Jingle Balls: A Holiday Romantic Comedy Anthology

by Dylann Crush

  Words dried right up. He had nothing. Nada.

  Hence his aversion to any social appearances not required in his contracts. Contract-approved events had specific provisions allowing him to escape and catch a break every so often in a prepared private green room of sorts.

  This event? Not so much.

  But this event had Anna, so he’d sucked it up.

  “I didn’t...” He held up the image, tapping it harder than necessary. “This isn’t approved.”

  “What do you mean it’s not approved?” Anna asked, as pale as he felt. “The committee chair sent us all emails about how you had agreed.”

  “I did not agree to be in the auction. I said I would be one of the announcers for the auction.” He stared at the image of himself. “Damn.”

  “Who did this?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t know.” He glanced up from the glossy paper and couldn’t help but notice the extra-wide wide eyes she directed toward her grandmother.

  “Tell me it wasn’t you,” Anna said, her gaze narrowing in a way he’d learned was not a good thing. “You never even came to committee meetings.”

  “I admit nothing,” Babushka said with a heavy wink—dear God, her eyelid stayed closed for an abnormally long time.

  He’d begun to question if she was a passive participant in having a stroke when her eyelid slowly rolled open and her eyes sparkled.

  A sparkle that gave her ruse away.

  “My Roman is becoming very good apprentice,” Babushka said.

  “You two put Drake in the bachelor auction without asking?” Anna asked, incredulous.

  “It vill be fine.” Babushka shrugged her shoulders up toward her ears.

  Which meant fuck a fucking Ferrari, his night just got complicated.

  4

  Drake

  “You have to buy me.” Drake turned to Anna. “However much it costs. Buy me. I will pay you back.”

  Anna still had the reindeer-in-the-headlights expression on her face. “I—”

  “I vill buy you. It vill be fine.” Babushka patted his cheek and shuffled around him. She continued to speak as she moved forward, but he didn’t catch what she’d said.

  “Who do I talk to on the committee to make this not happen? I’ll make a massive donation. Anything,” he said to Anna as he combed his fingers through his hair.

  “Um…” Anna shifted her gaze away from his. “I’ll go find one of the committee chairs. It’ll be fine.” She didn’t sound like she believed it would be okay.

  Something settled deep down inside of him—that intuition that told a person whether something was a good idea or a bad one, the instinct he relied on when picking a play and a receiver. It told him that this was not fine.

  His heart continued to thump unnaturally fast.

  “Is there a room? Somewhere I can have a moment?” he asked, his words more clipped than he’d intended.

  A private place where he could contact his business manager, agent, and anyone else who would listen and might be able to stop this from actually happening without wrecking his reputation along the way. His agent was exceptional at coming up with solutions created from nothing but chicken wire, a plastic cup, and sparkling tree lights. At least, that’s what he’d thought when the evening began.

  “Follow me.” Anna tugged on his elbow, her fingers digging into the fabric of his suit jacket.

  He hated the situation he was in. Despised the taste of frustration coating his tongue. But he did not mind at all that Anna had a grip on his arm. She led him through the other guests and around an excessive number of white poinsettias and sheer fabric curtains that draped from the ceiling to the floor. She was a woman on a mission who didn’t stop for autographs.

  The look on her face must’ve been effective because she managed to get him through without stopping just as well as a team of his best security gets him to his truck after a game.

  They moved behind the stage, Anna flicking the curtain aside as he followed behind.

  “Where are we going?” he whispered.

  “There’s an empty room back here you can use to call whoever you need.” She slowed, pointed out the cables taped along the floor so he didn’t trip, then moved a precarious stack of what appeared to be empty boxes wrapped to look like extravagant Christmas presents, and opened a door.

  He followed as she led him into a storage room. Chairs stacked ten high lined the walls, and round tables that had been torn down and set against the wall. Long strands of extra unwound Christmas lights were draped over a couple of the tables.

  “Will this work?” she asked, hands on hips as she surveyed the space.

  “Perfect.” He pulled his cell from his pocket.

  “Then I’ll just leave you…” She grimaced, blew air from her cheeks, and walked back to the door. “…to go let the committee know you didn’t agree to this.”

  “Anna.” His throat was thick with her name.

  She turned.

  He futzed around with the cell in his hand. “We need to talk once I sort this out.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  He pulled up the contact for his agent and pushed the call button. No signal.

  Shit.

  He turned to ask Anna if he could borrow her phone, but she was pushing and pulling at the door. It wasn’t opening.

  Four strides and he was beside her. She glanced at him, eyes wide. “It’s jammed. It won’t open.”

  No. He did not accept that.

  He turned the handle and put his weight behind his effort to pull the door open. It didn’t budge.

  “We’ll just call the front desk. They’ll send someone right over.” Anna wiped a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Where’s your phone?”

  “No signal.” He held up his no-signal phone in illustration.

  “What?” she asked, as though she had never heard of a phone not having any signal.

  “I don’t have service in here—” which was totally okay, because “—if we’re locked in here, they can’t sell me out there.”

