Mistletoe Mischief (Falling in Mistletoe #2)

Chapter Seventeen

O h my God, Dog, can you please do your business? It’s freezing out here.”

Pike stood on the little lawn in front of his apartment in his house slippers, sweats, and a jacket, bouncing from foot to foot. It was the third time he’d been up with the pup since he got home from the bar, and that was when the creature would let him sleep. The only time she’d stopped whimpering was when he’d taken her out of the crate and put her on the bed with him. At first, she’d pounced and attacked his face with kisses until he’d wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.

“Be still,” he said.

She’d obeyed him for a few hours, and he’d fallen blissfully asleep until he’d woken up to her whining again and trying to get off the bed. He checked the time. It was six ten. He wasn’t due to meet the Excursions group until nine, and hopefully, he could get a few more hours of sleep.

Finally, the puppy pooped, and Pike gave her a slow clap. “Congratulations, you finally did it.”

Pike used one of the baggies his sister provided to pick up the poop, then he scooped up the puppy in his other arm. Pike tied the top of the poop bag and tossed it into the garbage can before going back inside. He carried the dog into his room and set her on the bed, heading into the bathroom to wash his hands. When he came back into the bedroom, Pike stripped off his jacket and slippers while the puppy bounced around. He lifted the covers to crawl into bed, and once he was under them, she laid in the crook of his arm and rolled over, gazing at him from her upside-down position .

Pike scratched her belly, fighting a smile. “You think you have me wrapped around your finger, huh?” She pawed at him, and he laughed. “Good girl.” He yawned, his eyes fluttering closed, and before he knew it, he’d passed out again.

Pike woke up when his alarm went off, and he took the pup out one more time before putting her in the crate so he could shower. He stood under the hot stream, washing his hair and scrubbing his body, his mind drifting to Ryler. They’d almost kissed, but once she and Alia returned to the table, he hadn’t had another moment alone with her. It seemed like everyone at the table vied for her attention, and she fit right in, teasing the guys and bonding with the girls. When their group had taken off around eleven, Holly and Merry had fawned over her, inviting their group to the Winters’ joint birthday party for Nick, Merry, and Holly the first week of December. Pike offered an awkward good night, and when they disappeared out the door, Holly had smacked him and called him an idiot.

I did all that work to keep Sam away from her, and you couldn’t close the deal. Stupid!

Despite their chemistry, Pike still had hesitations about getting involved with Ryler. What if they slept together and she regretted it? Anthony could always step in with them, but what if she decided to bail instead? She and Alia acted more like sisters than cousins. If Ryler wanted to leave town, would Alia really stick around without her to finish the podcast for Mistletoe?

Pike didn’t think so.

When he got out of the shower, the puppy was yowling loudly, and his upstairs neighbor was beating on Pike’s ceiling.

“Shut that mutt up,” the old coot hollered.

Pike flipped off the ceiling and opened the crate, freeing the puppy.

“You are just a pain in the ass, aren’t you?”

The puppy stood on her back end with her paws up, and Pike took her into his hands, lifting her into his arms and holding her against his naked chest.

“What am I going to do with you today? I can’t leave you here to terrorize the neighbors.”

Pike put her down and used his towel to finish drying off before he got dressed, trying to avoid stepping on the puppy, who was underfoot. He finally picked her up and tossed her on the bed. She followed him as he moved around the room. When Pike sat down to get his shoes on, he found himself dodging the darting puppy tongue again. “We’re going to have to work on that licking stuff. I can’t stand licky dogs.”

Apparently, the licker didn’t care, because she rushed him again, swiping his hand. “You know what?” Pike rolled her over onto her back and gave her a raspberry on her stomach. “How do you like it?”

She squirmed away and launched herself at him. Pike caught her and carried her into the bathroom so that he could finish doing his hair and beard. While he got ready, his phone rang. He tapped the talk button and greeted Ryler. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she said. “We’re grabbing coffee and breakfast. You want something?”

“Thanks, that’s nice of you. You at Kiss My Donut?”

“We are,” she said.

“I’ll take a cinnamon roll latte and a ham and cheese croissant. I can Venmo you if you text me—”

“Don’t worry about it; it’s on us,” she said. “You’re technically off this weekend and still taking us out to explore.”

“Alright, thanks. I’ll meet you at Kiss My Donut, and you can follow me out to the first landmark.”

“Is your partner going to meet us, still?” Ryler asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I just need to check his location.” Pike smoothed his beard oil over the strands, using his comb to shape them.

“What do you mean check his location?” Ryler asked.

“We have a GPS app that tracks our locations.”

“Seriously?” She laughed.

“Yeah, it’s for safety in case we’re out with clients and something happens. Don’t you do that with your family?”

“Alia is my only family, and we are always together.”

“It’s still weird to think of you two as cousins.”

“If you say you can’t see the resemblance, I’m hanging up now.”

