A Holly, Jolly Ex-Mas: A spicy novella by Esme Brett

Author:Esme Brett [Brett, Esme]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Esme Brett Books
Published: 2024-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

NATE

I was getting cockblocked by every single person here. I knew why—I’d acted like a grommet yesterday. But I was a grommet who knew he was a grommet, and that had to count for something?

I owed Katie an apology.

All the wedding breakfast stuff had been cleared and people were milling around, drinking and chatting, while Margot’s friend Jordan played some stuff on his guitar. He was good, but I barely heard him and barely cared.

Katie looked happy. Tired, but happy. And she should. The ceremony had been beautiful, so was all this reception stuff. Katie had knocked it out of the park.

Even Naida didn’t have any complaints, and Naida always had complaints.

But I knew my girl. When she did a good job like this, she never lingered on it, she blew onto the next thing. The only part of her accomplishments Katie ever remembered was the two percent of stuff that hadn’t gone to plan instead of the ninety-eight that had. It was like good stuff never penetrated her head enough to become a core memory—stress was the surf wax that coated all of her experiences, made them stick.

Right now, while I could see that Katie was proud of herself, someone had to make this moment stick; to rub wax all over it and make it stand out when she looked back.

But I couldn’t do that if no one would let me fucking near her!

Finally, I caught a break. Katie was by the table with the wedding pavlova, talking to one of Will’s tall cousins. (Will had tall cousins and short cousins, you could tell at a glance what side of his whānau they were from. The Scots towered over the rest of us, even me).

I made my move and sidled up to Katie, ignoring Scully, who clenched his secateurs with clear menace. It was lucky that Scully had found out about what I said to Katie after he loaned me his Birkenstocks, because his expression now said he’d rather prune off my toes than loan me shoes again.

“Hey man,” I greeted the tall cousin. “Katie. How’s it going.”

The tall man stuck his hand out. “Hey. John.”

“Nate.”

We shook. Katie made an annoyed noise and turned to leave. To stop her, Tall John said quickly, “I really mean it, Kate.”

Thankfully, he didn’t have a Scottish accent that Katie might have liked. His accent was the same as mine. Thank fuck.

“Mean what?” I asked, not caring that Katie glared at me.

“You did a great job with this whole thing,” he told her. “I hope you’re feeling proud. Heaps of people have been saying it’s the best wedding they’ve been to.”

That motherfucker.

Katie glowed with pleasure at his words, ducking her head in the way she did when she was pleased and self-conscious but wanted to hear more.

“It was like clockwork,” Tall John continued. “Like a military operation. You really cracked the whip and got everyone in line.”

I couldn’t help it; I rolled my eyes. Everyone always gave Katie shit for being a control freak, but not when it suited them.

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