A Toast to the Good Times (2 page)

I was one hundred percent ready to get back to New Jersey and lick my wounds as fast as I could after that day. But I bumped into Mila while I was drinking away my sorrows at some bar and I wound up telling her my entire sad story. She mentioned that she was looking for an apartment and also might know a few good bartenders who’d be willing to help me cover shifts for cheap. It wasn’t the way I imagined it would be moving out on my own to big, bad Boston, but it wound up working.

Even if her cheerful exuberance is sometimes more than I want to deal with.

Also, she has a small lightsaber collection, and she wore a freakishly detailed Princess Leia costume for Halloween to give out candy. It isn’t
that
bad, but, still, she’s putting one toe dangerously close to the line of complete, hopeless
dork
-
dom
.

The bells above the door ring, and three regular girls who temp at the law offices down the street fall through the doorway, giggling.

“Hey, Landry!” the cute redhead, Lori, calls out. “The girls wanted to go somewhere nice for our pre-party buzz, but I had to come and see if you were standing under any mistletoe.”

I point above my head at the dark-beamed ceiling. “Nothing but dust and cobwebs up there. If you want a kiss, you don’t have to use some lame made-up Christmas tradition. I’m easy like that.”

I mix three quick rum and gingers, just to keep the ridiculous holiday spirit in the air, put them down in front of the girls, and lean over the bar. I cup L
ori
’s chin in my hands and kiss her, quick and soft enough that she won’t get any funny ideas, but long and hard enough that my lips are definitely coated with some
kind of peppermint-
smelling
lip
stuff.

Her blush is so pink, it almost blots out her freckles. She toasts with her cat-calling friends and takes a sip. “Mmm. What’s in this?”

“Bartenders’ code. I can’t spill secret info like that. If you knew what I put in it, you’d have no reason to come back and see me.” I like the way her blush gets even darker.

“Can I tell you a secret?” L
ori
leans in and looks at me with big, sweet doe eyes. “The drinks are way better at Dominick’s. I come here for the view.”

Lori is petite, but curvy in all the right places. I like the way she moves. I like the way she flirts. I like her laugh. And having her come home with me would be a great way to kick off some of the holiday blues.

But Mila is planning a whole laid back thing, and I can’t screw it all up on Christmas like that for her. She takes all this holiday stuff seriously.

So I keep the flirting with pretty little Lori on a low simmer, and I let her hints for more drop over and over until her friends sigh and pull her to the next hot spot. My libido hurts when she looks at me over her shoulder one last time, but I seriously don’t need the complication of holiday sex, no matter how badly I want it.

Everything gets crazier around the holidays, and, while I love Lori’s little visits to the bar, she isn’t girlfriend material. I wouldn’t want her to think there’s more to the whole thing than there really is, and holiday sex is just the kind of confusing ingredient I don’t need to add to an easy sort-of friendship like ours.

Maybe after the New Year I’ll reconsider my no-sex-with-Lori stance. But by then, we’ll be getting dangerously close to Valentine’s
Day, and that brings
a whole other set of complications.

The next few hours blip by, and I’m finally pouring one last whiskey for Joe McHarris, an old, ornery regular who hates the holidays as much as I do.

“Mention Christmas, and I won’t leave you a tip,” he warns before he throws the shot back.

“You never leave me a tip, Joe. But you won’t get any holiday cheer from me. I’ll be glad when all this bullshit is over and we can get back to plain old, cold, depressing winter.”

I cash out my tips and pour one more shot for Joe that he doesn’t need.

His smile is bleary. “I’ll drink to that.”

I leave him when my enthusiastic and gorgeous bartender, Emma, takes her place behind the bar, turns the Christmas music up, and gets a smile from old Joe, who, apparently can
appreciate the season when it’s being celebrated by a bouncy brunette in a too-tight reindeer t-shirt.

Maybe I’ve got more of Joe’s traitorous holiday appreciation than I thought, because I’m looking forward to chilling with Mila on the couch, watching movies, and eating turkey. And cranberry sauce, no berries. If I have to celebrate this stupid holiday, it might as well be with a friend as cool as Mila.

I jog up the freezing stairway and down the poorly-lit hallway to our door, where I slide the key in, and my mouth drops open.

Chapter 2

“Holy shit.” I look around, wondering where the hell all our stuff is. The gym-sock stink is replaced by the smell of good food and cinnamon. There are candles lit. And not only can I actually see the floor, it looks like someone vacuumed. It’s amazing how good this little rat-trap looks when it’s actually neat.

“Mila! Did you clean?”

“Landry!” I hear her voice from the kitchen and wonder what she’s burning for us. I walk over to her, craning my neck to check our bedrooms, which are also spotless.

“Okay, you got me. I believe in the power of Christmas miracles now. Did you know we apparently have a vacu...wow. You look nice. You look...wow.”

I step in
closer and to see she’s
warming up cocoa in a pot on the stove. Her hair is darker and it hangs wavy and soft-looking down her shoulders. She’s wearing a snug little dress that shows off all her curves and heels. High ones. Sexy ones.

I clear my throat. “Um. I thought this was kind of a kicked back thing?”

She looks down at the cocoa and blushes like she’s embarrassed. “It is. Seriously. I just got in. The ladies at the library...they kidnapped me!” She laughs and pushes her shiny bangs out of her green eyes.

They look big and sexy, I guess because of all the makeup, but I never noticed how green they were before. She looks...different. I feel like
a light has just been turned
on, like she’s some hot young thing who just caught my eye and got me going.

But she’s not. She’s
so
not. This is Mila. My
roommate
. Mila.

