The Stocking Was Hung Read online

  “Perfect is a stretch,” Noel replies, waiving the bartender away when she asks if we need another drink. “Annoying, meddling, loud, inappropriate…those are more accurate words to describe them. They mean well, I guess. But nothing I do ever seems good enough.”

  I swallow the last of my beer and push the empty glass away without answering. The things I know about families and how they behave are mostly learned from what I’ve seen on TV shows and movies. I have no advice to give Noel about family, crazy or otherwise, but I know men, so at least I can help in that department. Plus, talking drowns out the annoying fucking Christmas songs being piped through the airport bar sound system. If I have to hear “Dominic the Donkey” one more damn time, I’m going to stab someone.

  “It’s not your fault your boyfriend jumped the gun and proposed.” I shrug.

  “Tried to propose,” she corrects me. “He only got ‘Will you’ out before I screamed in horror and asked him what the hell he was doing. Then I ran out of our apartment and never went back.”

  Even though I’ve just met her and we’ve only been chatting for half an hour or so, I can picture the entire scene in my head, including the panicked look on Noel’s face when her dumbass boyfriend tried to pop the question.

  “Still, not your fault. I mean, you said you told him on several occasions that marriage freaked you out, and you weren’t sure if it was ever something you wanted to do,” I reiterate what she’s already told me. “Dude should’ve had a clue that wasn’t the best decision to make.”

  “My mother won’t see it that way,” Noel sighs, swiveling on her barstool to face me. Her knee brushes against my thigh and just that small bit of contact makes my dick hard, I really need to get laid, but now my head and my dick are conflicted. Sex with just any woman won’t do. When Noel and I part ways, I have a strange feeling I’ll never be able to get her out of my mind. I want her under me, on top of me, moaning my name, and scratching her nails down my back. But that’s not all. And this is the confusing part. I could listen to her sexy, raspy voice for days, her smile is contagious and I find the corner of my mouth curling up automatically each time she laughs, and her smell…sweet mother of Christ. Each time she leans toward me, I inhale a deep breath like a fucking creeper, just to hold that cinnamon and vanilla scent in for as long as possible. She smells like Christmas, which should annoy the fuck out of me, but it doesn’t. I have no idea what the hell is happening. I’ve known this woman for all of thirty minutes and she’s already gotten under my skin.

  Thankfully, she continues talking and gives me a second to get my dick and my brain under control before I do something stupid like ask her to forget her holiday plans and come home with me instead.

  “Somehow, it will be my fault. My family will turn it around on me, and why shouldn’t they? I made Logan out to be such an amazing guy over the last twelve months, and I mean, he was amazing, just clueless,” she explains with a sigh, tearing her cocktail napkin into a pile of tiny pieces. “Just like every other relationship I’ve shit all over, this one won’t be any different, even if I was the one who ended it. They’ve never understood my abhorrence to marriage. They’ll figure out a way to twist it around because I wasn’t attentive enough, wasn’t romantic enough, wasn’t sexy enough…”

  She whispers that last part, breaking our eye contact.

  Leaning forward on my stool until I’m only inches away from Noel’s face, I stare at her until her eyes meet mine again. “I’m pretty sure there could never be an instance where you weren’t sexy enough.”

  Her mouth parts in surprise, forcing my eyes to drop to her lips. Her full, red lips that she slowly runs the tip of her tongue across like she knows I’m sex starved and two seconds away from coming in my pants.

  Just then, the tinny, annoying opening notes of the worst song in the history of the world breaks into our silent moment, making Noel laugh when I growl and shake my head in annoyance. Moving a safe distance away from her, I curse Dominic the mother fucking donkey.

  “What about your family?” Noel suddenly asks, her body still facing mine. She rests her elbow on the edge of the bar and sets her cheek in her palm while she waits for me to answer. “I’m sure they have a little crazy in them. Don’t make me be the only one giving it up.”

  Smiling wickedly at her choice of words, I watch her cheeks flush in embarrassment.

