“No, you don’t,” Kallum said, shaking his head again. “That living together part is bullshit.”
“What would you know about it?” While Kallum was perpetually in love, none of his soul mates ever stayed mated to his soul for longer than three months. He’d only ever lived with his parents or INK, and currently had a cat named Bread. “You’ve never even attempted to move in with any of those bridesmaids you keep finding.”
“Shh!” he hissed, dampening the air between us. “Do not speak that evil word here!”
“Bridesmaid?”
He glared. “This is about you,” he said sternly. “And about what you’re going to choose if the choice is between family or hottie.”
With that, he slung a tea towel over his footie-pajamaed shoulder and turned back to the important business of mixing his cocoa dough.
I finished my coffee in silence as I reviewed the bills one by one and organized them into those I could pay now and those for which I’d have to call to beg for an extension. We were going to be in the hole no matter what, and if I didn’t get another Nolan Shaw job within a month, I didn’t know that we’d ever be able to climb out. Hell, evenwithanother Nolan Shaw job, it was still going to take months to tackle all the medical bills. And that wasn’t even counting my mom’s last visit to the hospital, which hadn’t been processed yet.
My phone chimed and I looked down to see a message from Steph.
Steph:got the statement ready. check your email.
I opened my email, ignored the scores of interview requests, and found Steph’s statement. It was short and blunt. Reading it made me feel slightly sick to my stomach. But looking at the pile of bills also made me sick to my stomach.
When had everything gotten so goddamn hard?
I was about to call Bee again when Maddie scampered down the stairs and then slowed to a slouching sort of stroll once she was in view of the kitchen, all forced casualness and calm. She claimed she was over her girlhood crush on Kallum, but she performed Not Having a Crush so emphatically that it was almostmoreannoying than when she did have the crush. And then Mom came in the back door, snow caught on the shoulders of her coat and her smile as big as I ever remembered it being. The kitchen immediately became noisy and crowded and perfect.
With a twist deep in my chest, I texted Steph a thumbs-up in response and then set my phone facedown on the table.
“Who wants to open presents?” I asked, and received a resounding cheer in response.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bee
For the first time in my human life, I slept straight through Christmas morning. And afternoon. Turned out pot gummies were not meant to be eaten like movie theater snacks.
“What flavor of coffee do you want?” Sunny asked through my post-sleep-marathon haze.
My eyes hurt to open, so I just sat in bed with them closed. “Anything but figgy pudding.”
I squinted at her with one eye as she zoomed her finger around before landing on a random coffee pod and popping it into the machine. Pawing at the end table, I searched for my phone and found it looking dead.
“Oh, I just went ahead and turned that off last night,” Sunnytold me. “Your notifications were off the charts and you were sleeping so hard. I checked in with your moms this morning to let them know you were still down for the count.”
I groaned. “My moms. Oh God. I ruined Christmas. Do they know? Have they seen?”
She sat on the bed next to me and handed me a peppermint mocha–scented cup of coffee. “Do they know that you’re a porn star? Uh, yeah, Bee. They know.”
I took a sip, letting the liquid scald my throat. “You know what I mean.”
Sunny set her mug down on my nightstand and turned to me. “They saw before I could tell them. I guess it was on their Yahoo home page. Should I tell them no one uses Yahoo anymore?”
I took another sip as my phone powered on. Everyone in my parents’ inner circle knew what I did. But this would be news for some. Neighbors... coworkers... people they had to interact with on a regular basis but didn’t actually know.
Once my phone came back to life, headlines began to appear.
Hope Channel INKS Deal with Porn Star
Nolan Shaw’s Raucous Night at Strip Club with Porn Star
Hope Channel Lands a Bag of Coal This Holiday Season with Porn Starlet
