Page 32 of Date The Billionaire

“Of course, you are.” He looked away, and I could see sadness in his eyes.

“You were invited, I just forgot to tell you.”

He turned to me, his smile back in place. “Great! Do you think she’ll mind if I bring a man with me?”

I knew some of the struggles Tony faced, and I’d protect him from them all if I could. He was my tiger, my bear, and sometimes he was the kitten that needed stroking to soothe him back down.

“Mrs. Mallory will not care, believe me. She’ll just be happy to be feeding another mouth.” The woman loved to cook, it kept her happy it seemed.

“Good. I’ll call him later. If I remember to.” He tilted his own glass at me in a cheer, and we both guzzled our drinks down.

“I’m going to be so sick tomorrow,” I said as I stuffed another cookie in my mouth.

“Run another mile, that’ll sweat it out of you.” Tony grinned happily and poured us both another drink.

“Seriously though, what are we going to do after this is all over?” I was starting to feel the rum, but didn’t mind. It was taking my mind off smashing my phone into the basest of particles.

“I’m going to keep living right here, and I imagine you’ll go off to live in the woods with your mountain man. Nerd. Whatever.” He was teasing me again.

“Like you wouldn’t love to get your hands on Jake’s, ahem, wood.”

“I’d let him sp... uh, you just never mind what I meant. He is fine, girl.” He put the empty tub of ice cream down and broke out some other box.

Chocolate covered cherries!

“Oh boy, I am going to be sick tomorrow!” I crammed one in my mouth and let the heavenly taste soothe me.

“There’s nothing better for heartache than chocolate, alcohol, and ice cream.” He waved at the empty ice cream tub with his glass. “Momma knows how to fix everything.”

“I guess you do.” I slurred as I downed more rum and sucked at my teeth to get chocolate out of them. “What’s on TV?”

I wasn’t exactly sure I could concentrate enough to watch anything, but Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was on and I’d be damned if I was going to miss that! A childhood favorite of my parents, the cartoon had become a family tradition that I’d yet to miss.

“Girl, you are not about to make me watch some cartoon, are you?” Tony wrinkled his nose at the program and picked up a cherry.

“Girl, I am! You just don’t know good television. How could you not love Rudolph?” I asked, pushing his hand out of the box to grab a cherry before he took another one.

“I’ve never seen it,” he said it glibly, as if it wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation!

“What?” I hit pause on the DVR and looked at him. “You have never seen Rudolph? What non-TV having rock did you grow up under?”

“My momma didn’t want us watching stuff like that. Said it was of the devil. I was never interested in it, so I haven’t seen it.”

“Good grief. Wait, have you seen any Christmas cartoons at all? What about Frosty? Or Charlie Brown? Any of those?”

“Laney, cartoons just freaked my momma out in general. I’ve never watched them.”

“Okay, settle in and buckle up, because you are about to have the experience of a lifetime.” I’d find them all online if I had to, but Tony was having the full-on Christmas experience. I took another slug of rum and cola and decided I’d move on to movies after the cartoons. Wasn’t there one where a kid got his tongue stuck to a metal pole for a bet?

We’d finished off one bottle of rum by the time I went through the list of cartoons I wanted to show Tony and I swear I heard him sniffle at the end of Frosty, but he wouldn’t admit it.

“Stop, I can’t take anymore,” he slurred, caught between crying and laughing. “I think I have to go to bed. I knew I was getting too old for this shit.”

“I don’t think we’re too old, I think we’re just too full of sugar. And rum. And Christmas magic.” I exploded from the couch, prancing around drunkenly as Frosty started to play again.

Tony danced with me for a moment, laughter filling the house. I didn’t know what the future held, or what we were going to do about our living arrangements, but I did know that Tony would be a fixture in my life until the day I died, if I had anything to say about it.

“I’m going to bed before the room starts spinning. You probably should too, Laney.” He kissed the top of my head and bounced to his room. Bounced because he went down the hall like a ball hitting bumpers in a pinball machine.