“You don’t like my car, babe?” I ask, feeling almost offended. I fucking love this car. Did I just find her first flaw?
“It’s not that. It’s just… how do you plan on picking up a tree? Like, we can’t tie it to the roof of… this.” She waves a hand towards my car.
“We have to bring it home? Don’t they have delivery?”
“Um, I guess they might.” Her face drops, and I instantly know she really wants to bring a fucking tree home with us.
Fuck me, what is this woman doing to me? Because now I’m thinking I need to go and buy a fucking truck just to take her tree shopping.
I look around the garage before walking up to an Escalade. “How’s this one?”
“Is it yours?” Hayley asks.
“Yes.” I laugh. “I’m not a car thief, babe. Come on.” I walk over to the wall, where there’s a safe, and enter the code. Then I switch out the keys.
Opening the passenger door, I wait for Hayley to get in. “You don’t need to open doors for me,” she says.
“What kind of asshole do you think I am?” I ask her. “Don’t answer that. I will always open doors for you.”
I close her inside the car, walk around to the back, and text Andre to let him know what I’m driving. He’ll be following us, along with two of my other men.
I’m still on edge after being shot at and stabbed the other night. And we don’t know shit about the shooter or why they were after Reyes. It’s crossed my mind that they weren’t. Was it a coincidence the fucker started shooting when they showed up? He didn’t hit anyone. You’d think a sniper would at least get one good shot in.
“What kind of tree do you want?” Hayley asks after I jump into the driver’s seat and begin navigating us out of the garage. She has the biggest smile on her face.
“A Christmas one?”Isn’t that what we’re shopping for?
“When was the last time you had a Christmas tree?”
“I’ve never had one,” I admit, because my parents couldn’t afford Christmas, and when I could, I didn’t bother.
“Oh my god, I’m shacking up with a grinch,” Hayley groans.
“First, we haven’t done any shacking up. Second, I’m not a grinch. I’ve just never had a reason to have a tree before.”
“Christmas is the reason, August,” she deadpans.
“You are the reason,” I correct her. I couldn’t give a shit about Christmas.
“Well, by the end of these two weeks, you are going to fall in love with Christmas.” Hayley sighs wistfully. “It’s the most magical time of the year.”
“Is that why you were going to Europe?”
Her smile fades. “I saved all year for that trip. I wanted to experience my first white Christmas. They have the cutest little villages in Germany. I wanted snow, hot chocolate by the fire, all of that,” she says.
I don’t say anything, because what can I say? I’m the asshole who ruined it for her. I’m not sorry, though, because I have her for two weeks.
When we pull up to the tree farm, it looks really bare. “Are we too late?” I ask Hayley.
“We can find something,” she says with determination. “We are not having Christmas without a tree. That’s like a crime or something.”
I laugh. “Not the worst one I’ve committed.”
Hayley turns to me. “I don’t want to know. Don’t ever give me your list of sins, August. Because what if I get picked up by the cops and they want to use me against you or something? That’s what happens in the movies, right? And then I’m going to have all this knowledge about things that happened. I don’t want that.” She’s rambling.
“Babe, stop. Breathe.” I take an audible breath, in and out, and Hayley mimics me. “That’s not going to happen. I would never put you in a situation like that, and I sure as shit wouldn’t let anyone try to use you against me. This is real life, not the movies.”
“No, if it were the movies, you’d be some handsome billionaire I met by accident before we got snowed-in together in some remote cabin. One thing would lead to another, and by the end of the movie, you’d be mine.” She smirks.