Pike laughed. “That wasn’t what I was going to say— No!” He hollered when he saw the puppy taking a whiz on his bath mat. “Bad dog.” The puppy tucked tail and rushed for safety at his harsh tone, knocking over the wastebasket. “Damn it.”

“Everything okay over there?” Ryler asked.

“Not at all! My sister thought it would be a good idea to get me a dog, and the creature doesn’t let me sleep and pees all the time on everything. ”

“Aw, what kind of dog?” she asked.

“A Pomeranian, I think.”

“Aw!”

“It’s not aw, like ‘how cute.’ It’s a small fluffy demon.”

“Are you going to bring her?”

Pike got down on his hands and knees and pulled the dog from her hiding spot with a grunt. “Only because I’m a little afraid to leave her home and find an eviction notice on my door when I get back.” The puppy trembled against him, and guilt tightened his chest. “Hey, I’m sorry I yelled and scared you. I didn’t expect you to use my bath mat as a toilet.”

Ryler chuckled. “Alright, I’ll let you deal with that. See you in a bit.”

“See you.”

Pike put the puppy in the crate while he picked up the bath mat and took it out to the laundry room, ignoring the pitiful howl and the neighbors hollering as he threw it into the washer and hit start. Pike went back to the bathroom to finish getting ready, and when he got his hair and beard the way he wanted, he took the puppy out of her crate and carried her out to the kitchen where her supplies were.

Pike found the doggy harness his sister had included and put it on the puppy. “I’m gonna have to call you something other than Dog . Who is a female with red hair. Julia? Nah. Wynonna? Hmmm. Oh, I got it! Jolene.”

Pike started humming the song under his breath as he took the leash and tried leading her, but she refused to walk, dragging her back end.

“Alright, dude, none of that.” He picked her up and took one of his kayaking bags and started filling it up, including a small bowl, two food pouches, and a couple bottles of water. He put the roll of poop bags in the bag and zipped it up. “We have our puppy bag. What do you say we show a couple flatlanders around?”

She tried to lick him, and he put his hand out to block it. “Yeah, we’re definitely going to have to work on that.”

It took Pike less than five minutes to get to Kiss My Donut, but when he arrived, he didn’t see either rental car. But he did see Ryler out front, holding two coffee cups and a pastry bag.

“Hey, where is everyone?”

“They wanted to check out a historical site twenty minutes away, and I said we’d catch up.”

“Okay, hop in. ”

Ryler climbed into his red Dodge Charger and passed him the coffee. “There you are.”

“Thanks,” he said, setting it in the cup holder.

Jolene whined from the back seat, and Ryler turned around, her face melting into a smile. “Well, hello, sweetheart,” she said, setting the pastry bag down on the floorboard and her coffee in the other cup holder before reaching for her. Ryler pulled her into the front seat on her lap, snuggling her and dodging Jolene’s frantic tongue.

“Jo, stop being a licky dog!” Pike said firmly.

Ryler laughed, rubbing the puppy’s ears and kissing her on top of the head. “She is darling.”

“She certainly thinks so,” he said mildly, watching Ryler love on the dog for several moments before he cleared his throat. “Which historical site did they head to?”

“I’m not sure, but it sounded boring, so I passed. It was where some massacre took place.”

“Ah, I know where they are. We’ll probably end up passing Anthony on our way to them. Want to text Alia and let her know we’re coming to them?”

“Sure.” As she furiously tapped on the screen, Jo pawed at her fingers, making her giggle. “You are just a silly puppy, aren’t you?”

Pike pulled out onto the road and made a left at the next street, circling back to take the highway out of Mistletoe.

Her phone beeped, and she set it in her lap. “They are going to wait for us by the sign.”

“Perfect.” Pike took a drink of his coffee and hummed. “So good. Want to try?”

“That’s okay, I actually got the same thing as you.”

“Well, good, because I really didn’t want to share,” he teased, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She went to take a drink of her coffee, but Jo tried to jump for it. “You can put her back there so you can enjoy your coffee in peace.”

“Just until we finish eating, baby.” Ryler lifted the dog into the back seat once more and pulled sanitizer out of her purse, cleansing her hands.

“I also got us the same breakfast,” she said, grabbing the pastry bag and reaching inside, handing him a ham and cheese croissant .

Pike took a bite and groaned. “I actually think these are better than the donuts.”

“I hope so because I saw a cream-filled one that was calling my name,” she said. He caught the look on her face out of the corner of his eye as she took a bite of the croissant. “Hmmm, that is good.”

“I told you.”

“No one likes a know-it-all, Pike,” Ryler admonished.

They ate in silence for a few moments, Jo whining in the back seat. When Ryler finally finished her breakfast, Pike stopped her from grabbing the puppy right away. “Wait until she stops whining, please. I’m trying to teach her some patience.”

“Are you keeping her, then?” Ryler asked .

