When I choked on my General Tso’s tofu, Kate smirked. “I’ll take that as a yes. Too bad he has to open his mouth and ruin it.”
She flipped to Mallory. “Is he still dating that redhead?”
Wait, Alex had a girlfriend?
“Victoria?” Mallory chewed her dumplings. “When I asked him, he said she had to stay behind to cover since they've got some big case or something. But who knows? He never tells me anything.”
My stomach churned at this glimpse of Alex’s personal life.
He kissed me two days ago. You shouldn’t kiss someone if you have a girlfriend.
Then again, it was barely a peck to amuse the kids, not a big deal.
But if the kiss wasn’t a big deal, he wouldn’t need to hide that he had a girlfriend.
If he had a girlfriend.
We spent hours talking today, wouldn’t it have come up if he had a girlfriend?
Not that I thought he told me everything …
And I hadn’t exactly spilled all my secrets to him, either.
“When he brought her to your parents’ anniversary party,” Kate said, completely unaware of my inner spiraling, “I thought they would have the world’s prettiest babies.”
“The prettiest, most arrogant babies.”
“I don’t think babies can be arrogant.” Kate flipped to me and rested her chin on her palm. “So what’d he do when you called? Yell at you? Call you the wrong name? Hang up on you?”
I bit my lip. Sure, he'd done all of those things, but I’d also seen a gentler side … although based on how they talked about him, I’m not sure they’d believe me.
They definitely wouldn’t believe he volunteered to dress as Santa again tomorrow. If I told them, they might show up to gawk, which would be embarrassing as heck. Especially if he kissed me again …
Not that I expected it. He’d been tricked into it by the nurses last time.
I’d make sure it didn’t happen again.
I waved a hand dismissively. “He’s not as bad as you two made him seem.”
“I’m still surprised he came home. Something you said must have tipped the balance," Mallory said around a mouthful of vegetable egg roll.
“Did you use your feminine wiles?” Kate fluttered her eyelashes and Mallory made an aggressive gagging noise.
“No way,” I said, not sure if I even had feminine wiles given how uncomfortable I felt about charming people. Maybe teenage girls learned the secrets in middle school so I missed the lesson.
“A polite request wouldn’t have gotten him onto the plane. One does not simply,” Mallory put her fingertips together like the Lord of the Rings meme she texted me a million times, but instead of ‘walk into Mordor,’ she said, “ask Alexander James Clarke to come home.”
“Quite the opposite. I told him how severe the heart attack was and told him he’d regret not coming home if something went wrong,” I said, leaving out the part where I’d mentioned his strength to stroke his ego. Men.
Mallory’s eyebrows squeezed together, trying to figure out how she could use this tactic to win future arguments with her brother … until admiration shone through like a heart-eyes emoji. The cat one, if she were sending it. “Oh my god, you Nala’ed him.”
I blinked in confusion, trying to place the reference from all our movie nights, but apparently, she hadn’t shown me whatever a Nala was.
“The Lion King,” Kate translated. “After Mufasa died, Simba ran away. When his childhood friend Nala found him, she guilt-tripped him into taking his rightful place as King.”
Like a typical New Yorker, she added, “It’s better on Broadway.”
“I wonder if I can use this to lure him to a yoga class. Nobody needs to relax more than that uptight jackass.” Her mouth curled into a devious smile as she wrapped her hands around mine. “Teach me your ways, oh wise Nala. We must protect the Pride Lands.”
Chapter 9Grace
"I saw Gracie kissing Saaaaaanta Claus,” my coworker Megan sang.
“What? No,” I said, shuffling my papers on the conference table. Our boss Jennifer got an urgent phone call during our weekly meeting, so the other social workers were prying me for details about both Santa visits.
As soon as Alex’s lips touched mine during the first Santa event last Friday, I was in trouble. At the moment it didn’t register because holy heck, Alexander Clarke’s perfect lips were on mine. Hormones flooded my bloodstream, and I had to resist pulling down that scratchy Santa beard and kissing him back hard.
But once that first whoop rang from the nurses’ station, the hospital gossip would spread faster than fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
“Did Santa give you beard burn?” Nicole joked.
“The nurses set us up. Mrs. Claus wouldn’t decline a kiss from Santa.”
I kept telling myself that, but the truth is no hot-blooded woman would decline a kiss from Alexander Clarke. It was a hormonal impossibility to resist those sapphire eyes when they were laser-focused on your mouth. I should know. I’d been his target. Twice.
“Sure, last Friday the nurses had the element of surprise,” Trisha said. “But I heard that yesterday, he dragged you to the mistletoe.”
