Page 1 of Promise Yule Be Mine (Christmas Falls: Season 2)
1
KODY
Late September
I t all started, as all good stories do, on a drunken night.
“Screw him and all men!” Jenna said, waving the glass of wine dangerously above her white couch.
“Hey!” I groaned.
She laughed and leaned closer. “Awww, babe. Except for you. You can unscrew yourself. You’re not like other men.”
I nodded but flinched as soon as her boozy breath blew in my face. Jenna and I were close, but not that close I’d have to put up with that. At least not in a long, long while.
“I’m sick of them. Sick. I’m never there for one, I’m too there for the other, I’m a mess for the next. Like, what the fuck do you want? As if they’re all perfect little angels. Pfft! Men. Pigs more like.”
I sighed and raised a toast to that.
Although in my case it was both men and women. I was just…very unlucky with both teams. So unlucky in fact I’d given up the game altogether. What was the point of trying to put yourself out there only to be knocked down again and again. At some point you had to cry foul and go back to the bench.
Which was exactly what I did, and instead had given my heart and soul to my work, my family and my friends instead.
“I mean…fuck you, Jared! Who do you think you are? You aren’t even that handsome or good in bed. You don’t get to tell me I’m a mess! You’re a mess times infinity.”
I chuckled but it came out more as a snort and I choked on my own wine.
“They’re all the same.” I raised my glass.
She clinked it with her own a little too harshly, but thankfully we avoided any mishap.
“Right? Jared who? Anya what the fuck? Josh what?” She practically swung from side to side with her eyes closed as if trying to remember and list all of our combined exes.
“Don’t even remind me of Josh. I still want to punch his perfect little teeth in.”
I wasn’t a violent guy. I truly wasn’t. But that douchebag had played with Jenna’s heart like it was a chew toy and then discarded it as if it was worth nothing. And he had the nerve to come crawling to me to ask me to talk her out of telling everyone how small his dick was.
Freaking pilots.
“And I’d be there to collect it and make a victorious necklace for my wedding day.”
I cringed. “God, you’re really unhinged when you’re drunk!”
She rolled her eyes. “And you didn’t know that already?”
I rocked my head from side to side admitting defeat only I wished I hadn’t because everything started spinning. Including my own guts.
“Agh. I’m never going to get married, am I? I’m going to be a bitter old spinster who shouts at kids and adopts, like, a hundred cats.”
“Hey! What’s wrong with cats? They’re better company than humans.”
Jenna sighed. “You know what I mean. I’m fucking thirty?—”
“ We . We ’re thirty.”
“ We ’re fucking thirty and are nowhere close to that white picket fence and all that shit.”
I sighed and refilled my glass. Jenna hovered her own in front of the bottle but she was a terrible drunk so I ignored her silent request.
“At least we have each other.”
“‘til we’re gray.”
“And old.”
“And childless.” She hugged herself and her lips turned down into a pout. “Childless,” she cried.
“Hey! You’re not going to be childless.”
“Pftt! I can’t even get a man to marry me. Who’s going to have kids with me? You?”
I shrugged. “Why not? We know we get along. We’d make kickass co-parents.”
She rolled her eyes again and her gaze drifted off to the electric fireplace that was turned to a low setting to keep the house warm. Winter was going to come early this year. Which would be good for business. Not so good for our mental health.
“We would,” she mumbled after what felt like an eternity. An eternity in which I’d somehow finished my glass of wine and discovered there was no more to be had.
Dang it. I knew I should have brought three bottles. This was a crisis. Two simply weren’t enough.
“What?” I asked.
Jenna took a deep breath and turned to me.
“We’d make great parents together, wouldn’t we?”
I narrowed my eyes and tried to turn the three Jennas appearing before me into one.
“Are you propositioning me?”
Her eyes bulged and she jumped in her seat. A few drops of wine flew to the couch cushions but she didn’t notice.
“Yes! I am. Let’s do this. Let’s get married, Kody. Who better to spend your life with than your best friend who’s always got your back?”
