From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Plight Before Christmas and The Ravenhood Trilogy comes a heartwarming, spicy, holiday themed romantic dramedy with ALL of the FEELS!
Now an AMAZON Top #20 Best Seller! * #1 Best Seller in Small Town Romance * #1 Best Seller in Enemies to Lovers Romance * #1 Best Seller in New Adult & College Romance
My kids are a**holes.
Yeah, I said it. I said the thing no father is supposed to say about their children, and I’ll say it again because I miss my wife.
Serena’s checked out and now resides in ‘yes dear’ robot mode, complete with a new eye twitch. Reason being, the impish elves we spawned are currently sucking the life out of her—daily. Thanks to Gracie and Peyton, my patience is hanging by the last orange bulb on a very thin green wire. Thank God we’re headed to Triple Falls. A week of Ruby’s eggnog and a little change of scenery could be just what the woman I love needs to find her way back to herself—and to me. But the closer we get to packing up, the shorter my fuse becomes . . . and the more I’m starting to get ideas of taking drastic measures.
And by drastic, I mean our little goblins won’t be the only ones making Rudolph’s naughty list. I’ve had enough. I’m not giving in this time. No amount of alligator tears or fake apologies are going to cut it.
Ironically, the more I man up and take charge, the more Serena and I are starting to reminisce about the good old days, which is quickly adding up to some heated nights.
Come hell or high water, this Christmas, our kids are going to learn to appreciate the parents they’ve got because I’m getting my girl back . . . even if the two little hellions we created have to pay to bring her back to me—little f*ckers.
The Sleight Before Christmas is book #2 in The Holiday Hijinx series. While it can be read as a stand-alone, it is highly recommended that you read The Plight Before Christmas first.
Holiday Hijinx Book#1 The Plight Before Christmas Book#2 The Sleight Before Christmas
*Both books in Holiday Hijinx are packed with adult shenanigans, laugh-out-loud outrageous content, colorful language, adults behaving badly, as well as hefty doses of spice.
Publisher:
Lyrical Press
Print pages:
374
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Back to the fire, calloused hands palming the air behind me, the blazing flame’s warmth begins to blanket me as mouthwatering smells waft in from the kitchen. Gazing upon the brightly lit twinkling lights and glittering ornaments strung on the tree feet away, I sink into the atmosphere—this vibe in stark contrast to any memory of my own home.
A blink later, my serenity is splintered when the front door bursts open. Turning, I’m met with a tornado of snow flurries and platinum blonde hair. Instant chatter erupts from the creature as she rambles about mixed grievances and announcements while I drink her in. In the next instant, I recognize her, all the while becoming utterly fucking stupefied by the living, breathing vision of her. A fully animated version against the stationary images I’ve observed in passing over these last months. Images that fail in contrast to the utter . . . chaos that is Ruby and Allen Collins’ oldest daughter. Chaos, wrapped in the most beautiful package I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Lengthy blonde hair lays in snow-dampened waves over her shoulders. Her sweater, dark blue and hugging every bit of her perfect frame. The hem hovering inches above her jeans, showcasing her insanely toned midriff. One accentuated by a glittering, diamond belly button ring. Her dark, slightly tattered jeans hugging the abundant curve of her hips down to her toned calves. The perfection finished off with short-cut black boots with silver buckles on the sides. Boots similar to the ones I’m wearing. After my first thorough sweep, I instantly go in for another hit of her. This one far more intoxicating as I explore her slightly heart-shaped face, rich doe eyes, and lengthy painted black lashes. Her features utterly perfect and accentuated by thick, highly glossed lips.
Fuck me.
Frozen where I stand and utterly mystified, when the rambling suddenly stops, I’m met with an equally arresting stare. It’s when she cocks her hip, her eyes narrowing in scrutiny—even as they light with mischief as she rudely addresses me—that I bite my smile back. A grin I fight hard to keep at bay because it becomes obvious in those seconds that I’ve been set up. At the sight of her, not one bit of me is bothered by it. Not in the least. Because I already know I want that chaos and everything that comes with it.
