Page 75 of The Mistletoe Kisser

“That guy has a bunker,” Ryan whispered to Sammy.

“He also terrorizes bachelorette parties as an exotic dancer. How do you know all this?” she asked.

He shrugged and helped himself to more of her popcorn. “I get around.”

“No,” Beckett announced into the microphone. “The apocalypse is not back on.”

“What apocalypse?” Ryan asked.

“We had a teeny tiny issue with Uranus in October,” she told him.

He frowned. “Whose anus?”

“I wore Gene Simmons Kiss makeup to my wedding,” Mason interjected.

“Joey got bangs. Eva got pregnant. Half the town ended up incarcerated in the high school gym,” Sammy said. “It was a whole thing.”

Ryan leaned in closer this time. His knee pressing firmly against hers, lips just a millimeter from the tender skin of her ear lobe. She went from mildly concerned about current events to frantically concerned with the thrumming pulse that had started between her thighs. “You’re fucking with me aren’t you?” he whispered against her ear.

“You wish,” she shot back.

21

Ryan couldn’t decide if she was joking or not. Then decided it didn’t matter because in Blue Moon, anything was possible. But he liked the way the topic made her eyes light up, her lips curve.

Great. Now he was thinking about her mouth again. Which made him think about their kiss yesterday. Which made him think of what else they could have been doing in addition to more kissing. Which made him hard. Again.

“What does all this mean?” called a tall man with an Afro in the back.

“Yeah. Are our kids really gonna be toothless?” asked a woman in a tie-dye onesie from the second row.

“Explain like we’re five,” the teenager next to Gia suggested.

“Good call, Evan,” Beckett said, pointing at the kid. He stalked over to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. “This is Blue Moon,” he said, drawing a circle.

A man with a fanny pack and camera with a telephoto lens jumped up onto the stage and started blasting Beckett with blinding flashes.

“That don’t look like the town limits,” someone yelled from the balcony.

“Pretend,” Beckett said dryly. He ignored the paparazzo and drew a second, bigger circle. “This is the state.”

“How’s come Blue Moon isn’tinthe state?” a guy in a straw hat and a Grateful Dead sweatshirt asked.

“Just go with it,” Beckett suggested with what Ryan felt was unwarranted patience. “Every year, the state gives our town money to help fund things like our schools, fire department, police, public buildings.”

The photographer shoved his camera into Beckett’s face and snapped half a dozen shots in rapid succession.

“Like an allowance,” the big, bearded guy on Sammy’s right supplied.

Carter Pierce. Ryan recalled seeing him from a distance… on the back of a horse yesterday.

“Exactly like an allowance,” Beckett said, blinking rapidly. He reached out blindly for the whiteboard, accidentally swiping his dry-erase marker over the camera lens and photographer’s face.

“Hey! Freedom of the press!” the guy yelled.

“That’s Anthony Berkowicz,” Sammy said, leaning in to his side. Her hair smelled like cinnamon. “He’s Rainbow and Gordon’s son and editor ofThe Monthly Moon.”

“The what?” Ryan knew exactly whatThe Monthly Moonwas, but he liked how it felt to have her leaning against him.