“Woah! Woah!” I put my hands up. “How did we get from asking me to be your children’s father to being your husband?”
She finally put her glass down on the table and reached for me, cupping my hands in hers.
“You know I don’t want to do this alone. You know how hard it was for my mom to raise me all on her own. And look at my job. I’m almost never here half the time. I can’t do this by myself.”
“But you wouldn’t. I’d be the co-parent.”
“Yeah, but that means carting a kid back and forth between two houses. We should live together and if we live together, we might as well get married. Hell, we can have an open marriage since there’s no chance in hell I’m reopening that can of worms with you.”
“You’re crazy.”
“That I am, but tell me I’m not right.”
I opened my mouth to do just that but closed it before a single word escaped.
It wouldn’t be the worst idea ever. It wasn’t like guys and girls were lining up outside my house anyway. And I really did want to be a father.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
“Yay!” She clapped and hugged me, squealing like a little girl who’d just convinced her parents to buy her ice cream. “I’m gonna be the best wife. You’ll see.”
“And I’ll be the best husband,” I told her and we stayed there, locked in each other’s arms for the rest of the night.
When I woke up with a blistering headache the next morning, she was passed out at the other end of the couch and I was curled up in a fetal position trying to steady the room around me.
Since I was the first up, I made coffee and poured a big cup for her. The aroma of the fresh coffee made her stir, and she opened her eyes.
“Morning!” I handed her her cup.
“Morning, future hubby!” she answered.
The last night’s events came rushing back at me. “Oh God!” I said. “Did we propose to each other last night?”
She smiled and took a sip of her black coffee. “We sure did, fiancé.”
“Are you serious?” I asked her with a raised eyebrow.
“You weren’t?”
“I mean…yes and no. Do we really want to do this?”
“Why not?” Jenna asked. “We’ve known each other half our lives, we get along, we know everything there is to know about each other and we don’t have sex. We’re already like a married couple. Why shouldn’t we make it official and move on with our lives.”
Maybe I was still drunk or maybe I’d lost my freaking mind but she was still making sense, even in daylight.
“Okay. Let’s do it. But…”
“But what?” She peered at me from behind her cup and I couldn’t quite tell if it was with concern or amusement.
I took a deep breath and stared right at her.
“But if we do this, we keep this agreement to ourselves. No one else knows this is a marriage of convenience. They’ll think we’re nuts and we might be but I don’t need all of Christmas Falls to know.”
She nodded. “Righto.”
“So no frolicking with anyone in town.”
“That’s easier for me than it is for you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care about me. I’m talking about you. I can live without sex. But I know it’s important to you.”
“Okay. I promise. I’ll keep my frolicking outside of town and prying eyes and ears. But you know, if you need to let off some steam, you can do the same.”
“I don’t. I’m making a promise right here, right now. I promise I’ll be yours for as long as you’ll have me and while it might not be a real marriage, I’ll treat it as one.”
Jenna pursed her lips into a smile and squeezed my hand.
“You got it, sweetie.”
I squeezed hers back and took a sip of my own coffee to quell the throbbing hangover. Naturally, it didn’t work, but the sugar hit all the right spots to make it tolerable.
“Are we really doing this?” she asked.
“Sure are,” I said.
“I love you, Kody Campbell. You’re the best friend anyone could have ever asked for.”
“You too, Jenilyn Torres. I love you too.”
She cozied up next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder with a big sigh.
“You know we’ll need to tell your brother and Jett, right?”
I sighed too.
“Yeah. I know. They would never buy we’re a couple.” There was a beat of silence before I added, “not it!” almost at the same time as her. But she was too slow.
“Damn it. I lose,” she said.
“Lose?” I raise an eyebrow. “You’re getting me as your husband and baby daddy. You’re winning all day every day, baby.”
She snorted and slapped my chest but leaned on my shoulder again. I finished my coffee trying not to think of what could possibly go wrong.