Present Day
“STOP IT PEYTON!” Gracie screams an octave above her normal ear-splitting volume as the woman formerly known as my wife fumes in front of me. Hair full of suds, her glaring left eye starts to involuntarily twitch. Not long ago, I’d be racking my brain for a clue as to why. Though my wife is vocal enough about her grievances, she sometimes keeps them bottled for long stints. That’s when things tend to get scary.
Though I’ve never been a man of many words, less than a handful of years back, we found ourselves unable to speak to one another without offense or resentment setting in. Those run-ins followed by days of tense silence. Been there, done that, and since our blow-up that Christmas, I’ve started communicating a bit better, which had us getting somewhat back in sync—just like the good old days. So, as I gaze upon my gorgeous, simmering, soap-covered wife, I silently commend us both on our ability to communicate better. Even as I physically see her decision to verbally berate me.
“Love you,” I shoot out preemptively just as she opens her mouth to deliver my ass to me. My sentiment has her pausing a millisecond, her eyes losing a smidge of their terrorize him sheen. A small win.
“Repeat after me, Thatchalamewl,” she draws out one of my more ridiculous pet names. At the arrival of it, I take it as a sign my strategy wasn’t completely ignored. Though, I used to find this name far more endearing when it wasn’t the equivalent of middle name serious. Ah, these little games we play.
The trash bag I’m holding grows heavier in my hand as I tense due to the sudden silence upstairs. Too quiet. Something’s afoot. If I had to guess the culprit—Peyton. His accomplice—our baby girl, Gracie. Though far from a baby now. So far, that I shield my eyes from her wardrobe choices—daily—to try to keep the memory alive.
It’s the growing confrontation in my wife’s rich brown eyes that has me flitting my focus back to her as I soak in her state. I see it the second her demeanor shifts to middle name serious. The tiny lines around her mouth deepening with her frown. Disappointment. Words of said emotion forming on her tongue as a handful of suds from her head slide down her slender neck and disappear into her robe.
“I, Thatch,” she drones on as I debate on Smart Pop and soft-core porn in our newly finished basement after everyone is lights out. . . or a quick, stress-relieving tug in a hot shower. As selfish as the thought of sex may be in this moment, I’ve been unsuccessfully attempting to shift from our cozy pajama setup—me bottoms, her tops, and TV reruns—to the action arena starring the two of us sans the flannel sometime before the morning whistle blows. And by whistle, I mean the symphony of our children’s mixed screams.
Lately, I miss touching her intimately and that touch being welcome.
I miss her sounds, her skin, her moans, and connection. Her full attention. In some form other than “honey do, did you, will you?” and “why did you, do you?” It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the “do that, so good, do it again” area.
One I’m getting desperate to get back to. As far as typical men think in the number of sexual thoughts a day, I feel like I’m below par in the depravity department. But the last time we got truly intimate, the leaves hadn’t fully turned. There wasn’t a hint of snow on the ground. Now that our driveway is salted and the foliage is dusted white, I can feel myself coiling up due to pent-up frustration.
“I, Thatch,” I mumble in feeble attempt to get somewhere between the two territories at some point in the next week.
“Do solemnly swear,” she prompts, her command sounding like the growl of a small dog. Like a terrier or maybe a Jack Russell. I’ve always wanted a Jack Russell, but they’re known to be a hyper breed, and we’re all stocked up on hy—
“Thatch,” Serena snaps, bringing me back.
“Do solemnly swear,” I continue, as sweat starts to bead at my temple—not from fear but because I can feel her slipping further away. Marriage has its phases, and after two decades and counting with Serena, I know this truth all too well. I live it and very intentionally endure it because the hard-earned sweet spots are so fucking worth it. Tonight, that shift seems to be getting further out of reach, and I know there are two distinct reasons why. Two eerily quiet reasons upstairs. Too quiet.
“To never again bother my wife while she’s bathing,” Serena finishes, her hair still dripping rapidly where she stands in our kitchen. Which is ironic since it was she, herself, who interrupted the rest of her own bath to bitch me out. They say it’s always the ones you love most that you take aggravation with life out on, right? Well, from what I can tell at this moment, my wife loves me more than anyone in the history of fucking ever. Which would be flattering if affection truly played a factor in any part of this bullshit.
