The Stocking Was Hung (3 page)

“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.

Fucking 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.”

Noel

“Y
ou’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 neighborhood 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.”

Aunt Bobbie immediately drops her hand from Sam’s crotch and whirls around, the remainder of her martini sloshing all over the front of his jeans as she shuffles away to grab the fresh drink my father holds out to her from behind my mother.

“Seriously? Again?” Sam growls as Aunt Bobbie stumbles toward my father in her four-inch green stilettos that perfectly match her floor-length green velvet gown.

“Sorry, Aunt Bobbie is a little handsy,” I whisper as he drops our luggage and swipes at the wetness on his pants.

“Gee, you think?” Sam mutters. “She’s got the grip of a sumo wrestler. If she broke my dick, we’re going to have a big problem.”

Thankfully, my mother rushes toward us and pulls my mind out of the gutter where it’s busy thinking about Sam’s huge package and how Christmas really
would
be ruined if it were broken.

Heartbroken, jobless, homeless…get your shit together, Noel.

My mother yanks me into a quick hug, and before I can even get my arms around her, she’s shoving me aside to get a better look at Sam.

“Mom, this is my boyfriend, Logan,” I exclaim her with a bright smile, feeling a massive amount of guilt, not because I’m lying to my mother, surprisingly, but because I’m making Sam pretend to be someone else.

Why should I even care? I just met this guy and I’m offering him a chance to have a nice Christmas instead of a boring, lonely one surrounded by Amish peeking in his windows looking for porn. I have nothing to feel guilty about, right?

Sam dutifully holds out his hand for my mother to take, but she immediately smacks it away and pulls him into a tight hug. And doesn’t let go.

“Okay Mom, that’s enough,” I inform her when the embrace lasts entirely too long and Sam shoots me a look of panic.

She finally releases him and takes a step back, looking up and down his body before zoning in on the wet stain on his crotch. “Merry Christmas, Logan.”

“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” Sam says with a tight smile, not answering her Christmas greeting.

“Oh my, did you have another accident? It’s a good thing I made that urologist appointment,” she announces with a tsk and a shake of her head. “You look different than how Noel described you. I thought you had blonde hair.” Her eyes cut over to me. “Noel, didn’t you say he had blonde hair that’s a little longer on top?”

Pushing up on her toes, she stares more intently at Sam’s short, dark hair. “I distinctly remember you telling me he kept using your hair gel and it was getting on your nerves.”

“Dumb shit,” Sam coughs out, covering his mouth with his fist before smiling innocently at my mother. “I wanted to change things up for the holidays so I dyed my hair.”

My mother nods, but I can see she’s still not convinced and now I really am panicking. This was a dumb idea. Why the hell didn’t I just tell her the truth on the phone? I’m thirty-four-years old and so afraid of my mother that I’ve brought a stranger home to be my boyfriend. She’ll never believe it. Talk about pathetic.

“I hear a hint of southern in your voice,” Mom probes Sam with a raise of one eyebrow. “Noel, I thought you said he was from Seattle? Why does he sound Southern?”

Shit, shit, shit! I didn’t even think about the slight twang in his voice, probably from living in southern Ohio. I’ve been too mesmerized by how damn hot he sounds when he speaks.