“It was weird, Landry.” She points to her face. Her extremely gorgeous face. “What you’re seeing is a vast improvement, trust me. They paid for this whole salon package thing, and I had, like, three pounds of makeup on my face when they were done. I wiped about two and a half pounds off on the way home. And they got this dress for me for the company party on New Year’s, but I was so late after trying it all on, I didn’t have time to change, so I just ripped the tags off and wore it home. I picked up food from that little restaurant we love on Laurel, though.”

She points to a few
Styrofoam
boxes on the counter. They smell amazing. I don’t know if I’m buying this whole, “I just fell into this dress,” bit, though. And part of me wonders if she’s dressed up for me. But that’d be crazy talk.

“What happened with the apartment?” I ask, trying not to stare at her ass. I had no idea Mila has such a fine ass. “You didn’t clean, did you?”

“No. I hope it’s cool. One of the cleaning ladies at the library had a woman she cleans for move away unexpectedly, and, you know, it’s Christmas and she was strapped for cash. So I asked if she’d clean for us, and I got the big package. I totally forgot to ask, but it looks great, right?”

She grabs two mugs with dancing Santa hats on them and pours the cocoa in, then throws some marshmallows on top.

“I like it.”

I stick my hands in my pockets and try to figure out why I feel all keyed up looking at Mila.

It’s just a dress. How can it change the way she looks so completely?

I clear my throat again when my brain starts going to what she looks like under the dress. “Let me know what I should chip in. I mean, I think we should keep her around, right? I kinda like being able to see the floor.”

Mila waves her hand and passes me a mug, turning to get whipped cream from the fridge. She shakes it and sprays a huge amount on my cocoa.

“Let me pay for it. I’m glad to help her out, you know. Um, are you okay?”

I take the mug, but I’m staring at the whipped cream container in her hand and thinking about...Mila.

And whipped cream.

And that red dress.

And getting her out of it.

What the hell is going on in my brain? Maybe it’s the apartment. I feel completely out of place in my own space right now. Maybe the heavy pine-cleaner scent is screwing with my ability to think properly.

“I’m fine. Uh...we have rum, right?” I put the mug down and go to the cabinet under the sink, looking at the smooth, gorgeous length of Mila’s legs while I do. Yeah, I definitely need a
drink. I unscrew the rum and pour a generous shot or two into my mug and hers. “Let’s celebrate. Right? To friends and celebrating the holidays without all the damn stress. Cheers.” I bump my overfull mug against hers as gently as I can, but my hand is a little shaky.

“Cheers.” She takes a sip of her cocoa and coughs. “Whoa! Mmm. That’s good. Strong. No, wait, put those down! We are not eating out of takeout boxes, Landry. Sorry. It’s Christmas Eve. Well, Christmas Eve-Eve. Real plates and silverware, please.”

I’d usually argue, but I feel weird with her tonight. I feel like she’s a powerful, sexy woman telling me what to do, and I’d better listen.

I grab real, if mismatched, plates and we scoop the food onto them. It’s exactly the same scenario that we’ve been in a million times before, but it feels different. When I brush by her to open the cranberry sauce or slide by to get silverware, I feel a little rush.

What the hell?

It’s just a dress. It’s just Mila. Maybe if I tell myself that a few more times, the truth will actually make its way to my brain, because right now, my thoughts are elsewhere.

I take another quick shot of rum directly from the bottle as I follow her way-too-distractingly sexy ass into the living room.

She puts in the movie and plops on the couch, but, instead of the waft of dirty laundry and the chaos of our cluttered little living space, there’re all these softly flickering candles in this neat little room and Mila wrapped like the best possible Christmas gift in that damn red dress.

When I find myself looking away from Jimmy Stewart and over at Mila’s cleavage for the hundredth time, I finally break down and snap a little.

“You wanna change?”

Her head whips up and she faces me, her mouth stuffed with turkey and mashed potatoes, her eyes wide and startled.

Shit.

Maybe that came out a little gruffer than I meant it to.

“Um, okay?” Her entire face and voice twist into one huge question because I’m acting strange, antisocial, out of line.

I attempt damage control.

“I just mean...your friends bought that dress for your New Year’s party. And it would suck if it got food on it. Or whatever.”

What am I talking about? Why does it matter what Mila wears or doesn’t?

“Oh. Yeah. Duh.” She hops up and heads down the hall. “Good thinking!” she calls before she turns into her room. A few seconds go by. “Um, Landry?”

“Yeah?” I gulp down some of the cocoa, wishing it was less chocolate and more rum.

Way more rum.

I need anything to take the edge off.

“It’s got this zipper? In the back, I guess?”

She sounds so confused. Has she never worn a fancy dress before? Not that I have, obviously. But I’ve helped my fair share of horny, dressed-up girls out of theirs.

I go into her room and find her trying to hold the top of the zipper with one hand behind her neck while she curves the other arm up and under in an attempt to pull it down. But it’s not as easy as it looks.

“Stop before you pull your back out.”

I step just behind her and move her hands out of the way. She stands completely still. I grip the top of the zipper and drag it down, revealing a long column, just an inch or two wide, of soft skin from the top her spine all the way to the band of her sensible cotton underwear. She has a tattoo on the back of her neck. It says “Dwell in possibility” in swirling cursive.

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo.” I also didn’t realize what a turn-on that little bit of ink would be. “Does it mean something?”

She puts her hand up to the back of her neck. I can only see her profile, but her cheek is all pink. “It’s geeky. So geeky. It’s, um, it’s Emily Dickinson. She’s...I love her. I love her, um, poems.” The pink goes to a deeper red.

“Not geeky,” I argue.

It’s a lie. It’s geeky as hell. I’m not even sure who Emily Dickinson is. The chick in all white? The one who drowned herself? Didn’t two of them drown? I spent most of English class checking out Jenna Donovan in high school.