No, this, what’s happening right here, is part of the buildup that started just after Thanksgiving. The animosity rolling off her in thanks to the stressful weeks leading up to the main event. The pressure cooker state of mind that all spouses experience during the period coined the holidays. Days my ass. I prefer to think of them as hell on earth—weeks. Weeks in which peace is anywhere but on planet Earth for any ringed man equipped with a cock. The proof evident in the task list I get bombarded with annually that no male, even in his prime, can undertake successfully. A list I swear is meant to purposely set up this cock wielding, peaceless man for failure. Hellacious weeks in which the tiny woman in front of me—who I would and often do walk through hellfire for—evolves into my own personal terrorist. That is, until the blinking lights disappear, the scent of pine goes back to its designated cleaner bottle, and the last shred of tinsel is sucked up by our Dyson.
Maybe I shouldn’t discriminate and include the single but attached guys. It’s been a while for me, but I bet they’re just as battered down during this time by their would-be wives. I bet a few of those ringless guys are reconsidering the diamond they bought right now due to the state of their significant others. Though in truth, it’s not their fault, it’s the pressure—
“Thatch!” Serena summons, knowing how squirrel my thoughts get when I’m knee-deep in my wife’s disappointment.
“Jesus, baby, okay. Get it over with.”
“To never again bother my wife while she’s bathing,” she repeats, as the image of the first time I laid eyes on her shutters in. The vision having helped greatly in recent weeks. A reminder of the girl I first laid eyes on and fell for as quickly as the snow surrounded her in those life-changing seconds. Surprising myself when I stuck. Even all these years later.
“Unless someone is bleeding or nuclear war breaks out,” she continues as the trash bag grows heavier in my hands.
“Unless . . .” I quirk a brow with my suspense-filled pause. “You know what,” I shake my head. “I’m calling bullshit, babe. I think we should turn this into a negotiation.”
“Now’s not the time,” Serena dismisses.
“Actually, it’s the perfect time. When do I get a dad moment? When do I get bath time?”
See? Communication.
“You get time,” she counters unconvincingly.
“Yeah?” I lift my chin. “When?”
“When you . . . go out with the guys.”
“October fifth, last year,” I clap back. She frowns as I straighten my spine, knowing I’ve got her somewhere in the vicinity of where I want her.
“Fine,” she sighs, giving up easily—too easily—as the suds in her hair start to sink into her scalp. “We could both use a private moment. Peyton turns eighteen in thirteen and a half years,” she delivers like a sentence. “I guess we can get our time then.”
“Jesus, it’s that long?” I ask, to which she nods, her eyes lowering. Seeing her surrender so quickly starts an uneasy gnawing inside my chest. Serena rarely, if ever, backs down.
“Babe,” I retract, tossing the bullshit aside. “I’m sorry, I really tried to wait until you—”
“No, it’s,” she shakes her head in frustration. “It’s okay, God, never mind. You work so hard, Thatch. You don’t deserve this. I’m sorry, I love you.”
Alarm bells start going off as I study her closely. Dark circles lay like stains under her eyes. She’s paler than usual, and from the way her robe is cinched . . . thinner? The most gutting part is that her return stare is lacking all signs of life. Our typical borderline playful tit-for-tat I was up for, but this? Something’s most definitely wrong.
“Go, I’ll take—” A tell-tale thud sounds upstairs, and both of us instantly snap to, heads tilting, ears perking. The long, loaded silence that follows has us both hauling ass up the stairs. Heart thumping wildly in my chest, I make it to the door a split second after Serena and stop behind her at the threshold. The blood in my ears roars as I take note of our boy child just as he grips the rope . . . hanging from his bedroom ceiling fan.
“Daddy, look!” Peyton orders before sailing through the air as Serena and I simultaneously sound nuclear warnings, a stunted second too late. Peyton instantly drops from the rope, landing in an impressive dismount on his mattress. Stunned silence passes as I make the decision to go parent in lieu of awed spectator—especially after seeing the state of his ceiling fan, which now hangs by nothing but wires.
