Merry Mix-Up (Holiday Hearts)

5. Jade

5

JADE

D ecember 1st

The apartment felt lonely when I locked myself into it. Not even the smattering of rainbow-colored artworks hanging on my walls made it feel full and vibrant right now. Not after the interaction with Newt and the day spent talking about Christmas and the wedding. And I didn't mind his flirting at all, though it stung a bit to hear what he thought of the real me—or rather, the real me when I was being my true self.

My rainbow hair and "wild child" personality must not have sat the right way with him for him to make a comment like that. But it didn’t deter us from really connecting on other levels, and the fact that he asked for my number so nicely made me feel giddy. He was stupid rich, ridiculously hot, and very available.

I shed my coat by the door and kicked off my boots. It wasn't even fifteen minutes later that Amber called me with a video call. Ever since Mom's car was dinged in that fender bender, they made us use a GPS app for our phones. She had to have been watching me everywhere I went, agonizing over how I was handling things. I grabbed a soda and sat on the couch to answer her, propping my phone on the coffee table among a dozen design binders, all brightly colored.

When the call connected, I said, "Hey, Sis. How's it going?" I made sure the camera got my good angle and had a drink of my soda before reclining and propping my feet up.

"Hey, yourself. How was the day?" Amber had a bag of chips on her lap and what looked to be a dozen textbooks scattered around her in bed. As usual, her phone was set up on a tripod near the foot of the bed where she didn't have to touch it during the call. We did this about once a week anyway, but under the circumstances, I figured we'd be doing more calls than normal this month.

"Well, Naomi tried on a jillion dresses and hated them all. And believe me, they were ugly. But Newt was so sweet. He offered to buy whatever she wanted, but she just hated them. So anyway?—"

"Newt?" Amber asked. "How'd you go with that?" She knew I had a slight crush on him for a while, but she didn't realize how hot he was now. He'd been away for so long, I doubted she'd even seen pictures of him. We were all so busy, and Naomi lived on her own now, not with their parents. Besides, Amber had been at college, so no time to play catch-up with her best friend's family.

"Uh, interesting," I said, but I changed the subject. We had to exchange all the information every time I interacted as her so that if Naomi called her, she'd be clued in on the details. "Anyway, she was flustered and asked if I would do the dress for her."

"I like as in me, or like…?" At times, my sister was a dunce, even though she was set to graduate magna cum laude.

"I, as in Jade. Me. I'm going to design and sew her wedding gown, so thanks for roping me into this." The comment came out with a bit more snark than I planned for it to, but it was Amber's fault. If she had asked me about the dress, I'd have just said no. But now I had to deal with Naomi, the bridezilla, and try to make a dress for her because how could I let her down now?"

"Whoa, that's a lot of work." Amber sounded amazed at me, but in reality, after pushing my entire month's plans off to January, I knew I'd have the time. It was just a mindset to get into.

"Yeah, well Newt offered to pay me too, so I'm gonna do it." I could use the extra cash. There was a super cute pair of boots at the mall on the south side of Chicago I wanted, but they were way out of my price range. It would be a Christmas present for myself. I sighed happily, remembering the way Newt's fingers curled up in my hair while we talked and Naomi tried on dresses, then how he looked at me in the car when he asked for my number. The man was a dreamboat.

"You sound happy. I thought you were pissed about doing this for me." I reached for my soda and noticed Amber looked annoyed with me as she munched on some chips.

"Yeah, well things change." I never told my twin everything like some twins do. I figured some sisters were just not meant to be best friends. We were too far apart in taste and personality, and she was the "older sister" by like two minutes. She never let me forget that, either.

"What changed? You hate 'boring hair' and 'boring makeup'. I figured you'd be a tortured soul by now." Amber got up and did something unusual for her. She took her phone off the tripod and held it in hand as she walked through the house. I noticed her earbuds and knew what I said would be private even if her roommates were there.

"Well, so Newt was flirting with me. He asked for my phone number and he put his fingers in?—"

"He what?" she snapped and stopped in her tracks. The ceiling fan overhead looked like it was going backward, then forward as it spun around.

"He was flirting. What's the big deal?" I set my soda down next to my phone then picked the phone up and lay down on the couch, holding it over my face.

"The big deal is Newt can't flirt with you, Jade. You're not you. You're me. You are Amber Lyons, grad student and business major. If someone sees him flirting with 'Mav' and tells Derek, I'm screwed." Her eyebrows were high and her lips were pursed.

"Oh, chill out. Just tell Derek what's going on. No one will care." I rolled my eyes at her, but the beginning of embarrassment crept in. I was able to pull off the perfect Amber impersonation and Naomi never doubted me for a second. Amber was right. Even if no one told Derek, if Naomi saw me flirting with Newt or if he told her we were flirting, it would blow Amber's cover.

"Chill out? No. Newt Phillips is off limits. Got it? You aren't flirting with him. I don't care if you have a crush. You have to protect my reputation." She started walking again, and I sighed hard.

"Fine," I grunted, but it physically pained me. I understood why she said those things, but I hated it. I would just have to make sure Newt knew I was taken—or that Amber was. If he stuck around after the wedding long enough to meet "wild child Jade" and liked the real me, then so be it.

The next morning, I was bundled up in my pink puffer coat and woolen mittens waiting out in front of my building when Newt pulled up. I expected his fancy limo and never noticed when Mr. Phillips' beat-up old truck stopped right in front of me. He honked the horn once, startling me, and I looked over in surprise.

"Getting in?" he asked through the passenger window which was down.

The old truck had seen better days. By now, the thing could have been considered a classic, though it had some body work that needed done and the engine sounded like an old diesel instead of the V-8 I knew was under the hood. Naomi and Amber had taken groups of friends out to the drive-in in this old thing back in the day, and I'd been with them a time or two.

