Page 13 of Joy to the Girls (She Gets the Girl #2)
“Our Uber driver is here! Are you almost done?” Molly calls from where she lounges on our inn bed, already changed into dry clothes after our snowball fight.
“Yeah, one sec!” I hurriedly pull on a long-sleeve shirt and reach into my duffel bag for a new pair of socks. I freeze when my hand wraps around Molly’s ruined lucky pair, and my conversation with Cora at the bar pops into my head.
She’s right. I have to talk to her. And make her talk to me.
I pull the key chain out of my pocket, dangling it off my pointer finger, the metal glinting in the fluorescent closet light. I think about the house. About that apartment above Barnwich Brews she’d screwed her nose up at.
And about Molly. How if Molly hates the house like that apartment and doesn’t want to sign the lease, maybe we could find somewhere else.
At the end of the day… I just want to live with Molly.
I only have about half a second to feel unbelievably overwhelmed by that conversation, though, before Molly pops her head through the doorway.
I quickly shove the key chain into one of the lucky socks and chuck them back into my bag before grabbing a different pair.
I zip up my duffel and stand, stumbling as I pull them on, trying not to seem suspicious.
Although, after her disappearing earlier and the new sticky note I saw on her laptop with September 5 scrawled on it, I’m not sure I’m the only one who should be worried about being suspicious.
“I am starving ,” she groans as we head out of our room and down the tunnel of holiday cheer to the lobby. When we push through the front doors, we’re greeted by a car with reindeer antlers and a glowing red nose on the bumper.
While I’d usually be charmed by that, the feeling of impending doom that keeps getting worse is kind of crushing my holiday cheer a bit.
I wave hello to the Santa in the front seat, and he unlocks the doors so we can slip inside, busting out a “HO-HO-HO” while we buckle up.
“Well, May said her mom makes the best sandwiches,” I tell her.
“I’d fistfight a reindeer for a single bite right now.” Molly groans again, and my stomach growls in agreement, though her comment earns a look of concern from our driver and the offer of a basket of candy canes at the next stoplight.
Our fingers brush together on the seat, but instead of lacing together like they usually would, Molly pulls her hands into her lap, glancing out the window to watch the people milling about to the hum of jingle bells and Christmas tunes.
Soon, we’re pulling up the long snow-covered driveway of a picturesque white house with black shutters and a garland-covered front porch.
It looks like something out of a movie, the most enormous red bow I have ever seen wrapping around the entire house and tied in the front, making the whole thing look like a giant present.
It must’ve taken six ladders and the help of every Swanson sister to pull it off.
“Cuuuute,” Molly says as we thank Santa and hop out. We crane our heads back to take it all in before we clomp up the front steps and knock on the door.
It’s yanked open a second later by a girl around May’s height, but older, with the same brown eyes and thick, dark eyebrows. Another sister we’ve yet to meet. “May!” she calls out. “Your little gay friends are here!”
She disappears before I can even exchange a grin with Molly, and a second later May and Cora appear in—
“Oh my God , what is this?” I say as we step inside, and May closes the door behind us. “Couple Christmas sweaters?”
Molly swats at my shoulder hard as May turns redder than her “HOH” sweater, while I shuffle Cora to stand right next to her, so her matching green “OHO” completes the “HOHOHO” when put together.
“What? No! They’re not—I—my mom knits them every year for—” Before May can continue stuttering the words out, everything goes dark, as something is yanked over my head.
I flail until my head pops through the neckhole of what I discover is an oatmeal-colored sweater of my very own.
I look up to see that the culprit of this sweater assault is a cheery-looking older woman with graying hair and rosy cheeks.
“Merry Christmas, May’s friends!” she says while I wrestle my arms through the armholes. Molly is already laughing, so I dip my head down to quickly read what’s knitted on the front.
“Make… the… yuletide…” I struggle to string it all together upside down.
“Make the yuletide gay,” Molly says, giggling. The words are barely out of her mouth before her laugh is cut off by a sweater being pulled over her head.
