’s floral perfume was duking it out with a suspicious whiff of mothballs. For a wild moment, I considered lighting a match just to see if the synthetic pink cloud was flammable.
“Who’s driving?” Estell asked, once we’d made it to the lobby without any broken bones. She stared at me suspiciously, like she was prepping for cross-examination.
I did my best to look innocent. “I am. But if any of you backseat-driver me, I’m putting on my Taylor Swift playlist and refusing to turn it off.”
Mabel patted my arm. “You listen to Taylor Swift?”
“Only when I’m trying to emotionally devastate myself,” I replied. “Or, you know, Friday nights when I’m spending my prime years with three women who have a combined age of the Roman Empire.”
That got a snort out of Sophia. She elbowed me, which, for a lady who probably slept in curlers, still kind of hurt. “That’s rich, coming from you. I saw your last boyfriend. He looked like he needed mommy to cut his grapes.”
Estell turned, arms folded, clearly prepared to participate in the roast. “And what happened to that cute one you brought to Thanksgiving?”
“Tragic microwave accident,” I said. “He never recovered.”
Typical. They’d remember every detail about every guy I dated but couldn’t for the life of them remember their own kids’ phone numbers.
We spilled out into the lobby in a flurry of orthopedic shoes, mothball perfume, and barely contained anticipation. Outside, my crisply ironed jeans and tastefully wrinkled polo shirt definitely set me apart from my crew, who believed in floral prints and accessorizing like it was going out of style. Which, to be fair, it had…in 1972.
* * * *
Bingo was held in the bowels of the VFW hall. Step inside, and the world instantly aged twenty-five years. There were crocheted tablecloths, stacks of battered folding chairs, a faint promise of disinfectant, and the ever-present electric whine of fluorescent lighting slowly erasing your will to live.