I break the kiss, break away, and without another word I abandon Carly outside her apartment and retreat to my fortress of fucking solitude.
Chapter Eleven
Vince
Pain throbs inside my skull. The incessant knocking will not go away. Carly will not go away. When I close my eyes, she’s there. When there’s a lull at work, I think about her. When I go to sleep, she fills half of my dreams.
The other half? Nightmares that remind me why I can’t have her.
Instead of going away, she pounds harder. “We know you’re in there!”
We?
Am I hung over? I’ve been drinking too much again. I didn’t think I still got hung over. My body learned a long time ago that succumbing to hangovers would mean a hell of a lot of misery and it gave up the good fight.
I wince at the ray of light sneaking through my window. I have those awesome blackout curtains, but the corner of one got folded back somehow. I feel like a fucking vampire, avoiding the light so I don’t perish.
“Vince,” Carly singsongs. “We are going to knock on this door for the rest of our lives if you don’t open it.”
There it is again. We. Who the fuck is with her? Gus? Gus doesn’t visit. They chat outside, but unlike Carly, he respects the neighborly boundaries and keeps to his own damn apartment.
“Vince middle-name-I-don’t-know Morelli!”
Jesus Christ.
I drag my ass out of bed, snatch up a T-shirt from off the floor, and pull it on as I head for the door.
When I open it, instead of one pain in the ass, there are two. A blonde and a brunette version. Carly grins at me, unabashed, while the long-haired brunette is more sheepish about her obviously unwelcome appearance on my doorstep.
“What?” I ask.
“Good afternoon.” Carly leans in and kisses my cheek, then breezes right past me. “Laurel, this is my boyfriend, Vince.”
I turn on a dime. “Whoa. Wait a minute.”
Carly ignores me. “Vince, this is my lovely little sister, Laurel. She likes Smallville, so she has better taste than you.”
“I think we need to revisit that first thing you just said.”
Carly looks back at me and cocks her head in question. “The middle name thing? I agree. What kind of girlfriend am I that I don’t know your middle name? Also, is the Vince for Vincent, or something else? I know you’re Italian, but I don’t know how traditionally Italian your family is with the names. Or anything else, actually, what with your no holiday policy.”
“I adopted that myself. My family celebrates all the traditional holidays.”
“Where is your kitchen?” Laurel asks me, holding up a white shopping bag with plastic handles.
“Uh…” I frown, pointing in the direction of my kitchen.
She flashes me a grateful smile. “Thanks. You want hot chocolate?”
My gaze bounces from Laurel’s shopping bag, to Carly, then back to Laurel. “What is happening right now?”
Laurel shrugs unhelpfully and heads for my kitchen, presumably to make hot chocolate.
“I told you Laurel was visiting for winter break,” Carly reminds me, as she unloads a shit load of shopping bags on my couch. “Is the Vince short for Vincent?”
“Yes. I am not your boyfriend and I did not agree to whatever this is.”
“Yes, you are. Yes, you did.” She turns, gesturing around my living room. “I still want to put a tree in here, but we’re going to take you with us to pick that out. Partially so you can have a say in which tree, but mostly because we’re gonna need you to carry it.” Now she turns back to the couch and pulls out a gold tree skirt with glitter snowflakes all over it. “How cute is this? I got you ornaments, too. Your tree is going to put all the other trees to shame.”
“I told you, I don’t want a tree. And once more, I am not your boyfriend.”
Carly grimaces. “You are, though. Sorry. Anyway, being my boyfriend means your house will be decorated for Christmas, whether you want to be a Grinch or not. Plus, this is the first time you’re meeting Laurel. Don’t you want to make a good impression?”
I sigh, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I need a shower.”
“Go ahead,” she says. “We’ll make some lunch. We’re going to make cookies, too. I bought all the stuff to make the ones you liked, plus I’m going to make some cute little wreath cookies. Oh! I got a wreath for your door.” She lights up and digs through another bag. “I got one for Gus, too. He appreciated his much more than I expect you to, but I’m going to put it on your door anyway. It’s more for me than for you. Christmas is my favorite. I can’t accept this Grinchy behavior.”
I glance back in the kitchen where Laurel is opening cabinets, trying to find things in a foreign kitchen. “You didn’t even tell me you were going to bring her here.”