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“Amazing,” she praises, the tiniest smile on her lips, but real light in her eyes.

“He made them because he knew you would be there,” Manny says, because he has no idea how uncool and overeager that makes me sound.

But the tiny smile turns into a big one, and the little light becomes a high-intensity beam. “You did?”

I wave the accomplishment away like it’s something I do every day. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to think that I’m a total screw-up in the kitchen. I can cook, not just set an oven on fire.”

“I’d love the recipe for these.” She takes another one.

Another one! There’s a victory parade in my head. “No problem. I’ll write it down for you.”

“Hurry up, kids. Hungry people, eggnog, and mistletoe await,” Rhea urges.

I scowl. Victoria nods, expression flat—but she’s going to ride in Manny’s truck with me.

“Brings back memories,” she says.

I saved her life in one of Manny’s vehicles—not knowing she was there to end mine. “Seems like old times. Here, hold the cookies?”

She puts them on her lap after she climbs in, long, long legs crossed at the ankles.

I try to act like I’m just making sure the cookies are secure. “Got ‘em?”

“You’ll have to pry these things out of my cold, dead hands.”

I flex mine. “Join the club. I’m actually sort of room temperature.” I put us in drive and carefully ease out onto the street, following a salt truck as it swooshes by.

“Room temperature hands? I remember.”

“Or warmer. Not just my hands. Everywhere.” I don’t know why I tell her that.

“That’s good to know,” she says, and my mind goes to stupid places. I need a distraction. “Pass me a cookie?”

“Keep your hands on the wheel. I don’t want to die going to this dumb party,” she murmurs, and pops the cookie in my mouth, letting her fingers brush over my lower lip for the slightest second.

“We could go somewhere else? Get a drink? I don’t want to deck the halls with the squeaky clean suburbanites, either.”

“We have to go. Your family has my car.”

“They’re not my... You’re right. They do.”

Victoria deliberately takes another cookie and bites into it, a little chuckle of pleasure following her first bite. “If I’m there, and you’re there, it’s not just squeaky-clean types.”

She makes me smile, not just a fake smile, or a begrudging smile, but something real. She touches the dark part of me and doesn’t back away.

I don’t think she minds it.

Heck, I think she likes it.

I sigh out, “Here’s to Christmas with the criminals.”

“I’ll drink to that... Say, tomorrow night?”

That’s seeing her on purpose. “Sounds good.”

Chapter Nineteen:

Mistletoe is a Class-A Substance