Merry Me: A Holiday Romance by C.R. Jane

Author:C.R. Jane [Jane, C.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

NATALIE

“All right, skaters and future emergency room patients!” Paige shouted from the center of the rink, holding up a thermos like it was a torch. “Who’s ready for the official pre-wedding Drinking Olympics: Winter Death Edition?”

“Oh no,” I muttered, clutching Easton’s sleeve. “This feels like my last night on earth.”

“It’s festive,” Easton said, shrugging with a smirk. “Besides, we’ve survived worse. Remember the gingerbread rum shooters junior year?”

“Barely,” I muttered. “I saw Santa Claus getting into his car that night and tried to confess my sins.”

Easton threw his head back and laughed. Loudly. Obnoxiously. Beautifully. And then, without waiting for my consent or my general sense of self-preservation to kick in, he tugged me toward the growing circle of people gathering near center ice.

“Come on, partner. Let’s show these amateurs how it’s done.”

“Excuse me?” I dug in my heels, well, blades, resisting. “Who said we’re partners?”

He gave me that look. That Easton Maddox look that was roughly forty percent challenge, sixty percent cocky affection, and one hundred percent trouble.

“Nat,” he said, like he was stating a simple fact. “We’re always partners.”

I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly gave myself whiplash, but fine. The man had a point. Team MadNat—or Eastalie, depending on which of our classmates had crafted fanfic about us in their high school notebooks—did have a long and storied legacy of competitive glory.

And an even longer history of questionable judgment.

We joined the circle, which had grown into a chaos spiral of veil-wearing bridesmaids, flannel-clad groomsmen, and at least one elderly relative who looked like they’d been dared onto the rink and were now deeply regretting every life choice that had led them to this moment.

Paige, glorious and slightly wobbly in her bride-to-be glow, wore a sparkly white veil taped to the top of a hockey helmet. Honestly? Genius. Wouldn’t be ideal for the bride to suffer a pre-wedding concussion. Maybe I needed one of those, too.

Across the ice, MeMaw sipped aggressively from a bedazzled thermos and hollered “Let’s GOOOOOO!” like she was pregaming a football game instead of a wedding skate night, while another guest nearly collided with the DJ booth attempting a pirouette that definitely exceeded their skill level and alcohol tolerance.

“All right!” shouted Jordan—or maybe it was Tommy, it was hard to tell with the puffer jacket and beer scarf combo—as he skated to the center with a megaphone he definitely wasn’t qualified to use. “Here are the rules. I’ll call out a challenge. If you fail, your team drinks. If you succeed, you pick another team to drink. If anyone falls while drinking, everyone drinks. And by drink, I mean chug. From your designated flask. Got it?”

Silence.

Then: DEAFENING CHEERS.

I clapped my hand to my forehead. “This feels like that time Bobby Joe thought he could rollerblade with the leaf blower strapped to his back.”

“Ah,” Easton sighed dreamily. “The golden age.”

“The age of bad decisions.”

“Details,” he said, brushing my comment off as he towed me to the starting line like this was the NHL and we were about to win the Stanley Cup.

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