“It was Teddy’s idea.” Felix lays his sweatshirt over one shoulder.
“This was your idea?” I quickly glance at Teddy, who gives me a sheepish smile, and the tips of his ears turn a slight pink.
“We got booze and mixers to make those Christmas mimosas you like and...” Felix grins wide while he digs inside another bag and pulls out a box of Jolly Rancher candy canes—my favorite. “Merry Christmas, Holl.”
I take the box and then hug him with my free arm. “Thank you.”
“I call shower first,” Emmett says. “Wait until you see me in this sexy snowman sweater, Stella.”
He does a little dance, holding up the sweater in front of him.
“I’m Holly, you idiot,” she says.
“Wait, what?” He looks between us and everyone else laughs.
“Don’t do that to me. I think I finally got it.” Emmett shakes his head and disappears into the bathroom.
Felix unpacks the booze and throws in a couple of frozen pizzas for dinner, while Stella showers in the other bathroom.
It’s just me, Teddy, and Felix, and I make eye contact with Teddy and mouth, “Should we tell him now?”
Teddy shakes his head and mouths something back, but I can’t make sense of it. It doesn’t matter though, because Emmett takes the world’s fastest shower and reappears a minute later, dark hair still wet, but wearing jeans and his snowman sweater. He looks ridiculous.
“You want next shower?” Felix asks Teddy.
“Nah, go ahead.”
“Are you sure? Might not be a lot of hot water left after I’m done.”
Teddy chuckles, but says, “Go ahead. I want to text my brother and dad.”
Felix nods and shuts the door behind him as he goes into the master bedroom.
Teddy moves closer to me in the kitchen, takes another cookie, and whispers, “Sorry. I do want to tell him, but you know that girl he hung out with the other night, Tricia?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he’s been texting her the past two days to hang out again, and I guess she told him she’d already left, but then today, we saw her with some other guy at the resort.”
“Ouch.”
“I don’t want to rub it in his face when he’s down. Let’s have fun tonight and we can tell him tomorrow.”
“You’re a good friend to him.” I lift up my sweater. “And this is amazing. How did you talk them into it?”
He rubs at the back of his neck, something I noticed he does when he’s uncomfortable. “I may have had to play the,I’m not going home for Christmas this yearcard.”
I laugh. “Seriously, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen what I look like in myveryfestive, verysmallsweater.” He holds out the white sweatshirt. It says Merry Christmas in red sequins that turn white when you flip them the other way. And it’s about half the width of him. “There weren’t any more extra larges.”
“Oh, this is going to be amazing,” I say.
The party is amazing. The guys are hilarious in their sweaters (Emmett cut the sleeves to show off his biceps—which admittedly are nice, but he looks ridiculous), the mimosas are perfection, and Felix has on his Santa hat and demands the TV stay onElfthe entire night.
We’ve just restarted it and are halfway through the second time, which is a lot of Will Ferrell in an elf costume. The guys make a drinking game out of it, picking different words for each other and drinking every time Buddy says their word. Poor Teddy got ‘Santa,’ and he isfeeling it.
“You’re pretty,” he says, when I take a seat next to him on the couch. His eyes are hooded and his sweatshirt is pushed up his forearms because it doesn’t come all the way down his long arms. His head falls back, and he keeps staring at me. “My mom would have liked you.”