Her trio of muscled, weightlifting cousins—think their names were Troy, Jag, and Dirk (hey, Holly’s ass hadn’t erased my memory after all)—began to laugh.
“No way. You use that app, Holls?” Troy sounded surprised.
“I—” Holly croaked.
“Didn’t know she was on there too,” Dirk admitted, his knife pausing on his plate as if he realized what he just said.
“Goddamn, I knew you used that app!” Jag taunted Dirk. “Explains so much. No offense, Holls.”
Meredith frowned. “What’s Love Is Holo?”
“A hookup app,” Jag volunteered, and the trio chortled anew. “The algorithms pair you up and send you on blind dates. You don’t know what the other person looks like until you meet.”
“Didn’t think you had it in ya, Holls,” Troy teased.
By then, I had a shit-eating grin on my face as I passed the mash-filled bowl. “Potatoes, Holly?”
Her face was five shades of hot as she took the bowl and angrily scooped heap after heap of mash onto her plate before passing it.
“I was drunk.”
Gretta cackled and Meredith’s lips pursed.
“Now, now,” I chided. “You were sober when we met.”
“I meant I was drunk when I signed up,” she amended and smiled sweetly at me. It didn’t reach her eyes though. Those still spoke of murder. “But I figured, what the hell, ya know?” She shrugged and poured herself a healthy glass of wine.
It glub-glubbed from the bottle, drawing everyone’s attention. Holly stopped it right under the rim of the glass before downing half.
“First thing she said,” I continued on with this tale, “can I feel your horns?”
“Got straight to the good stuff,” Gretta hooted, holding her glass out for wine too.
Holly obliged. “Why waste time, right? He does this thing where he thumps his hoof when I scratch under his chin.”
Chuckles echoed around the table. Now it was my turn to scowl. This had backfired. I sure as fuck did not thump my hoof with chin scratches.
She was making this up.
Crafty witch.
“Do you live in Tinsel, Kye?” Holly’s sibling, Lonnie, asked. Think Holly said she had three siblings, all of which were male but only one lived here. His wife sat next to him, a dark-haired woman, and their two younglings. The ones who’d screamed in the foyer.
“He doesn’t,” Holly was quick to respond. She’d explained Meredith knew every family in Tinsel and would spot the lie in a nanosecond. “He’s from Wilk’o Wyn.”
Another cold city, like Tinsel. A few hours away, according to Holly. Close enough to seem legitimate, but not so close that my imaginary family and hers could run into each other.
“That’s a little far, don’t you think?” Meredith asked, her left eye squinting.
Holly’d warned me about that. Her bullshit eye. I put on my best, reassuring smile. “It is. But I’m here on business a few times a month. I figure that’s why Love Is Holo set me up with Holly.”
“What business are you in?” Holly’s father—James—asked. It was the first time he’d uttered a word.
Holly piped up, “Toys!”
She hadn’t been exaggerating. Her family grilled me. During the prep work, Holly stressed her family could be ‘a bit much’ but they ‘mean well’ and it’s ‘nothing personal.’
Lying my tail off this time of year felt like grimy business. Admittedly, some of it held truth, but Holly didn’t know that. Back home, I used to run a toy company. The winter solstice was our busiest time of year.
So when Lonnie asked me about upcoming models, undoubtedly curious if he could get early info for his younglings, I hinted at a toy concept I’d had long ago, before my imprisonment.
By the end of the meal, Holly was tipsy, and her family was eating out of the palm of my hand.
The plan was working. Better than either of us had imagined it would.
So, why do I feel like shit?
****
HOLLY
The room tilted.
Woops, no it didn’t. That was me. I tilted.
A never-ending giggle bubbled out of me when I swayed into the wall before Kye caught me and kept me upright.
“I can walk by myself, thank you! I’ve been doing it since I was one and a half.”
“Really?” Kye’s tone was irritatingly dubious. “Because you nearly kissed the wall just now.”
“That wall should keep his hands to himself.”
Kye let go of me and I tilted again before he caught me.
“Okay, maybe I came onto the wall, not the other way around,” I admitted and gave the wall a pat. “Sorry fella.”
Kye’s taunting chuckle was annoying. Annoying. Everything about him was annoying tonight.
The perfect way he teased me was annoying. The expert way he handled my family, annoying. His goofy smile, annoying. His big, warm, supportive hands around my hips right now, annoying!
The most annoying part about all of it was that, deep down, I wasn’t annoyed at all. And no, the ‘deep down’ wasn’t my vagina talking.
Mostly.
Maybe a little.
She could stop tingling and reminding me she was alive whenever Kye looked at me, touched me, or said my name. Any moment now.
I should’ve wined more drunk.
I mean, drunk more wine.
Kye unlocked my door and I stumbled through, kicking off my flats and yanking on my bun. My happy sigh filled the room. There was little better than unbuttoning one’s jeans, unhooking the bra, and letting the pinned-up hair down after a nerve-racking dinner with the fam.
Skully slid himself off the couch and bumped against me, wagging his tail, and wanting affection.
“Hello, love of my life,” I crooned to him. “Did I bring you leftovers? Why yes, I did!”
When I reached down to fluff his scruff, I’d determined it was a bad idea too late. The floor was hurtling toward my face at a rapid rate before Kye scooped me around the middle and stopped me from kissing the floor.
This house was extremely touchy feely tonight.
He grunted and I felt it vibrate all the way down my back. My back that was still pressed up against his obscenely muscled chest. I mean, sweet snickering Santa, under all that fur, this guy was stacked.
“How many glasses of wine did you have?”
I shrugged, noticing he had yet to let me go. “One, two, skip a few... ten. No. Three. I think four. Yeah. Three.”
To be honest, I couldn’t remember. Fairly sure it was only a few. A few wonderfully filled-to-the-brim glasses of wine.
Kye’s large hands shifted, sliding around to my front, flattening on my belly. It dipped in response, parts long dormant flaring to life. My skin felt too warm under my sweater.
Strands of my hair moved, and I could swear Kye just sniffed it.
No. He hated me, and I hated him.
We hated each other. That was made clear tonight.
People who hate each other don’t sniff each other’s hair or bump their ass into the other’s groin.
Which I just did.
On accident.
I wouldn’t do that on purpose.
His groan touched on my ears like a physical caress, as if his lips had nipped me there.
My ass bumped into him again.