  “I mean, giving up the goods,” she quickly adds, making it impossible for me not to laugh. “Stop laughing, I heard it as soon as I said it. You know what I meant. Spill.”

  I’d much rather talk about her giving up the goods, but whatever.

  “Sorry to kill your dreams, but you win this round for crazy family because I don’t have one.”

  “Everyone has a family,” she responds.

  “Not me,” I shrug. “I grew up in the system. Bounced around between foster homes until I was eighteen and joined the marines.”

  I hate the look of pity on her face. This is why I keep to myself, and why I’m still wondering why the fuck I sat down next to her thirty minutes ago and haven’t been able to walk away.

  “Okay, but you have friends, right?” she asks softly.

  “The men in my squadron in the Marines. They’re my friends.”

  Noel scoffs and shakes her head at me. “They’re your co-workers. I’m talking about people you call in the middle of the night when you need bail money, or someone to hold back your hair after a night of heavy drinking when a guy ignores the words you’ve been saying for a year and shits all over your heart.”

  One eyebrow goes up and I look at her questioningly.

  “Figuratively speaking, of course,” she adds.

  “I have a goldfish named Thor. But I don’t think he’d be very good at holding back my hair. And if he took a shit on my heart I’d just flush him down the toilet,” I inform her.

  “A goldfish is a good start, I guess,” she shrugs. “You should probably work on something of the human persuasion that can actually talk back to you.”

  “I’m never home, so what’s the point? I’ve done just fine by myself for thirty-five years,” I inform her. “Also, can a goldfish survive eighteen months without food?”

  Noel mutters under her breath and I realize that sitting here riling her up is the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.

  “Probably not,” she tells me. “You didn’t ask a neighbor or something to feed him? Wait, let me guess. You don’t have any neighbors either?”

  A smile is my only answer and I laugh when she rolls her eyes at me.

  “No neighbors. I live in the middle of nowhere on ten acres. My closest neighbors are the Amish, and they’d probably frown on my porn collection if I gave them a key to the house.”

  Her mouth drops open once more and just like a few minutes ago, my eyes fly right to her lips, wondering if she’d be opposed to kissing a strange man she just met at the airport. And if not, I wonder if she’d be opposed to fucking a strange man in the bathroom.

  “Wait, Amish?” she asks, breaking into my thoughts of bending her over the bathroom sink. “My parents live close to there too. Are you from Ohio?”

  “Yep. All my life,” I confirm.

  “Jesus. Talk about a coincidence.” She smiles. “We must be on the same flight.”

  “Three o’clock to Cleveland?” I ask in shock.

  She nods. “Well, what was supposed to be three o’clock. What time is it now?”

  Pulling my cell out of my pants pocket, I check the time and see it’s almost seven at night. I open my mouth to tell her when my phone buzzes with an incoming text.

  “Well, would you look at that?” I muse as I tap the screen. “We can now begin boarding at gate C7.”

  Noel and I quickly gather our things and spend a few seconds arguing about who is going to pay the tab. I snatch the check out of the bartender’s hand faster than she can and pull my wallet out of my back pocket while she glares at me in the most adorable fucking way.

  Fuck
ing hell. I’m a Marine, dammit. We don’t use the word adorable and yet, I keep doing it with Noel. I need an intervention.

  Tossing some cash on the bar top, I give the bartender an awkward nod when she wishes me a Merry Christmas and ignore the questioning look from Noel when I don’t give the woman the customary reply. I don’t really feel like ruining the good time I’ve had with Noel by explaining to her how asinine it is for everyone to throw those words around when they mean nothing. Holding my elbow out like the gentleman I am, Noel slides her small hand through the crook of my arm and we make our way to our gate, enjoying our last few minutes together since I’m sure we won’t be sitting by each other.

  * * *

  As the plane taxies down the runway when we land, I look down at Noel with her head on my shoulder, fast asleep. The stuttering jerk of the plane as the pilot hits the breaks makes her wake with a start, her head jerking up to look at me.