“Son,” I sigh as Serena uncharacteristically ambles into Peyton’s room before calmly perching herself on the edge of his bed. Staring up at the fan, I mentally try to work out how in the hell our four-and-a-half-year-old kid managed to secure a rope to his— “Gracie!” I shout, summoning our twelve-year-old nightmare into the circus tent.
“I’m on the phone!” She barks from her room.
“Good thing it’s not attached to a wall,” I holler back.
“What!?” She counters in evident confusion.
Feeling aged by the fact she probably has never seen a rotary phone, let alone a beige, wall-mounted classic, I clip out my order. “End your call and get in here, now!”
The overexaggerated stomping of feet fills the hall as Serena stares through our son, looking utterly clueless as to who he is.
“What, Dad, what?” Gracie snaps.
A second after I glance toward Gracie, I’m palming my eyes, an entire body flinch following as I toss words blindly in her direction. “Put some damned clothes on, Jesus . . . never mind. Want to tell me how your brother manipulated you into hanging a damned rope from his ceiling fan?”
“I thought it would hold,” she offers. Glancing in a safe direction, I watch as Serena scrutinizes her cuticles, which gives me pause. The sight of her like watching a firework fuse fizz out just as it’s supposed to go off.
“Thought it would . . . hold,” I repeat. “He’s four, Gracie. Four.”
“One, two, tharee, four,” Peyton sounds before waiting for the applause that isn’t coming. Clearly slighted, he continues his count as Gracie sounds up again.
“I can’t watch him all the time,” she huffs.
“I asked you for ten minutes so I could take out the trash. Ten minutes. Could you maybe not have set him up for irreparable brain damage during that time?”
I brave a glance in her direction as Serena sits idly by as if this conversation is nothing out of the norm. Staring at her for long seconds, I realize it isn’t. In fact, this is the exact type of situation we’ve been dealing with hourly for months, hell, more likely years now on end.
“I told him it wasn’t a good idea,” Gracie defends.
“Ah, so, you weren’t able to reason with a four-year-old? Noted. Next time we can talk about a more reasonable argument you can have with someone whose most recent accomplishment was not smearing poop on the potty.”
“I didn’t smear poop, Daddy,” Peyton defends.
“I’m aware, Son.” I look down to my wife, who’s completely checked out. “Serena, want to weigh in here?”
“I’m not here,” Serena relays on exhale. “I’m in the Florida Keys, having a sippy cup full of champagne delivered by a cabana boy.”
“You can’t say that anymore, Mom,” Gracie snaps. “It’s hospitality worker.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Gracie.” I cross my arms. “Tell me, while you’re so busy correcting us on proper verbiage for those in the service industry, did you maybe once think that helping your brother turn his twelve-foot room into a jungle gym might not be the right move?”
“Mom, I need twenty dollars,” Gracie counters as Serena’s face draws up and her chest starts to heave. I glare at the side of her head, knowing she’s doing a lot more than tipping the cabana boy in her alternate reality. She’s been reading a lot of books lately. Come to think of it, that’s all she’s done in recent months. From the covers, most of them starring half-naked hockey players. Only once have I benefited, and it backfired. I can still feel the sting of grapefruit juice in a place where no man should ever experience grapefruit juice. From then on, our room has been a no-fly zone consisting of Frasier reruns.
“Serena,” I snap, jarring her out of oiling her fantasy man down.
“I give up,” she utters, and in her posture, I see every single word she just spoke as truth as her hair starts to harden from the residual shampoo. “I can’t handle any more of this, Thatch.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to do tonight,” I counter. “Babe, we made these together,” I point between them, “and must deal with them together. There’s no holiday in parenting.”
“Sign me up,” she says, as if it was an offer, while rising from the bed, tilting her head up at the ceiling fan as if it’s nothing out of the norm. Just next to her stands our smiling son, his eyes on it as well, his expression morphing into one of . . . gloating? It’s then I flit my focus to our tween-aged daughter, who’s composing a text, utterly unaffected.
