Our Totally, Ridiculous, Made-Up Christmas Relationship

“Don’t worry about it.”

Snow falls down her jacket and into her cleavage and my eyes follow it. It’s probably melting now, leaving dripping wet water rolling down her body. Jesus!

“I’m gonna head inside. Do you want my lips?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. My weird expression is probably freaking her out. She laughs, and the way her head throws backwards is so fucking attractive. “My gosh, you’re like the people in the nursing home where I volunteer! Put in your hearing aids, oldie. I said, Do-you-want-some-chips?”

“Oh…no. I’m good. I’ll be in my car, ready to follow when you come out.”

I watch her move quickly into the gas station and slap my hand against my forehead. “What the hell, Kayden?” Hopping in my car, I slam the door and grip the steering wheel. “Pull it together…”

Reaching for my ashtray, I pick up a cigarette and light it, waiting for Jules to come back out and finish off the road trip. The snow’s coming down faster and faster, and we have quite a few more hours left before hitting her cabin.

Seeing her walk back to her car and hop in, I turn my engine on and wait for her to pull out. What follows next is the sound of her car trying to get a move on but failing terribly. Then I see her body jump, as a cloud of smoke appears from under the hood. She starts thrashing her arms around, slapping her hands against the steering wheel, screaming what I assume to be pretty harsh cuss words.

Opening my door, I walk over and she rolls down her window by hand in her old-ass car. Placing my hands on the door, I bend down to see her frowning. What a cute frown it is though.

“This is turning out to be the crappiest day of the year,” she sighs and lets her head fall back to the steering wheel.

“Don’t be crazy. There’s no way this is the crappiest day of the year,” I say, nudging her in the shoulder through her car window. “There’s always Christmas to look forward to.”

“You don’t happen to know anything about cars?” she asks, glancing at the time and groaning in exasperation. It’s difficult for me to understand why she’s in such a hurry to arrive at a place she calls her personal hell, but then again, she’s pretty damn weird.

“Nope, not a mechanic. But with my superb talent I can play one on television.”

She smiles, making me smile. Her smile is killing me. Her gray mittens run across her hair and her body rotates to me. “Listen, I know you’ve been clean from killing people for a week now, and I would hate for you to slip up and have an incident but…do you think I can bum a ride? If you end up killing me, that’s totally understandable, and I apologize ahead of time for making you relapse.” She looks at me, removing her mittens, and I notice two small dimples on her cheeks as her fingers brush through her hair.

I watch her roll her window back up before I open her door and take her hand, helping her out of the broken-down vehicle. Moving over to the passenger side of my car, I open the door and she climbs in. After I head inside to get the dude who works at the gas station to help me push Jules’s car into an emptied parking spot until the holiday weekend is over, I move to hop back into the BMW.

“What about my bags?!” she exclaims in her overly dramatic way, a trait I picked up on the first moment I met her.

“Keys,” I order, and she hands them to me. Loading her luggage into my trunk, I hurry to get out of the frigid air and brush off the freshly fallen snow that covers me. Slamming my door shut, I sigh. “Your bags really made it hard for the body in my trunk to fit.”

She smiles again. I don’t know why, but it pleases me that I make her smile. I want to keep those grins coming my way.

“Is it a girl body or a guy body?”

“Guy, of course. He stiffed me at bar close on my tips. Besides”—I start up my engine and pull out of the gas station—”there are a lot of things I would do to a girl’s body. But I would never hurt her.”

She arches an eyebrow, looking at me as if she hasn’t seen me until now. Holy shit, I want to kiss her. She once again runs her hands through her hair, her eyes glued to me. She’s still for a good minute until she turns to the GPS and enters her family’s address.

“Smoking kills.”

“So do airplanes, ovens, and peanut butter.”

She rolls her eyes and runs her hands up and down her thighs. I would kill to be her hands right now. “Yeah, but those are accidents. Smoking those cancer sticks is a choice.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Oh no. Not at all. It’s just been proven in studies that second-hand smoke can affect people just as terribly as first-hand smoking. I’m fine with breathing in your toxins, shortening my life expectancy by minutes…hours…days…”

I narrow my eyes on her and blow out a cloud of smoke toward the open crack in my window. “Well, as long as it doesn’t bother you.”

“You’re such a dick. I don’t even know you but I can tell you’re a total dick.”

I chuckle, smashing my cigarette into the ashtray. “You’re not a very nice made-up girlfriend.” She smiles at the ashtray, pleased with my choice to respect her hope for longevity.

“I know. I’m a total girl-dick. That’s why we work so well as a make-believe couple. We’re terrible people and putting us together pretty much makes us the devil.” Her eyes sparkle almost more than the snow outside and her lips part again. “I know this is going to sound inappropriate, random and stuff, but…you’re pretty hot.” Her comment comes as a surprise, and I smirk as the color rises up her cheeks. “I even made up a nickname for you.”

“A nickname, eh? Let me hear it.”