  “Sorry, oh my God, I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she mutters, pulling away quickly to bend down and grab her purse she stowed under the seat in front of her.

  I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, but the closer we get to the end of this flight, the more anxious I feel. I just met this woman and I’m not ready to say good-bye. She drooled on my shoulder and mumbled in her sleep the entire flight, but she felt warm and comfortable with her body pressed up against me. We barely know each other, but talking to her back at O’Hare made me forget about how much I hate this time of year. She made me smile and laugh. I’m not even that depressed she fell asleep as soon as we took off and killed my chance of joining the mile high club. I was just happy the flight wasn’t full and we managed to convince the flight attendant to let us sit next to each other.

  When the plane finally stops at the gate, we both stand and I move into the aisle, gesturing with my arm out for her to go first. She smiles and moves in front of me, which at least gives me a great view of her ass as we walk down the aisle and exit the plane. When we get to the corridor, I move up next to her and we walk silently, side-by-side until we get out into the gate area. We stop and turn to face each other, then I hold my hand out in front of me to say good-bye instead of shoving her into the nearest closet and ripping her clothes off. I smile and give her a nod when she slips her hand into mine.

  “It was nice meeting you, Noel Holiday,” I tell her honestly.

  She doesn’t say anything and I wonder if maybe I misread some of the heat I’d seen in her eyes earlier at the bar. At least I’ll never see her again so it’s not like it really matters if I make a fool of myself right now. I can go home to my empty house in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere and go to sleep until this shitty holiday season is over, jerking-off to images of her licking her lips until my arm falls off.

  Hefting my backpack up onto one shoulder, I drop her hand and turn away from her without another word and head toward baggage claim. I only make it a few feet before I hear her call my name.

  “Sam, wait!”

  I stop immediately and spin around, crossing my fingers that maybe she feels bad for my dick that’s been on a forced hiatus for a year and a half and wants to help a man out. She moves quickly around the line of people waiting to board the plane we just got off of and jogs the last few feet up to me.

  “No one should be alone at Christmas. Come home with me. I can’t promise it will be anything less than a train wreck, but at least you’ll get some delicious home-cooked meals and a few laughs, most likely at my expense,” she rambles.

  I couldn’t be any more shocked by the words that come out of her mouth if she asked me to fuck her in front of the entire airport.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, all the homemade cookies you can shove in your mouth,” she speaks quickly. “Doesn’t that sound much better than going home to a dead goldfish, an empty fridge, and a house void of porn when the Amish got bored with churning butter and raising barns?”

  I haven’t been laid in eighteen months, which is like ten years in horny-man time, and it’s the only reason I’m even contemplating this right now. Right? I mean, there’s no way I’m seriously considering her offer because I just want to spend more time with her whether we’re naked or not.

  Shit. The Marines will definitely be revoking my man card now.

  It’s not like I could do any worse than having a hot-as-fuck woman beg me to come home with her. Even though I hate Christmas and everything to do with it, I know it will be worth it to be in this woman’s company for a little bit longer. And maybe if I’m lucky there will be some nakedness involved at some point.

  “Okay.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them or think this through a little more.

  Noel looks just as shocked by my reply as I am that I said it.

  “Okay. Wow, that was easy.” She laughs, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the direction of baggage claim. “Um, there’s just one thing I’m going to need you to do.”

  Chapter 3

  Noel

  “You’re sure you remember everything I told you?” I ask Sam nervously as our cab pulls up in front of my parent’s house.

  I can’t believe this is happening right now. Clearly all of the stress has gone to my head and I’ve lost my mind. I invited a stranger I shared a few drinks with at an airport bar to come home and meet my family. And pretend like he’s someone else.

  “Logan Masters, thirty-six, investment banker from Seattle, dumb shit who proposed to you knowing full well how much you never want to get married,” Sam replies in a monotone voice when the car comes to a stop, rattling off the facts about my ex I gave him on the ride from the airport.

