She cringed when she thought of all those Solstice celebrations when she’d strolled past Mistletoe Corner, wrapping herself in warm, fuzzy memories.
Let Stan out into pasture, she scrawled on the note.
Looking around for a good place to put it, she settled on Ryan’s forehead. She gave the adhesive an extra smack just to make sure it stuck.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“I seriously can’t believe you don’t remember me, you ass,” Sammy grumbled, wrestling the first loafer off his big, stupid foot.
“Why in the hell would I remember you?” he slurred.
“Oh, only because you were my first kiss, jerk. Under the mistletoe, surrounded by Christmas lights.”
He snorted with drunken derision. “That sounds like one of those stupid holiday movies.”
“Just for that, I’m leaving your other shoe on.”
“I was not your kirst fiss,” he enunciated with arrogance.
“Yes. You were.”
“Not. I’ve never been to this tie-dye holiday hellhole before today.”
“I was fourteen,” she lectured. “You were Ryan Shufflebottom from Des Moines visiting your great-uncle Carson Shufflebottom. We met in the park during the Winter Solstice and Multicultural Holiday Celebration. We were both in line for fried tofu.”
He sat up abruptly, stopping mere inches from her face.
“Shufflebottom? Des Moines?” he squinted at her. “Tofu?”
“Ha. I told you,” she said triumphantly. And then—because she was a good person, damn it—she yanked off his other shoe and threw it in the direction of the first. “You were so sweet. So much fun. What happened to you?”
“First of all, I would never eat fried tofu. That’s dic-susting. Nextly, I was never sweet. And bullet point number B, that wasn’t me.”
Sammy threw her hands in the air. He could argue mistaken identity all he wanted. It didn’t matter. He’d already ruined the moment for her. “Fine. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what you were. It only matters what you are now.”
“What am I now?” he asked.
“A miserable, grumpy, superior, snide adult who seems like he’s never had fun in his entire life. I bet your bedroom walls are beige,” she predicted.
He frowned, furrowing his brow. “Hey. Those are my feelings you’re hurting.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not sorry.” She took the empty glass and returned to the kitchen to refill it.
“Oh, come on,” he called after her. “You’re whining about some lame holiday peck from a guy who’s too busy getting pedicures and visiting sketchy massage parlors to pay his own rent. I’m the one whose life just unraveled. You don’t hear me bitching about it!”
She practically ran back to the living room. “You’ve done nothing but bitch about everything,” she scoffed, handing him the glass again instead of upending it on his head like she wanted to. “What’s the matter, Crabby Patty? Sad about being stuck in this ‘hippie hellhole’ for the holidays?”
“I could give a steaming crap about the holidays,” he said testily. “I’m much too distracted by the fact that my biggest client lied to my face for years, embezzled a fuckton of money from his own company, and got me fired because I damaged my firm’s reputation.”
Sammy eyed him in surprise. Maybe the Grinch had a reason to be grinchy. He flopped back in the chair, spilling water over the rim of the glass onto the crotch of his pants.
“They fired me,” he said quietly. “Didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself or remind them what I’ve done for them for the last twelve yucking fears.”
“That sucks,” she said, feeling the tiniest spark of empathy.
He eyed her suspiciously. “Yes. It does. I love my job. ’S my whole life.”
She knew the feeling. “What do you do for a living?”
“Corporate accountant,” he said. “And now Bart Lumberto, the buck-toothed weasel, is putting his ass in my chair behind my desk and gloating about it.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope it works out.”
“Works out? Ha. That’s unpossible. Did I mention that I dislike this clear whiskey very much?” He raised the glass to her and then chugged it in two long swallows. While he was distracted, Sammy tucked the whiskey bottle behind the bizarre pile of shoeboxes on the couch.
“Oh! And”—he stabbed at the air wildly with one finger— “now I’m supposed to swoop in here and save the day.”
“Whose day?” she asked.
“Great-Uncle Carson. ’S a family thing. I shouldn’t talk about it.” His attempt at a whisper came out in the realm of a shout.
Grumpy Ryan was kind of cute when totally shit-faced. The observation annoyed her. “Is Carson in trouble?”
“Pfft. Only if ending up homeless in an air tunnel at one million years old is trouble.”
Oh, good. They’d gotten to the gibberish portion of the evening.
“It’s on me, disgraced corporate accountant guy, to swoop in and save the day.” To emphasize his point, Ryan slashed his arm through the air and knocked a tissue box and its crocheted cover to the floor.
“Where is your uncle?” she asked, trying to make sure there wasn’t a real emergency that needed to be dealt with.
“He’s in Boca with a fetlock.”
“I don’t think you know what that word means,” she said.
“His plane went through an air tunnel,” he told her.
“Oh, boy. Okay. Maybe let’s get some sleep. Regain some sanity. I’ll swing by in the morning and help you with the sheep and chickens. You can tell me more about the fetlock and the air tunnel then.”
He opened one eye and looked at her with suspicion. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you come help me with anything? Don’t you have other things to do besides help people do stuff?”
“It’s what we do here, Ryan.”
He screwed his face up. “That’s weird. You’re weird. You probably have a dumb gazebo that gets snowed on every Christmas Eve.”
She’d officially had enough. “I hope your hangover is terrible,” she told him. “Now go to sleep.”
“’Kay.” He obliged by closing his eyes and letting his head loll to the side.
She sighed, then pulled a green-and-orange knit afghan off the back of the couch. Just as she started to drape it over him, he came back to life.
“Pants!” Ryan yelled.
Sammy jumped back as he flung his limbs out wildly. Somehow, with an excessive amount of flailing, he managed to unzip his jeans. She caught a glimpse of absolutely no underwear and decided now was a very good time to leave.
“Uh. Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, backing away. “Merry Christmas.”
“I don’t want your pity Christmas spirit!” he roared. He shoved his pants down to his knees.
She was only human. At least, that’s what she told herself when she peeked for one whole second. Okay. Fine. Five seconds.
From where she stood, Grumpy Ryan had nothing to be grumpy about below the waist. In fact, he should be the happiest guy on the planet.