The Mistletoe Connection by Chelsea Pennington

Author:Chelsea Pennington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, christmas romance, holiday romance, clean romance, sweet romance, contemporary romance, contemporary fiction, multi pov
Publisher: Chelsea Pennington
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

8:23 pm

They were spending the night at the airport. Mariel figured that lined up with how the rest of her year had gone. The rooms at the attached hotel were exorbitantly priced and, from the conversations around them, sold out anyways. No way to drive home in this either. Although Mariel laughed at herself—drive home. Where was home anymore?

“But what about Christmas?” Sofia kept asking. “And Santa? Will he know we’re here?”

“Shh, yes, it will be fine,” Mom said, trying to distract her with the iPad. “Think of this as a fun adventure.”

Sofia was only partially satisfied with this answer. Mariel wished she knew how to help make things better. She hated being so helpless—with her family, her relationship, her life. She wanted to do something.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” Mariel said to no one in particular. Her mom nodded to her, still focused on Sofia, and she pushed up off the chair.

Wandering through the airport, Mariel’s mind couldn’t stop racing with everything that had gone wrong in the past couple months. Everything that had happened to her. Her dad’s new job. Cole breaking up with her. Now their flight that she didn’t want to take in the first place was canceled, and on Christmas Eve. She ground her teeth, and even though she knew it wouldn’t help, she opened Instagram.

No new photos on Cole’s feed or Stories. Sighing, she swiped through Stories from other people she knew. Most of them were of the snow or Christmas Eve celebrations. Then she gasped, coming to a sudden halt. It was a photo of Cole, but not on his account.

It was a selfie photo of Cole—his dark brown hair that curled around his ears, his wide, infectious grin. And . . . Kennedy? Who she’d hung out with nearly all of high school? They weren’t that close, but they’d run in the same circles enough that Mariel had considered her a friend. Close enough to know that Kennedy had always had a crush on Cole, and to notice how Kennedy disappeared from her life once she and Cole had started dating last summer.

Mariel’s breath caught in her throat as she studied the photo. Cole, grinning with his arm wrapped around Kennedy’s shoulders as she leaned into him, a hand placed protectively on his chest. Kennedy had captioned the photo Miss having my man to keep me warm!! with a kissy face emoji.

Mariel wanted to throw her phone across the airport. She and Cole had been broken up for a week and he’d already moved on? Maybe, she realized with a sinking feeling in her gut, he’d been over her for a long time and hadn’t quite gotten around to dumping her. Her face heated. She sent the photo to the Girls Who Code group, not bothering to write an explanation.

Immediately the group filled with gratifying outrage.

IT’S BEEN ONE WEEK!!

What a loser!

You’re better off without him.

Even still, Mariel’s mind wouldn’t stop whirring. She thought of Charles’s advice to talk to her parents. She considered it for a moment, she really did.

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