“Where is he now?”
“On the floor of the bathroom. I hit him over the head with that nutcracker statue your mom sent you last Christmas.”
Gloria snorted. “Blakely, that’s Dom’s brother. I texted you earlier about him.”
“When? I don’t have a text from you.” I pulled the phone away from my ear to check. “Oh, crap. You did text me.”
“Told you so.”
I skimmed over the message. “You told some random stranger he could stay at our place this weekend? What the hell were you thinking?”
“He’s not a random stranger. I told you, he’s Dom’s brother. He has to be in Bourbon to play Santa for some charity thing tomorrow. You’re not even supposed to be there. I thought you were heading home for the big bake off with your mom this weekend.”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. I’d never been good at lying, especially to my friends. “She canceled. Now I have to go to my company Christmas party instead.”
“Oh, take Kellan. He’s looking for a job, and I bet he’d love to meet some new people.”
“I don’t think he’ll be especially excited to hang out with the woman who just nutcracked him over the head.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” a deep voice said from behind me.
I shrieked and dropped the phone.
“Blakely, you there?” Gloria’s voice sounded muted against the plush carpeting covering my bedroom floor.
“Kellan?” I asked, half hoping the tall, muscled, dark-haired Santa really was a stranger, so I’d feel more justified in attacking him.
“Who the hell are you?” The fuzzy red Santa suit hung open. A plain white tank top clung to his torso. Even in the dim light, I could make out the contours of muscle under the thin cotton.
My mouth went dry like one of those things at the dentists’s office had just sucked every bit of moisture from it. “I’m Gloria’s roommate Blakely.”
He crossed his arms over his massive chest, and I kept a wary eye on him while I crouched down and picked up my phone.
“Sorry, Kellan.” Gloria’s sing-songy voice came through on speaker. “My roomie didn’t see the text I sent, so she thought you were breaking into our condo.”
“In a Santa suit.” Kellan studied me through narrowed eyes, his mouth set in a hard, grim line.
“You could have been a burglar,” I mumbled. “A bad Santa.”
A muscle along his jaw ticked, and he uncrossed his arms to rub the back of his head. “I can’t believe you hit me with a nutcracker.”
“I can’t believe you broke into my condo.”
“It’s not breaking in when your roommate gave me her key,” he argued.
“Now that everything’s settled, I’m going back to sleep. Have a good night.” Gloria disconnected.
I stared down at the phone, angry and embarrassed and kind of turned on by the big, grumpy Santa with rock-solid abs. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
“Apology accepted. I can go…” he nudged his chin toward the hall.
“Do you have somewhere else to stay?” As much as I didn’t want to play hostess to a bearded stranger, I wasn’t going to kick him to the curb in the middle of the night. Especially not with an injury I’d inflicted.
“I’ll find a hotel or something.” He turned to leave, then paused. “Do you mind if I change first?”
“Go ahead. You know where the bathroom is.” I gripped my phone, ready to dial 9-1-1 if he decided he wanted to get even.
“And is there any way I could bother you for a couple of aspirin or something? You’ve got a hell of a swing.”