I grin as I help her pull it the rest of the way on, then tug at the bottom to give it a read. “Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle.” One of my eyebrows ticks up as I reach to smooth out her hair. “That’s some good advice, Parker. Your tinsel has been in a tangle lately.”
Everyone laughs as May’s mom corrals us into the enormous kitchen to get some sandwiches. All four of May’s older sisters are already sitting at a big, wooden farmhouse table, munching away. The one who opened the door gives us a wave from the head of the table before popping a chip into her mouth.
As we load up our plates with Lays and double-decker ham and cheeses, we get introduced to everyone in rapid succession: Bea, Alice—the girl from the Christmas tree farm—Harper, and the door opener, Sadie.
All of them sport the same dark eyebrows and brown eyes as May, who they adoringly tease through the entire meal while I try not to black out over how good the sandwich is.
Fresh bread from a local Barnwich bakery, lettuce delightfully crispy, a perfect balance of meats and cheeses and condiments. I could probably have six of them.
“May, I didn’t know you had any friends, let alone three ? Look at Miss Popular over here,” Harper says. May gives her a look in response as Alice snorts.
“I know. Can’t believe she broke your record, Harp,” Bea, the oldest, says.
“Yeah, it was hard to compete with a boyfriend and a goldfish,” May concurs with a fire that can only come from being the youngest of five sisters.
Cora giggles while reaching over to touch her arm, and I notice Sadie and Alice exchange a knowing look Molly and I have exchanged dozens of times.
Clearly they’re not oblivious to the glacially moving romance playing out right in front of us either.
“So, Cora,” Alice says. “You single?”
May nearly chokes on a chip as Cora reddens.
“Uh, yeah. I am.”
“Cool, cool, cool.” Alice nods. May hisses her name after resuscitating herself with a sip of her Coke. “You, you know, interested in any—”
“Shut up, Alice,” Bea says, cutting her off as she stands to clean off her plate. “You’re about as subtle as Grandpa on his tractor.”
Sadie snorts, leaning over to tell us, “He probably hits a grandkid a month on average with that thing.”
Me and Molly laugh, while May and Cora pretend their half-eaten plates of food are suddenly extremely interesting.
I feel a small shock of frustration. I mean, we’ve barely got two more days here, and they are still acting like middle schoolers? Just talk to each other!
I look over at Molly, who has hardly looked my way for the entire afternoon, and can practically feel the tension radiating off her. I shove a few chips into my mouth and try to ignore the feeling that I might be projecting just the tiniest bit.
After we eat our heaven-sent sandwiches, May shows us around.
From the cozy family room with a glowing fire in the fireplace, to the library her dad built for her mom, and then to the hallway filled with Swanson’s Christmas Tree Farm memorabilia, like the axe that cut down their first tree and worn black-and-white pictures of May’s ancestors with those Swanson eyebrows, every bit of it is warm and homey.
And I don’t think there’s a single room without an aromatic, carefully decorated Christmas tree.
It’s all so perfect, like it’s been pulled out of a storybook.
I whistle, plucking some mistletoe off a wreath as we head upstairs to May’s room. “May, you do know you grew up in a Hallmark Christmas movie, right?”
May laughs as we reach the landing. “That’s Barnwich for you.”
“All that’s missing is a little romance,” I say, holding up the sprig of mistletoe and looking pointedly between her and Cora. May lets out an awkward cough before she hurriedly pushes inside her room. Cora follows after her.
Molly plucks the mistletoe out of my hand. “Alex, this is a Christmas cactus.”
“Oh.” I study the green leaves with a frown.
“Maybe don’t push them so much?” she says with a shrug. “They’ll talk when they’re ready.”
“Yeah?” I say. “Or maybe they’ll keep putting it off until it ruins everything.”
She studies my face, and for a moment I think she’s going to finally say something, but instead she hands me back the cactus leaves and heads inside.