"Sure, yeah…" I crunched the snow on my way to the truck, and he reached across the bench seat and pushed the door open from the inside.

When I started to climb in, my foot slipped on ice, and Newt grabbed my hand to help me steady myself. He pulled me up onto the seat, and I slammed the old door shut and buckled in.

"Thanks," I mumbled, and he chuckled.

"Icy day… I figured this old thing would be better than a limo." Newt put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the slippery road. "Dad refuses to let me buy him a new truck. Says if it ain't broke, he don't fix it, and if it needs fixed, he'd rather do repairs than to buy a new one."

"That does sound like him." The inside of the truck smelled like cigars and pipe tobacco, a habit I'd heard Mrs. Phillips nag him about several times. But it had character. There was a dancing Hawaiian hula dancer on his dashboard, bobbling as the truck hit bumps. And the original cassette deck had a cassette protruding from it.

"Wow, this must feel like you're going back to the stone age, huh?" I asked him, and he smiled and shrugged at me.

"Nah, it just feels like home. It's good to get back to my roots. I'm not afraid of how I grew up or hard work. But I'm not gonna shy away from luxury or ease, either."

Damn, that dimple was going to kill me. I tried to remind myself of what Amber told me, that he was off limits, but I couldn't remember why she had said it. It was like my brain went stupid every time I saw this handsome man.

"So, we're buying the trees today?" I asked, pulling my mittens off. One thing that still worked really well in this truck was the heater. It had no problem keeping up with the temps in the teens.

"Yeah, I figure it's easier than ordering and coming back later. Plus, we'll have a better selection now." Newt focused on driving as I grilled him about the types of trees Naomi would like. I figured her for a Douglas fir kind of girl, but Newt insisted she'd said blue spruce.

It was a fun debate that carried us all the way to the tree farm twenty minutes west of Danville. He parked and climbed out, and I had forgotten to put my mittens on, so I took an extra second in the warm truck to do that. Before I even got the door open, he was there at my side, opening it for me. He held out his hand, and I felt my cheeks warm as I put my gloved fingers on his.

"Down ya go, and there." He didn't even back up when I slipped off the seat and my boots hit the slippery gravel. He just guided me aside and shut the door. I didn't know if it was the freshly cut pine trees or his cologne, but something smelled like Christmas and magic. I breathed it in and he smiled.

"Let's go pick out some trees." Newt winked at me and put his hand in the small of my back as we started for the lot.

For twenty minutes we weaved in and out of trees, some growing, some cut. We found four large blue spruces that were perfect and hung our tags on them, then headed to the barn to select wreaths. The woman welcoming customers at the front door handed us warm cocoa and told us how to check out and then it was us, the barn full of other Christmas decorations, and the heat of the cocoa.

"Oh, look how pretty," I said, finding a fully decorated tabletop tree. It had rainbow tinsel and a bright yellow star on top. It reminded me of the special trees Dad and Mom used to let me and Amber decorate ourselves. I'd always been obsessed with rainbows, and that led to my getting my own private tree in my bedroom, since Amber hated them.

"It's very… you," he said thoughtfully, and I smiled. "Or your sister… I can't tell right now."

I chuckled. "It's very Jade, that's true. But I like it." I lightly touched the branches and forced myself away from it. I hadn't set up my own tree at my apartment yet, but it would have been the perfect addition to my holiday mess I had going on.

"I think we're about ready to pay," Newt said, nodding at the register. I sighed, not wanting our day together to come to an end, but he was right. I couldn't drag my feet any longer. It was cold in here and my feet felt like ice cubes.

"Alright, well let's have them load the truck and we'll pay." I let him lead me toward the register, once again with his hand in the small of my back, and I gave the cashier my empty cocoa mug.

"Alright, well you're party 270?" she asked.

"Yes, that's the number on our tags outside. And we tagged a few wreaths too." Newt pulled out his wallet, and I saw the wad of cash, but he opted for a silver credit card, which he slid across the counter. "And the rainbow tree too."

My jaw dropped and I looked up at him. "No way. You don't have to do that."

'I want to. It's Christmas. The way your eyes lit up when you saw it… I have to." He winked at me and turned to the woman behind the register who was grinning, and when I finally managed to stop looking at him and his amazing rugged good looks, I noticed she was pointing up.

My eyes drew upward to the sprig of mistletoe hanging just inches above Newt's dark, wavy hair. Holiday tradition deemed that we were now supposed to kiss, but my God, if I did that, there was no going back. Amber said he was off limits to me, and for good reason.

"Oh, we're not… I mean… I can't." I stammered around like an idiot as Newt looked up and smirked at me when he looked back down.

"Oh, come on, Mav. It's a tradition. And what will the town think if you break Christmas tradition?" He was already maneuvering, putting his hands on my hips, which alone was enough to send a flood to my groin, but when he turned the full force of his one-dimpled smile on me, I was undone.

"Uh, okay?" I squeaked and didn't have a chance to do anything but shut my eyes.

Newt's lips pressed to mine in a fiery explosion of hormones that had me melting. It wasn't just a peck, either. He slipped his tongue past my lips to meet mine, and I moaned into his mouth as he pulled my body against his. If I wasn’t mistaken, he wasn't entirely limp, either. The bulge rubbing against my thigh was definitely not his wallet.

Oh, God, How was I going to explain this to Amber? Or Naomi? And how was I going to keep myself from wanting this again? He pulled away and looked in my eyes, then whispered, "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No," I squeaked again and whimpered when he pulled away.

I was ruined. I had to have him. I just didn't know how to pull it off.