Serena turns back to me, her eyes vacant, depleted, utterly void of life. It’s then that the image of her standing in the doorway of her parent’s house resurfaces. The side-by-side mental comparison jarring. Next to the shell that was once my wife stands a gorgeous nineteen-year-old, the setting sun glinting off her hair as she shouts out to her parents from the open door.
Now, seeing both the girl and woman side by side, I realize what’s so painful about the two of them. The utter loss of confidence in her posture. As well as the life in her eyes. A sudden surge of protectiveness thrums through me at the idea that I’ve somehow let this happen. That I’ve missed something vital.
“Baby, go,” I immediately coax, palming her back and ushering her toward the door and away from the two threats. “Finish your bath. I’ve got this.”
With a nod, she wordlessly drifts down the hall, her shoulders slumped as I snatch Gracie’s phone and usher her inside Peyton’s room before snapping the door shut.
“What in the hell?” I ask between the two of them.
“Dad, I was—” Gracie’s protest is cut short by my glare before I share it between both our children. “No, not just tonight. What has gotten into you two? You went from somewhat mannered and reasonable to utterly out of control.”
“I not out of control,” Peyton shouts. “I was just playing!”
“Peyton O’Neal, yelling at your father after you wreck your room is absolutely not okay.” I scrutinize the two of them and see my words have zero effect. None. “This, whatever this is, is over,” I spout. “In the last two weeks, I’ve had to patch drywall, twice,” I stare down at Peyton before shifting to Gracie, “and pick you up from school three times for gossiping in class, over the teacher, and being an all-around jerk.”
“Jerk,” Peyton points at Gracie.
“Pot, kettle,” I counter. “You get sad faces every single day, Peyton. Every single day!”
“No, you’re not. You’re not even trying to do your chores. You’re both being the worst version of yourselves when you know better. Neither of you are doing anything to make us proud. Your mother . . .” I stare in the direction she left, or rather fled. “Can’t you see how sad she is?”
Both talk over me in shit excuse, neither hearing a word I’ve said.
“Hush!” I boom, and the room instantly goes silent as Peyton’s eyes widen. The daddy tone I haven’t used in far too long coming into play as I nod toward Gracie. “I’m at my wit’s end, Gracie. You don’t care about what’s going on in this family, and I get it. I was young too—”
“A hundred years ago,” Gracie spouts snidely.
“A hundred years ago,” Peyton parrots as the blood vessels in my body tighten to the point I think my head might pop off. It’s then I feel the snap, the hold I’ve been gripping tightly onto since I carved the turkey dissolving in my hands. As I free fall, resignation sets in, and my mouth starts to move of its own volition.
“You two don’t appreciate anything. Not what we do for you on the daily, not the rules for this house or outside of it. You don’t do anything at all that we ask of you. You’re spoiled, disrespectful, ungrateful, and just plain defiant. So, guess what? Starting now, Rudolph is crossing some things off your lists,” I declare as both their defiant smiles drop. Rudolph, because despite our best attempts, even at four and a half years old, Peyton still considers Santa his nemesis. “Which means, Gracie, you aren’t getting that Mac.”
“What!?” she shouts.
“An octave higher, and I won’t even think to stop Rudolph from delivering the ridiculous amount of makeup.”
“Dad!” Gracie immediately disobeys.
“Now the makeup is gone, too,” I cross my arms, feeling lighter with every blow I deliver.
She palms her mouth as if it will actually silence her as I turn to Peyton. “You can forget about your Rail Ride tickets. Gone. That fan will cost a few hundred dollars to replace.”
“Daddy, no!” Peyton’s face twists, and I flinch inside as his eyes threaten to well with tears.
“I love you both more than life, but that woman . . .” I point in the direction Serena fled. “I don’t recognize her anymore. And do you know why?” I wait a good minute until their collective whines quiet. “Because she spends ninety percent of her time taking care of you and begging you to take care of yourselves and each other.”
It’s then a notion strikes me, and without thinking it through, I start speakin. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