“No, but I think dogs should learn patience at a young age,” he said quickly.

“Mm-hmm.”

Ryler did as he asked, and when at least thirty seconds had passed, he nodded, “You can grab her now.”

“Aw, your daddy thinks he’s a hard-ass, but I think he’s warming up to you.”

Despite the baby talk, Pike’s ears perked at her use of the word daddy , and while he knew it made him a complete perv, he liked the way she said it.

“Speaking of warming up to things, should we talk about last night?” he asked.

“About almost-kisses on moonlit patios?” Ryler asked.

“That would be the subject at hand.”

“It depends on how the conversation’s going to go. Are we saying it should or shouldn’t have happened? If it shouldn’t, then there is no need to talk about it, and we can forget it even happened.”

“And if it should have?” he asked.

“Then I guess we need to explore the subject further.”

Pike chuckled as he took a right onto Hwy 20, opening his mouth to do just that, when a car crested the hill in the distance. As it drew closer, trepidation made Pike’s heart rate quicken. He did a double take as they passed Delilah’s car, recognizing Anthony in the driver’s seat. “Son of a bitch!”

“What is it?” Ryler asked.

“A lying rat bastard.” Pike pressed on the gas, and at the next turnout, flipped the car around, tearing back toward them.

“Pike, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a little chat with my business partner.”

Pike whipped his car into the space off the road in front of Delilah’s car and threw it in park. “Just stay put, okay? I won’t be a minute.”

He climbed out and marched back toward the front of the car. He stopped in front of the hood and pointed his finger at Anthony through the windshield. Delilah stared out at him from the passenger seat with wide eyes, while Anthony’s guilty expression told Pike everything he’d already suspected was true.

“I fucking knew it!”

Pike turned away from the car and stomped back toward his, ignoring the opening and closing of a car door. The sound of running feet preceded Anthony’s desperate call. “Pike, hold up. It’s not what you think.”

“I’ll bet,” Pike scoffed, twisting around and shoving Anthony backward. He must have caught Anthony off guard because he stumbled a few feet but caught himself. Pike was beyond caring if he looked like an emotional idiot. His best friend, his partner, had been lying to him for days.

“I asked you point-blank if you were interested, and you said no.”

Anthony held his hands up in a pleading motion. “I can explain everything, but I don’t want to do this on the side of the highway.”

“I don’t want to do this at all,” Pike snapped. “I just had to make sure it was you because I thought I was making myself crazy. Telling myself it was a weird coincidence that you changed your mind about visiting your dad.”

“That was all true!” Anthony protested.

“When did it start? How long were the two of you fucking around and laughing at me?”

“Wednesday night.”

“After she rejected me?” Pike scoffed. “So, while I was waiting at the bar for you to show up, you were together?”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“Then explain it to me, man, because I knew you liked to razz me, but I always thought you respected me.”

“I do respect you, which is why I didn’t tell you about us over the phone. It’s why I said I wasn’t interested when you asked, even though I’ve been into her for almost a year.”

That was something he hadn’t been expecting to hear.

“The fuck are you talking about?” Pike asked.

“We kissed last year at Merry and Clark’s party. I knew she liked you so I stopped it, but I didn’t forget.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that when I was going on and on about dating her?”

“Because I thought she wanted you, too!”

“And the minute you found out she’d turned me down, you made your move.”

Anthony hesitated. “I honestly didn’t expect you to be so invested, man. It had only been a couple of days.”

Pike laughed. “I can’t believe you’re trying to turn this around on me. Forget the fact that you made a move on her behind my back, you’re my business partner. My brother. And you fucking lied to me. That’s what I can’t get over.”

Pike opened up the driver’s side door and slammed it shut, regret seizing him at the ill treatment of his car, but he was too furious to care at the moment. Pike checked to make sure it was clear and pulled back onto the highway, flipping around at the closest turnout.

Ryler and Jo sat quietly in the passenger seat, and he hated that she’d witnessed his humiliation. She probably thought he was having a jealous meltdown, when it had nothing to do with Delilah and everything to do with Anthony going behind his back and lying.

Trust was everything in any relationship, and if you were doing something that would hurt someone you cared about, you shouldn’t be doing it.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he whispered.

“It’s okay. I’m more concerned with how you’re feeling now that you’ve put some distance between you and him. I was afraid for a moment you were going to get into a fistfight.”

“I wanted to hit him, but not because he was with her. It was that he lied rather than just came clean.”

“Maybe he wanted to tell you in person.”

“They hooked up on Wednesday before he met me at Brews and Chews. ”

Pike saw Ryler wince out of the corner of his eye. “Ouch.”

“Like I said, not about her. This is about him and me.”

“Are you going to be okay taking us around today, or would you rather take a mental health day?” she asked.

“No, I want to hang with you guys today. Being around people who are genuine and honest will do me some good.”