  Logic was totally his friend in this situation. Besides, if they were locked in a room, then perhaps they could hash out the future without the guests’ constant attempts to get autographs or his attention.

  Anna held three fingers over her lips and shook her head. Despite the pink makeup highlighting her cheeks, she was totally pale. “That’s not true. They can still sell you. But if we’re locked in here, I can’t buy you. If I can’t buy you, then Babushka will probably buy you and then there will be a scene”—Anna scanned the empty room with her gaze as if she were searching for an escape route—“and then she’ll have stipulations. Stipulations and a scene. And then she’ll shove us together and then we’ll have all of this resentment toward each other.”

  Being shoved together didn’t sound so bad. “I won’t resent you if your babushka purchases me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Anna.”

  “I mean, how can you know that?” she asked.

  “Anna. The scene I can live without. But the other part is going to be fine. No matter what, it’s going to be fine. Because I have every intention of showing you why we’re great together for as long as you’ll let me.”

  “We’re great together?” Anna asked, her expression pure shock.

  “We are.” He was firm on this.

  “We are great together.” She sighed. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Whoever buys me? It’ll be fine. It’ll probably be your grandmother and she’ll just give me to you.” That’s the outcome he was rooting for.

  “That’s your first mistake. You can’t trust her. Gah, I can’t even tell my friends to buy you,” she continued. “Which means we don’t know who will buy you. Babushka is sort of cheap and you’re a total catch, so if your price gets too high, she’ll find a reason to stop bidding and then she’ll hook me up with one of the barely-not-a-teenager valet guys. I just know it.”

  Bad. Yes, that was the feeling.
This was not a good feeling. Definitely a bad one. He didn’t particularly want to think about Anna hooking up with anyone who wasn’t him.

  “Do you have a signal?” he asked, refusing to sound too desperate, but they might as well be in overtime during the Super Bowl, on the final play, with the coach calling for a two-point conversion.

  “A what?” she asked, eyebrows creased.

  “Signal. Phone.” He pointed to the signal-less device he held in his hand.

  “I don’t…” Anna shook her head. “I don’t have my phone.”

  She had her purse. He tilted his forehead toward it. “Isn’t it in your— “

  She bit at her top lip, which in any other circumstance would totally be a turn-on for him. “It’s not in there. It was confiscated.”

  Say… “What?”

  “Long story.” She banged at the closed door with her fist. “C’mon, somebody hear us.”

  He tried the handle once more. Nothing. Tried again. Nope. He wished he were a linebacker so he could crash through the thing.

  Making a fist, he pounded on the door next to Anna.

  The noise from the gala must’ve drowned them out because even after a full five minutes of pounding, no one came.

  Anna leaned against the door. “We’re stuck.”

  He ran his tongue over his teeth. Yes, they were.

  “I have this friend. You haven’t met her yet, but she’s great. Really smart and perpetually happy,” Anna said, as though that had anything to do with anything.

  He raised his eyebrows. May as well see where she was going with this one.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “And she would say that when you find yourself in a situation that isn’t ideal, you should find some bright spots in it.”

  She was definitely a bright spot in a locked room. “What bright spots are you finding here?” he asked.

  “Well, I mean, we’re stuck in here together and…I’ve missed you. That’s a bright spot, right?” She glanced up at him from under her lashes.

  Best bright spot of all.

  “You miss me?” he asked, something inside him needing that confirmation.

  “Of course, I do, you lug nut.”

  “Then why didn’t you—”

  “Answer?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “Because my feelings were hurt.”

  “Hear me out. Since we’re stuck here…” He’d just embrace the opportunity to explain things. “The reason I didn’t want— “

  She held up her hands, her cheeks turning a festive shade of red. “You don’t need to explain. I get it. You don’t want to be serious. Career importance. All that. I just…” Her voice was progressively cracking more and her speech was getting faster. “I don’t want to be with you when you come back to Denver on the off weeks. I want a real grown-up relationship where I live in the same town as the guy I’m with.”

  Last time he’d checked, they’d been doing some pretty grown-up stuff together.

  A better job of explaining, that’s what he needed to manage. “There’s a reason I have my team—”

  “Because it’s your job,” she finished for him.

  “Not my teammates.” His personal team—the people who handled the rest of it all. “My team. My agent. Manager. The lady who picks out my clothes.”

  She squinted adorably at him. “You have a stylist?”

  Of course, he had a stylist. If he picked out his own clothes, he’d always be in his favorite pair of worn-out jeans. He’d live in the football tees that were always given to him in enormous gift baskets from sponsors.

  “I know what I’m doing on the field,” he said.

  She nodded. “Everybody knows that.”

  “But I’m not so good with people.”

  Her eyebrows fell.

  “Most people,” he clarified. “I’m good with you. You make it easy for me to be me.”

  “Okay…”

  “So we can’t be together in Miami.” Because he wouldn’t be there. Which meant there wouldn’t be a them there.

  “I got that. Last time we talked.” She crossed her arms, her throat working, tears edging the rim of her eyelids.

