Under the Mistle-Foe (Christmas Falls: Season 2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

JETT

Late September

“You two are what now?”

My mouth hung open as I stared at Kody and Jenna, two of my best friends, who were sitting across from me in the booth.

We were having a nice dinner at The White Elephant, catching up and shooting the shit like we’d always did. It was our go-to meeting place since Kody’s family owned the pub.

Nikita, the fourth person in our group, sat beside me, munching on the food like he’d already known this. Which made sense since Kody was his older brother, but still! He could’ve given me a hint that he apparently now had a future sister-in-law.

In our little group of four, I considered Nikita my closest friend since we were the same age and had the same classes in school. It was only after graduating high school that I’d gotten closer to Kody and Jenna.

“Engaged,” Jenna sing-songed. She lifted her left hand to show me the diamond ring on her ring finger. How I hadn’t noticed the giant rock when she first got here was beyond me. That thing was practically hanging off of her tiny hand.

“I didn’t even know you two were dating,” I said, a bit hurt that two of my best friends were only now telling me about their relationship status. I glared at Nikita for failing to tell me too. He looked back innocently.

“Oh, we weren’t,” Kody said, and Jenna agreed with a nod.

I stared at them both, this time with utter confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Kody laughed a big belly laugh. His finger wiped under his eye to add just how funny he thought this situation was. I glared at him.

Jenna placed a hand over mine, successfully distracting me from the idea of punching the smug look off of my friend’s face.

Violence was never the answer…or at least that was what my mom always said whenever I got into a playground scuffle when I was a kid.

“It’s true. We may have only dated, like, a hundred years ago and didn’t work out, but we love each other, even if not romantically. I guess if I had to marry someone, this guy isn’t the worst option.”

“Hey! I’m a catch!” Kody protested and gently slapped her hand out of his face. Nikita snorted, which had Kody shooting him the middle finger before turning to me with a grin. “So, what do you say? You gonna join our little adventure as a groomsman?”

I laughed, left my side of the booth, scooted into theirs, and scooped both Kody and Jenna up in a hug. “You better bet your asses I will!”

Kody groaned, being squished in between the two of us, while Jenna only laughed and squeezed us tighter. Nikita stayed on his side and snapped pictures of us. “For future blackmailing,” he’d teased, but we all ignored him .

I returned to my seat when Jenna and I’d had enough of torturing Kody by showering him with affection.

The rest of the evening went by while they clued me in on the situation, how they wanted to start a family and were tired of sitting around and waiting for the one who never came, so they decided to just marry each other.

It confused the hell out of me how this entire thing came to be, but if my friends were happy, that was all that mattered. They wanted to keep everything on the down-low and swore me to secrecy about all of this, and I naturally agreed.

We’d said our goodbyes outside the pub. Kody and I gave each other slightly drunken hugs, crying about how much we loved each other and how we’d miss each other despite meeting up every week. Jenna and Nikita stood to the side and shook their heads as they watched.

The newly formed couple—it was still fucking weird to think of them like that—left together, and Nikita stayed behind at the pub. I thought I heard him muttering something about implementing robot servers, but all the beers might have affected my hearing.

Meanwhile, I decided to walk home and enjoy the perfect late September weather.

My thoughts kept returning to the news my friends threw at me during dinner. They were a couple .

Hell, these days it seemed like I was the only single man in Christmas Falls with all the couples that had popped up in the last year. Whatever was in the air was firmly avoiding me if the state of my singlehood was anything to go by.

It wasn’t like I wanted to be alone. It was the exact opposite, in fact, and it wasn’t like I was perpetually single. I’d had my fair share of boyfriends throughout the years, but nothing ever lasted.

Maybe it was because there was one man in particular who had always been on my mind, though it wasn’t like I ever had a chance with him. He had a horrible impression of me from the fumbling, idiotic way I acted in high school. Plus, he didn’t even live in town anymore, and who knew when he’d be back?

As if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone pinged with a text notification.

Remy: I might get my first promotion!

The message only solidified the fact that he was thriving in his new city and was not returning any time soon. I shot him a message of congratulations before sliding my phone back into my pocket for the lonely walk home.

When I entered my dark house, Jenna’s voice echoed in my head, saying how nice it was to be able to return home to someone waiting for her.

Maybe it was time I let go of my silly teenage crush that lead to nowhere and be serious about finding a partner? As they said, the best way to get over someone was to get under someone else…

The idea sounded even better as I lay in bed, feeling the state of being alone even more with how huge my bed was. I’d heard there was a matchmaker in town who had a pretty high success rate—I believed his name was Nick.

It wasn’t hard to find the information I wanted on social media, and before I knew it, I was filling out the form to request Nick’s services.

I paused when I reached the end of the form. Using a matchmaker seemed so ridiculous. It hurt my pride to think I needed help with my dating life, but based on all my past failed relationships…

Glancing one more time at the space beside me on the giant bed and wishing it wasn’t empty, I hit the submit button.