Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I don’t have leverage either.
So instead, I put one knee forward and pat my thigh. “C’mon. I’ll give you a boost so you can grab it.”
She quirks a brow at me. “You’re going to toss me into that dumpster, aren’t you?”
“If I do, you’ll just be swimming in discarded Christmas ornaments and fruitcake, and what’s more holiday spirit than that?”
There’s a pause, and then she busts out laughing, but quickly slaps her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. We should really be quiet, shouldn’t we? Is dumpster diving legal?”
“It’s trash, Meg. You can’t steal what someone else threw away, because they’ve already given it away.”
“I can’t risk my job—oh. Wait. Right. Zeus and Joey would bail me out for this, wouldn’t they?”
I snort. “They’d give you a raise.”
She giggles.
And then she puts one hand on my shoulder, one foot on my thigh, and she boosts herself up, her breast brushing my face, and sweet baby reindeer, how have I managed to ever convince myself before today that I could look at Meg and not see a sexy, attractive, hot-as-fuck woman?
She wobbles.
I grab her hips, my thumbs right on her ass.
And then I start to sweat.
It’s twenty-five degrees out here. Flurries suddenly swirl around us. I forgot my jacket.
And grabbing Meg’s hips and ass is making me sweat.
“Oooh, this poor thing,” she says. “It’s missing half the branches on one side. Excellent choice, Trevor. I—ergh—approve.”
She tugs.
I adjust my stance and grip her hips tighter. Her ass is right in my face, and good god, does she have a nice ass. Firm and round, like two glorious peaches that I want to—
“Oh, it’s stuck under another tree.” She leans over and shuffles something inside the dumpster.
If I hold her any tighter, I’m gonna leave a mark.
She leans deeper in. “Just…a little…more…”
“Meg—”
“Almost—”
“Meg—” I’m losing my grip, and—
A door bangs behind us. “Hey! What are you doing?” someone barks.
Meg shrieks.
And dives.
She fucking dives, slipping right out of my grip and going headfirst into the dumpster.
MEG
I smell like a sour Christmas elf. My elbow is probably bruised. My shoes are beyond hope. And I don’t know what kind of eggnog was in the dumpster and that I don’t think I’ve fully washed from my hair, but my Christmas tree is up in Trevor’s living room, and it is beautiful.
“You turned the lights on!” I throw myself at Trevor and wrap him in a hug before I process the look on his face. But even his I let a weirdo talk me into desecrating my safe space with a mutant alien tree that might try to kill me in my sleep expression can’t stop me from blabbering away my gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love it!”
“It has seven limbs.” He doesn’t hug me back, but he doesn’t push me away either. “It has only seven limbs.”
“And those seven limbs will have the very best rest of their life ever.”
“It has seven limbs and still looks like a full tree from this angle.”
He’s not wrong.
Those are some bushy green limbs. And when the tree’s trunk is pushed up into the corner, you can’t tell it only has limbs on like one and a half sides.
“We should hang your bobbleheads on it so it doesn’t look so much like a Christmas tree,” I say.
He pulls out of my hug, his face doing some weird acrobatics while his arms hang like he suddenly doesn’t know what to do with them. “The heads would pop off.”
“That’s rude of them. They don’t make bobbleheads like they used to, do they?”
“You should go to bed.”
“Psh. Who can sleep when the world is magic?” Or when you’re worried that you’re about to get a phone call from your parents or brother who will somehow subliminally know that you were convinced you were going to get arrested for swimming in you don’t even want to know what inside that dumpster while on a mission to save a Christmas tree. “Utensils. We should hang utensils on the tree. Or—wait! I have a box of pasta shaped like lobsters that Zeus and Joey gave me. We can hang lobster pasta on it!”
“Why did they—never mind.”
I beam at him.
That’s basically the answer to anything that my employers do. Why do they—never mind. It’s them.
I’ve been to a lot of places where I don’t fit in over the years.
Here?
I’ve found my people.
I have a job where I can be me and not worry that someone’s going to tell me I’m not grown up enough because I love to laugh too loudly and I still squeal with excitement when I see squirrels doing crazy things in the yard and when I just stop and stare at the sunrise or the sunset because it takes my breath away.
If I could find a man who loved that about me…well, my life would basically be the best life ever.