An Ex for Christmas (Love Unexpectedly 5)

“You said when you go on your date?”

“Yes. It’s when two people—”

“Which one?”

I don’t pretend to play dumb. “Doug.”

Mark swears under his breath. “You can’t be serious.”

I cross my arms. “You knew I was meeting up with all of my exes.”

“How does he qualify? You hooked up for, what, a few days?”

“We dated for three months,” I say. Although Mark’s description isn’t

totally wrong. Doug and I were mostly…physical.

Mostly because we’d had nothing to talk about.

“Fine,” Mark mutters. “Have fun.”

“Bye,” I snap, my own voice a little testy. I’m used to the fact that Mark’s not exactly a chatty kind of best friend. In the same way he tolerates my occasional “woo-woo” tendencies and the fact that I get too worked up over the wishbone on Thanksgiving (I’ve had some seriously important stuff riding on that!), I return the favor by putting up with his quiet, brooding thing.

But his irritability the past few days is really pushing my limits.

Mark slams out the back door, then a second later slams back in again. He points upward without looking in the direction of his finger. “Really?”

I glance up at the mistletoe—with a bow. “I’m covering all my bases.”

“I take it Chad didn’t pass the mistletoe test?”

I snort. “Let’s just say that when I pointed it out to him—the one by the front door—he told me he was coming down with something.”

The corner of Mark’s mouth twitches. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. Classic rejection. Although it’s just as well. By that point I was still sort of reeling from his recitation of my sins.”

“Well.” He clears his throat. “Better luck tonight, ’k?”

I lay a hand over my chest. “Is that…It feels a bit like an apology. For implying Doug was nothing but a booty call.”

Instead of answering, he glances up thoughtfully at the mistletoe. “How are you planning to coax Doug under one of these? He coming here, too?”

“Nah, we’re grabbing a drink at Weller’s,” I say, referring to one of the local taverns. It’s not quite a dive bar, but pretty darn close.

“They have mistletoe?” he asks skeptically.

I grin and give a little curtsey. “They do now. Actually, most of the establishments in town received a gift today.”

His eyes go flat. “How generous of you.”

“Don’t be grumpy. Cedar and Salt got one, too.”

Mark rolls his eyes to the ceiling and walks out the back door without another word.

I shrug. About what I expected.

December 18, Monday Night