  Unfortunately, he was really fucking this up.

  He rubbed at the ache forming in his skull between his eyebrows. “I’m not going to be there anymore. You can’t move there because I won’t be there.”

  The dawn of understanding rose along with the magnitude of the situation. Her lips formed a circle. “They’re ditching you?”

  That was certainly one way of saying it.

  “Retirement is the word they insist on using.”

  She got quiet, staring at him for a long moment. She seemed to be processing the weight of his words.

  “Anna…”

  She huffed and shoved her hands against her waist, the movement lifting her breasts up higher. “That’s bullshit. You’ve got more time.”

  “That’s what I tried to explain to them.” With backup from three leading sports doctors.

  “This is totally unacceptable. How can they get away with this? The fans will never be okay with this.” She spoke quickly, pointing at him with an intense index finger.

  He appreciated her vehement support of his ability to still play.

  “I’m aging out of the game, but I’m not done yet.” He hoped. “We’re in talks with Medford here in Denver. Hoping he’ll bring me on.”

  Her eyes bulged. “You’re coming to Denver?”

  “Which is why you can’t go to Miami. Because—” if everything went well “—I hope I’ll be here.”

  “Oh.” She laced her hands in front of her, wringing them back and forth. “So that’s why—”

  “I had about twenty non-disclosures in play when you offered to come to Miami.” That wasn’t much of an exaggeration.

  He swallowed hard. “You’re it for me.”

  She shifted her gaze away from his.

  “I couldn’t say anything to anyone until ink was on paper and signatures dry,” he said.

  “And then you tried to call me.” She spoke to the wall, not looking back at him.

  He nodded. “A lot.”

  “When I wouldn’t answer…” She glanced back at him, the expression in her eyes one of hurt and hope.

  “I stopped by the shop,” he said. “But you were never there.” He chewed his bottom lip. “A lot. I stopped at your shop a lot.”

  “Then you got tangled up with Roman and Babushka?”

  He nodded. “I want to be with you. You’re my future.” He paused. Drew in a deep breath. “At least I hope you’re my future.”

  She stepped toward him, placing her palms on his cheeks. Then she lifted on her toes and pressed a light kiss against his lips. “I want to be your future.”

  The fire in his belly burned brighter as he deepened the kiss, tilting his head to the side and rubbing his palm against her back as she plastered herself against his chest.

  Even facing early retirement, if Anna was his future, it did not suck.

  Her gaze slid to the locked door. “There’s one thing I don’t get…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Babushka obviously worked her Russian magic to get you in the bachelor auction, but why did they lock us in here then? Is she planning on buying you so I can’t? That doesn’t make sense.”

  He jerked his chin toward the door. “It’s just jammed. No one locked us in here.”

  Anna gave him a look that clearly indicated her disbelief that their current situation was not premeditated.

  “It’s not her style though. She’s more of the put-you-in-a-public-bachelor-auction-without-your-knowledge kind of matchmaker.”

  Sounded like his life was about to get very interesting with a woman like Babushka involved.

  “I’m sure it’s just a jammed doorknob,” Drake concluded. “I’ll just deal with whoever buys me when we get out of here.”

  Anna dropped her forehead against his chest, nuzzling
her cheek against him.

  That was more like it.

  She toyed with the buttons on his shirt. Each stroke made his blood pressure rise and made him wish they were somewhere alone that wasn’t technically public.

  He trailed a fingertip along the length of her neck.

  She shivered and her breath caught. Her lips parted slightly, and he pressed another kiss against them. Anna didn’t hesitate, inviting him deeper into the kiss and wrapping her arms around his neck so his mouth met hers with more desire.

  He could conquer anything with Anna beside him. Or, in this case, pressed against the front of him.

  “I love you, Anna,” he said for the first time.

  “Me, too.” She pecked small kisses against the column of his throat.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” he asked, realizing that although he didn’t particularly mind being locked alone with Anna, he needed to use this opening to talk to Medford and ensure he wasn’t purchased by the wrong person.

  “Don’t know,” she mumbled as she continued pressing small kisses against his skin. “I’m thinking.”

  “I do like the way you think.” His mouth met hers, his heart thudding in his chest as she practically climbed him like she was headed to a treehouse. The heat between her legs pressed against his thigh.

  Warmth and passion sizzled in the air as days of pent-up frustration poured into the heat of their kiss.

  The door flew open and Anna’s grandmother stood on the other side, her brows furrowed. She tsked loudly. “Vhat are you doing? This is not playtime.”

  Drake pulled himself away from Anna, carefully setting her back on the ground. He held her against his side to ensure she had her bearings before slipping his hand down to meet hers.

  “The jig is up, Babushka.” Anna pulled Drake closer beside her. “We’re together. You can cancel the auction.”

  “Vhat?” The woman scowled deeper. “Vhat is a jig? A dance?”

  Anna studied her grandmother. “Also, locking us in here is a little juvenile. Frankly, I would expect something more from you.”

  “I did no such thing.” Babushka huffed.