I'd have loved to spend Christmas Eve curled up in front of the fire with Owen, drinking hot cocoa, eating his delicious cookies, and then f**king like bunnies. Instead, I was home. Home with my mother, because she'd struggled with being alone after my father died, and I'd moved back in...and stayed. I sighed.
"You're moping," my mother said, not looking up from her hat.
"I'm not," I protested. "I don't mope."
"That's the third time you've sighed in five minutes," my mother said. "I recognize a mope when I see one."
I glared at my laptop screen. My working draft of TERMITE 3: IT SLAYED UPON A CHRISTMAS EVE was open. I typed in, "Sugarman walks in. His mom is knitting a hat. She gives him an annoyed look."
Then, I deleted all of it. It was crap. Owen would know what the scene needed. His ideas were always great. Mine alone? Sucked.
"Luna Marie Collins, don't sit there and tell me you're not moping. What's wrong?"
I sighed and picked at one of the loose threads on the arm of the couch. "Nothing."
"Is it because you lost at the game?"
"It wasn't just any game," I muttered. Count on my mother to make me feel like I was five instead of twenty nine. "It was Endurance Island. And I didn't just lose, I came in last place."
"But you still had fun?"
I shrugged. I had fun after I got voted off.
“So when do I get to see the footage of you on the website? I keep checking it and it’s never there.”
“Um. Well, I’m guessing ‘never’.” I’d checked the website, too, eager for a glimpse of Owen’s face, but it never appeared. In fact, there was no Loser Lodge footage at all, which disappointed me terribly. When Kitty had said the producers were mad at us, she meant it. They really cleaned house. “We sort of got in trouble and production decided to axe the whole Loser Lodge movies thing.”
“We?”
“Yeah…I met a guy."
"Oh?" She put down her hat for that. "What's he do?"
"He's a pastry chef. His name's Owen and he lives in San Diego." And he hadn't even asked for my phone number.
"Ah."
"What's that mean?"
"It means I understand the moping now." She gave me a prim look and picked up her hat again. "You met a boy and he lives halfway across the world, so you're moping."
"San Diego isn't so far from Boston," I told her. But it was, really. Just like Endurance Island wasn't anything like reality. There was a disconnect that was too big to overcome.
Sad to say, but I would probably never see Owen again. I'd even asked about the reunion show and Kitty had hemmed and hawed. "Oh, um," she'd said when I'd called her. "See, they're still deciding if they should include the non-jury members."
Which meant no. I'd hung up, depressed.
No Owen. Merry Christmas to me. I sighed again.
My mother flung down her knitting. "Stop that, Luna!"
"I'm sorry," I said, snapping my laptop shut. "Jesus. Forgive a girl if she's all sad and crap, okay?"
"I understand being sad," my mother said. "You don't think I miss your father?"
I mentally groaned and felt guilty. "Of course you do. I’m sorry."
"But you know, you have to keep on living," my mother said. She shook her head as she looked at me. "You’re young. You can’t spend every holiday here with me, wishing your father was here.”
I blinked back a rush of tears. I missed him every day. On holidays, I showed solidarity to my mother, though. “I don’t mind being here with you.”
“You’re young,” she repeated. “You need to live more. I invited someone over tonight, by the way."
I groaned aloud this time. "Seriously? Why?"
"My friend Barbie knows this guy that is new to town and she thought it would be good for the two of you to meet. Trust me. It'll be nice. He's bringing cookies."
God, the last thing I wanted was to see some new guy here with cookies. "I've got to work on this script, Mom. I'm really busy."
"Oh, clearly," my mother said, nonplussed. "I can tell by the way you've been sighing over the same three words all night."
I gritted my teeth just as the doorbell rang.
"Get that please, Luna."
"Mom," I hissed. "No!"
"Do it for your mother."
I rubbed my forehead. "Mom, I don't want you to hook me up with anyone on Christmas Eve. Seriously. I'll just go to my room, all right?"
"Not before you answer the door," she called out.
The doorbell rang again.
"Just a moment," my mother shouted, and then nodded at me.
"Mom, pleaaaase." If she was going to treat me like a five year old, I'd act like one. I didn’t want this guy. I didn’t want anyone but Owen.
"Door," she said, and pointed at it over her shoulder. "Now."
Clenching my jaw against my mother's stubbornness - guess I'd inherited it from her - I went to the front door and flung it open.
Owen stood there, red roses in hand, a plate of Christmas cookies tucked under his arm. A sprig of mistletoe hung above him on the porch.
I screamed and flung my arms around him.
Owen laughed and dropped the flowers on the ground. They fell in a crunch onto the icy porch but I didn't care. His arm wrapped around me and then his mouth was on mine, and we were kissing. My desperate lips clung to him, and I gave a little whimper of joy when I felt his tongue slick into my mouth.