Elf Against the Wall: A Holiday Romantic Comedy (The Wynter Brothers Book 2)
Elf Against the Wall: Chapter 55

“Can you freaking believe it?” Elsa was chugging her third coffee since she’d been ushered into Hudson’s half-finished house. “I swear to god, if I hadn’t shown up, Henry’d be here right now, eating our food.”

“Why aren’t you more upset about this, Anderson?” Talbot demanded.

“What does it matter?” I pulled the bottle of scotch closer to me. I finally let myself have the drink I was craving, pouring the glass full of scotch.

“Do you want a straw with that?” Jake asked.

Hudson sat next to me at the table, his leg bumping mine, concern on his face.

Lawrence slid a baked brie that Gracie had left us out of the oven. “You can’t sit here and drink by yourself.”

“I’m with the five people who will never, ever leave me alone,” I reminded him.

Jake put me in a headlock.

Talbot tried to stuff a cracker dripping with cheese into my mouth. “You need to eat something.”

“Open his mouth.” Lawrence reached for my jaw.

“Get off me,” I snarled at my brothers as they tried to force me to eat.

I coughed as Elsa almost choked me with a cracker.

“Idaho’s looking more and more attractive by the hour, huh, bro?” Jake asked cheerfully.

“The cold, lonely, flat expanse.” Talbot stretched his arm out in front of me.

“Maybe you’ll replace someone new there. Forget about Evie,” Lawrence said.

“I can’t forget about her,” I said helplessly.

“I never thought you’d get shacked up.” Lawrence cut off a steaming piece of the cheese.

“I didn’t think any woman would tolerate you.” Jake stole Lawrence’s cracker.

“She was perfectly imperfect, and I traded her for…” I shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

“That Idaho contract’s not nothing,” Hudson reminded me.

I took another long drink of the burning scotch.

“Grayson said you were quitting.” Hudson narrowed his eyes.

“You two are like two gossiping old women,” Talbot said.

Hudson threw a cracker at Talbot with surprising accuracy and hit him dead on the nose.

“Ow!”

“I don’t have anything to quit to. I fucked up. I should have…” I sighed and finished the last of the scotch. “I should have done things differently. Should have done everything differently. I can’t be too mad at Henry at the end of the day. I did the exact same thing—sold out someone who was good to me. It’s like upside-down karma or something.”

Elsa looked worried.

I nudged her. “It’s the holidays. No daylight, the oncoming existential crisis of another year over, wondering if anything will change as you stare into a bleak future.”

“He’s been listening to all those philosophy podcasts,” Lawrence quipped.

“Gotta watch reality TV, my man.” Elsa tapped the side of her head. “You feel so much better about yourself when you’re watching two anorexics scream at each other about overpriced bridesmaid dresses.”

Jake clapped his hands over my ears. “We’re supposed to be cheering him up, not encouraging him to slit his wrists.”

“We should go out,” Talbot suggested.

“In Maplewood Falls?” Lawrence poured me another scotch.

“There’s the Christmas market,” Elsa suggested.

“If we go to Breaker Street, we could get him in a bar fight,” Hudson deadpanned.

“I’m not spending Christmas in the hospital with you two again,” Talbot said flatly. “Heartbreak or not, you’re on your own.”

“Look on the bright side. At least you only lost two and a half-ish weeks of your life with her,” Elsa said brightly. “You can’t fall in love with someone in two and a half weeks.”

“But I did,” I said helplessly.

“You need to put Evie behind you,” Lawrence said. “And you need to put heat in your house, Hudson.”