  “Minus the dumb shit part, I think you’ve got it.”

  Sam shrugs as I lean forward to pay the driver.

  “He’s still a dumb shit. Which now makes me a dumb shit since I have to pretend to be the guy,” he complains with a roll of his eyes.

  “Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes…” I remind him. “Eye on the prize, man. Eye on the prize.”

  Sam licks his lips when I mention the food he’ll be stuffed with in the coming days, and it suddenly feels like we’re in the middle of the tropics instead of the frozen tundra of Ohio. My skin is hot and sweaty, and my scalp tingles underneath the heavy weight of my hair as I sit here staring at the hot guy next to me. The hot stranger I just convinced to come home with me for Christmas and pretend to be my boyfriend so I can avoid telling my family the truth until after the holidays.

  Yep, I’ve lost my fucking mind.

  “Can we renegotiate? If I’m willing to do this, I think my prize should be you, naked and screaming my name,” he informs me with a wink as I blindly reach for my change the driver hands through the center window.

  “Oh, sure. In my parent’s house, with my father sleepwalking in the middle of the night wearing just his bathrobe and black socks. Please, tell me more,” I deadpan, trying to stop the fluttering of my heart when he mentions me screaming his name.

  Getting out of the back seat, I hold the door open for him as he slides out behind me.

  “Fine, no screaming. How about panting and moaning? Softly, of course.” He smirks before turning to grab our bags from inside the cab.

  “Stop distracting me,” I complain, huffing in faux irritation when I try to grab my suitcase from him and he yanks it out of my reach to carry it himself.

  With his hands full, he uses his elbow to close the door of the car and finally turns to face the house behind me.

  “Jesus, is this another airport?” he asks in astonishment.

  With a sigh, I turn and stare at the house with him.

  “My dad gets a little crazy with the lights,” I explain as we stand out in the snow on the sidewalk, taking in all the blinking lights, animated figurines, and decorations that adorn every square inch of the house and yard. Big, soft, fluffy snowflakes had begun to fall when we were a few miles away, and with the quietness of the neighb
orhood and the glowing monstrosity in front of me, regardless of them being so bright it hurts my eyes, it really is kind of pretty.

  “Is your father planning to land shuttles from NASA on his front lawn?” Sam questions in shock as we start making our way up the front walk.

  Every year my dad enters a countywide Christmas lighting display contest. He’s won the last five years in a row, and judging by the way it looks like the North Pole took a shit all over the place, he’s going for year number six.

  “Just follow my lead. If you forget something, cough and I’ll take over,” I tell him as we get up to the front porch and I reach for the door knob.

  Before my hand reaches it, the door flies open and we’re greeted by a very tall, sixty-two-year-old woman with her red hair piled up on top of her head in a 1960’s beehive style and a martini glass in her hand.

  “LEON!” she shouts with a big smile on her overly made-up face. “Everyone, Leon’s home!”

  “Leon?” Sam whispers in my ear as the door is held open wider for us to enter.

  “I’ll explain later,” I mumble back, stepping inside the home of my childhood while pretending the feel of his hot breath floating over my ear didn’t just give my lady bits a jolt.

  “And she brought a hunk of a man with her!” she exclaims, her hand not holding the martini glass flying out and grabbing onto Sam’s crotch before I can warn him. “And her hunk of a man brought a HUGE package with him!”

  The pounding of footsteps moving towards us from the kitchen down the hall cover up my loud, irritated sigh.

  “Can you please tell your mother to let go of my dick?” Sam begs in a high-pitched voice.

  “That’s not my mother,” I clarify with a roll of my eyes.

  “Bobbie, for the love of Gouda, let go of the poor man’s penis. How many times do I have to tell you that’s not the way we greet our guests?” my mother scolds her sibling with a roll of her eyes as she hurries down the hallway with my father right on her heels. “Look, Reggie made you a fresh martini.”