My aunts are dying of laughter.
And Garrett is long gone, the doorway now empty.
My mom looks at me in genuine confusion. “Rory, what was he thinking?”
“What?” I stare back at her. Why is she asking me? I’m not the person who made a purple replica of his cock and then wrapped it in irresistibly shiny paper.
Tabitha wipes her eyes and tries to stop laughing. “Is Garrett…pierced?”
Mara snorts. “Do you really want the answer to that?”
My mom makes a face. “Is this a midlife crisis? It feels a bit young for that.”
“Well, he is in love with Rory and that’s gotta be hard,” Jules adds, very unhelpfully.
“Hey! I’m right here!”
Jules doesn’t blink and doesn’t look away. “I said what I said. It has to be hard to date you.”
“Wow.” I jump futilely in the air, then resort to usingmy short stature against her and just hook her around the knees, sweeping her legs out from under her.
As I snatch the dildo out of her hands, she gives me the finger with her other hand.
“Real mature,” I snap.
“Well,” my mother says in her most small town nice lady voice. “I think we can all agree that this is why dickmatized should mean traumatized. Because it just fits.”
Chapter 23
Garrett
Rory storms past me in the hallway, double-timing it up the stairs.
I follow, because what the fuck else am I going to do?
“That wasn’t supposed to be under the tree?—”
“I don’t care,” she snaps as she reaches the top of the stairs and freezes. “Fuck, I can’t even?—”
She was heading to her bedroom, I realize, and that’s full of Tabitha and Allan’s shit.
I take her by the shoulders and guide her down the hall, to a little sitting area outside her parents’ bedroom.
It’s not private, exactly, but it is more comfortable than the stairs.
And I don’t think anyone is going to follow us up here, anyway.
“Roar, I’m sorry.” That’s a good place to start as I push her into the armchair.
Then I sit on the ottoman and wait for her to say something, anything.
She doesn’t. She just stares over my shoulder, a stunned,humiliated expression on her face. I feel like shit. I did this. I ruined Christmas morning.
And if there was ever an opportunity for Rory’s staged breakup, this is it. Fucking hell. It’s hard to believe that half an hour ago, I was sucking icing off her fingers and thinking about the future.
“How can I make this right?”
She shakes her head. “It’s not something to make right. It’s fine. I mean, my mom knows how your cock feels like in her hand now, so that’s probably going to be awkward forever for you, and me, but we’re all grown-ups.”
