Page 18 of Joy to the Girls (She Gets the Girl #2)

That evening, in the center of the town square stands the biggest Christmas tree I have ever laid eyes on. It’s completely flooded with decorations all the way from the bottom trunk to the tips of the tallest branches. At the top is an unlit star the size of me.

While the mayor of the town gives a very long and elaborate history of the tree lighting, I nuzzle into Alex, digging into the white bag she’s holding to steal one of her roasted peanuts.

She fakes a glare before kissing me on top of my head, offering me a handful.

“And this year,” the mayor says, “our very own Ruth Hodgins, the winner of our annual hot chocolate contest, will be lighting up the tree!”

To my surprise, as Ruth hobbles her way up to the stage, there are more than a few inexplicable boos throughout the square.

Who on earth is booing this sweet old lady?

May leans across Cora to speak to the three of us, keeping her voice low. “A year ago, that lady allegedly stuffed the ballot box at the hot chocolate contest with about a million votes for herself. Some of the town is still salty about it.”

My jaw drops to the floor, and Alex and Cora laugh as we all look back to the stage to see the alleged criminal very excitedly wrapping her gloved hands around the giant light switch.

“You think she did it?” Alex asks.

I look over to see a woman in the front row, the old lady from Clara’s, hooting and hollering for Ruth, cane swinging wildly around and around over her head.

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

Scandal aside, soon the whole crowd begins a countdown, thousands of voices echoing into the cold winter night. It’s one of those moments you actually feel Christmas, in all its warm, magical, string lights and family and hot cocoa-y glory.

We all join in, smiling and laughing as we shout along with everyone else.

As Ruth pulls the lever and the lights on the tree blaze to life, Alex ducks her head down to kiss me, her lips sweet and salty from the peanuts. I close my eyes and disappear into it as the crowd cheers around us, knowing I’ll carry this moment all the way to London with me.

And all the way back. To her.

When we break apart, I look over to see May and Cora kissing in the light of the tree too. I get the sense they’re not going to miss us anytime soon, so as “Auld Lang Syne” plays on the speakers, I wrap my arm through Alex’s, tugging on her to follow me out of the crowd.

“Wait. Shouldn’t we hang out here for a bit? Get some more snacks?” She shakes her bag of roasted peanuts at me.

I smile and lean into her ear so only she can hear me as I whisper, “Or we could head back to the inn and finish what we started the other night.”

Before I know it, she’s pulling me through the crowd and all the way back to our room, where we both ditch our winter layers just inside the door.

I run and jump into bed, pulling the warm, cozy covers up to my armpits.

Alex follows me, doing a comically overdramatic sexy walk across the carpet that somehow turns back around to actually being sexy.

She climbs up my body and then plants her knees on either side of my stomach.

Then she leans down and kisses me, but this time she doesn’t kiss me like she did on the bathroom counter.

This time she kisses me so softly that I can barely feel her lips on mine.

I do half a crunch to try to get more of her, but she only moves farther away, her lips just grazing mine again.

I let my head fall back to the pillow, and my eyes pop open.

“Alex Blackwood, are you teasing me?”

“What are you going to do about it, Parker?”

I buck my hips to throw her off me, rolling with her until we find ourselves in the opposite positions. I smirk down at her as she lets out a cute nervous giggle that I only ever get to hear in moments like this.

“Come here,” she says, suddenly serious as her hands reach up into my hair to pull my head down until my lips find hers.

I feel her hands run from my bare shoulders all the way down to the backs of my thighs, pausing just long enough to unclip my bra.

I let it fall down my arms and then fling it off onto the floor before allowing my body to collapse onto hers with a groan.

She spreads my legs onto either side of her hips and tries to pull me even closer. I leave her lips to kiss my way down her body, trying to relish every part of her.

The little blond hairs across the bend in her jaw that shimmer in the sun.

The blue vein down her neck that protrudes when she gets flustered.

The little squishy part of her lower stomach where I love to lay my head while we watch movies on my old blue couch.

All the little parts of her that I love, that I will always love.

After, we lie facing each other as we both catch our breath.

“So, there’s something I still haven’t told you. Why I was being so weird and disappeared yesterday.”

“Oh yeah. What was that all about? I saw a sticky note on your laptop.”

“Oh shit.” I laugh. “Nice, Molly.”

“So what was it?”

“I had this international students Zoom call where I got to meet all the other people accepted into the program from outside the UK.” I start telling her all about it, and soon I’m absolutely gushing with excitement.

“It was incredible. I mean… yeah, I’m completely stoked for the program itself, but I don’t know.

It made me really excited to just get to be around people from literally all over the world for two years. ”

“Molly Parker, the people person now, huh?” she asks cutely.

“All thanks to your influence, I’m sure. I don’t know what it is, but one of the other students likes G. B. Kalloway too!”

“And here I thought nobody else in the world had heard of her books,” Alex jokes.

“I know!” I grab her shoulder and shake her with excitement, but she only smiles for half a second before her face falls into almost a frown. I reach out and gently drag my hand down her soft cheek.

“Alex? Do you think we’ll be okay? Like… does part of you not want me to go?” I ask.

She immediately shakes her head and grabs both of my hands to hold in hers. “Molly, you’re definitely going! Of course you’re going.”

“I know, but I’m asking… are you disappointed about it?” I ask, but all she does is bite her lip. “It’s not unsupportive to be disappointed, babe. I just want you to be honest. I want to know how you feel.”

“I mean, it feels almost impossible to imagine how much I’m going to miss you, Molly. We met, like, day one of college. I can’t really picture Pittsburgh without you. It’s going to be an adjustment, but that doesn’t mean I’m not super stoked for you,” she replies.

My eyes fill up with tears that I try desperately to hold in. “There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to,” I tell her, and she laughs softly, reaching up to wipe the tears out of my eyes.

“Well, you do turn your nose up at baked beans at every single one of your dad’s cookouts. And don’t even get me started on Vegem—”

I cut her off and throw my arms around her as tight as I can, already trying to memorize her smell so I can hold on to it when I’m away.

She rolls onto her back, and with me over her, she nuzzles into my neck and wraps her arms around my lower back, and the two of us lie like that for a long, long time, though it will never be long enough.

“Maybe I can stuff you in my suitcase,” I say through the tears spilling over my cheeks and onto her pillow.

“All this cake? It would never fit,” she jokes, but her voice catches at the end of her sentence. She starts to pull away, but I tighten my grip on her.

“I don’t think I can leave you,” I whisper, feeling it so deep that my bones ache.

“Come here.” She reaches between us and pulls my face right down to hers, until our foreheads are pressed together.

“Molly Parker…,” she says as I stare into her green eyes with the yellow flecks that I have fallen in love with a thousand times.

“I’m not going to be the thing that holds you back.

Not ever. Two years is nothing when we’re going to be together for a lifetime. ”

I nod against her, and we fall back onto the bed all tangled up in each other, kissing and crying and whispering “I love you” until we fall asleep.