Page 146 of The Renegade Billionaire

“Ew, don’t do that.” She makes the sign of the cross, then scratches at the air. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m not Catholic, but I don’t know how to ward off bad juju, so take it back.”

He chuckles, but takes it back, then leads me outside, where we wait for Clover to engage all three locks, and then he takes us home to our rental, knowing another shoe will drop, but this time we’ll attempt to catch it together.

33

BRAXTON

Cinnamon fillsthe air as Blissy walks around the room holding warm cookies under everyone’s noses. It’s one week before Christmas, and the Chug is as busy as I’ve ever seen it.

“Why are there so many fucking people here?” Grey grumbles, echoing my thoughts.

“Christmas is as big around here as anything.” Blissy drops a cookie and a napkin onto Grey’s desk. “But this is the first week folks are allowed to plan their booths for the Cozy Cup Festival.”

“The what now?” Sage asks, handing Grey his third cup of coffee in the last two hours.

“Maybe you should cool it with the coffee.” Grey’s eye twitches at my comment. “How the hell do you sleep with this much caffeine in your system this late in the day?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m slipping him some decaf when he isn’t looking,” Sage whispers.

Grey’s long pointer finger shoots out in Sage’s direction. “Don’t do it.”

Sage grins but winks at me, and I know he’s one hundred percent messing with Grey’s caffeine intake. He also lovesworking here. He’s become a social butterfly in town, and everyone genuinely seems to care about him.

“Now, tell me all about this Cozy Cup Festival.” Sage leans in and rubs his hands together as if he’s about to get the best gossip known to man.

“It takes place after New Year’s, but we spend the week after Christmas getting ready, and every business in town has a booth. We mix them up, so all the tea drinkers aren’t on one side of the park and coffee drinkers on the other. It started as a way to bring people together, but it’s turned cutthroat in recent years. Everyone’s divided these days,” Blissy laments and Grey goes back to working on his computer. “Maybe you boys’ll be the ones to bring everyone together again.”

“Us?” I ask, pointing to me and Grey.

“Yeah, you,” she says with a scoff. “What other boys am I talking to?”

“I don’t own a business here,” Grey complains.

“No, but this one does,” she says, pointing to me. “And it’s all-hands-on-deck for this event, so you’re in it to win it, Greyson. It’ll be good for ya anyway. Rumor ’round town says you’re the neighborhood grinch, and no one likes a grinch.”

“I’m the grinch?” Grey actually sounds offended. “I’ve hardly talked to anyone. How can I be the grinch?”

She shrugs. “Well, it’s not hard next to this one here.” Again, she points to me.

“I have a name, Blissy.”

“Yeah, it’s Santa Claus. Don’t think I didn’t hear about the donation made to that church you were serving food at with Madi. You have to stop handing out checks with your name on them if you don’t want to be identified.”

She clucks her tongue and walks away as if I’m the neighborhood idiot.

“Just how many donations have you made this week?” Greyson asks in a low voice.

I roll my eyes, but because he’s probably already checked the account, I say, “I made another to the shelter and the school where my mother and sister are. I paid to rebuild the barn that burned down in Maine. I made one to the theater group in town—they’re trying to restore the old theater on Main Street. That was just good business.”

“And?” he says with a smirk. He knows me too damn well.

“And I filled the bin at the fire station with new toys, bought a hundred turkeys to be delivered by the food bank, plucked all the wishes from the wishing tree at town hall and bought everything on them, and went to the superintendent of schools who found a list of kids who might not have Santa visit and I bought a bunch of shit for their parents to dole out however they saw fit. You happy now?”

“I am.” He sits back with a smug expression. “Are you?”

“You know I am.”