F*CKING AWKWARD HOLIDAYS: 25 Short Stories of Awkward Holiday Encounters

by Plendl, Taryn

  “Boobies,” Liam sings out while trying to actually grope the real things.

  “Ugh, get off of me.” I bat him away, but it’s no use.

  Liam is built and outweighs me. He begins giving me whisker burn all over my face and neck from the stubble on his face. He knows I hate this and even despise the red rash it leaves behind for days. He’s been doing it since he grew his first whiskers.

  “Off of me, jackwagon.” I push him again.

  He pulls down my cami trying to get out my boobs. “I need my Boobie.”

  “Stop.” He has me pinned down in a laughing fit.

  “Is this Jell-O?” He swipes a smear of orange stuff from my boobs.

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you have this there?” He rises up and points.

  I begin to tell him the whole story. He stops me, asking me several questions and I know it’s because I don’t do one nightstands…ever.

  He finally falls to my side. “Damn, Boobies, I’ve never been busted like that.”

  “I know.” I roll over to my side to face him. “It was fucking awesome.”

  He covers his mouth. “You said the F word.”

  “Shut it.” I smack him playfully.

  “I’m telling your mom.” He bounds off the bed and out into the living room.

  I hear him tattling on me, then my mother swatting him up the head, and then his voice disappears. He’s more than likely stuffing his face with my mother’s famous cheese rolls.

  I check the girls for any more remnants of orange gelatin before making my way down stairs. The Christmas tree is sparkling in all of its glory and most of the family is relaxing in front of a football game on the television.

  Liam is perched on the barstool in the kitchen stuffing his face with cheese rolls. The man is so damn predictable. It’s the thing I love most about him. The older I grow it’s harder to just look at him as my best friend. I love him. I’ve always loved Liam Taylor, but it seems were destined to be more than just that. Life is always bringing us back to one another.

  “Boobies.” He smiles around a mouthful of food while patting the seat next to him.

  I dig into my mother’s cinnamon rolls while we listen to her go on about how her sister’s husband found a child he never knew about. Kate is her sister and my favorite aunt. You know that one who spoils all the children rotten. Her and my Uncle James never had any children of their own. James always knew he had a son that was put up for adoption, so it looks like we’ll be meeting him today.

  “Poor guy,” I whisper to Liam.

  “No shit. I’d hate to stumble into this as my first family encounter.”

  “We’re not that bad.” I blow some crumbs onto his forearm.

  No sooner than the words fall from the tip of my tongue does my dad come waltzing into the kitchen holding up a miniature shaped penis that doubles as a butt plug. His hair is tousled and his face annoyed. It’s his signature look of being done with wrapping Christmas presents.

  “Honey, I have no clue whose stocking this goes in.” He plants one hand on his hip. “I still think it’s beyond ridiculous we do stockings for our adult kids, which include Liam.”

  My mother dusts off her apron before turning to him. Her eyebrows shoot straight up when she sees the trinket in his hand.

  “Maybe it’s a tree ornament?” Liam offers stifling a laugh.

  “Oh dear.” She tries to grab it from my father.

  “Whose is it?”

  “Give it to me. I’ll put it in the proper stocking.”

  “Someone will be putting it somewhere soon.” Liam cracks.

  My dad growls and my mother blushes and I have a serious feeling I don’t want to know who the butt plug belongs to or where it will be plugged in the near future.

  “It’s yours, okay!” She huffs. “It’s yours. You know something to spice up our love life.”

  “I’m going to be sick.” I clutch my stomach.

  “Easy there, Jell-O Tits.”

  Mom and dad bustle out of the kitchen and I fear for the longevity of that damn butt plug. I am going to lose my breakfast any moment.

  “Like I said your poor new family member,” Liam manages between chuckles.

  I chug cold milk straight from the jug trying to wash away the memory of what just happened. I wipe the milk from my top lip with the back of my hand and then point to Liam.

  “If you ever speak of this, I’ll kick you in the nuts.”

  He covers his family jewels and slowly backs away. We spend the rest of the day cuddled up on the couch. I zone out most of the time while Liam and the rest of the men in my family yell at the television. The aroma of ham, turkey, and the fixings begins to fill the house.

  Presents are nestled under the Christmas tree. Everything is perfect. My body is tired and I have my best friend tucked right next to me. The overwhelming urge to spill how I feel for him strikes me hard in the gut. The road trip. I’ll open up to him on the road trip.

  My stomach rolls with a twinge of disgust that I gave into my desires last night, but hey there’s only so much holding out a girl can handle. Liam will understand. I mean he is the king of one-night stands. His favorite past time is entertaining his dick.

  “Kate’s here.” My mother claps her hands together and darts for the door.

  “Ready to meet your new cuz?” Liam leans down and whispers in my ear.

  “As long as all the butt plugs are hidden.” I smile back up at him.

  He sits up and lets me stand. I make my way to the kitchen to grab another large glass of spiked eggnog for Liam and I to share. I know the calorie count is way too high, but to be fair Liam drank most of our first cup. It is our favorite holiday beverage after all. I just wish my abs faired the indulgence as well as Liam’s do.

  I can hear my mom giving directions on where to put everything and even hear her squeal when introduced to our new family member. I make my way back to the living room and keep my vision on the ground, darting around all the pets and miscellaneous toys pulled out from my nephew.

  “Here.” I hand the drink to Liam.

  “What?”

  He has a huge smile on his face and then I notice the tears of laughter rolling down his face.

  “What?” I ask again.

  He grabs the glass of nog from me and points. “Look, meet your new cousin. Boone.”

  I pivot slowly to see Boner aka Boone standing there in the doorway just as sexy as last night. His smile fades away when my mother introduces us. Liam hops to his feet, wraps an arm low around my waist, and whispers in my ear.

  “You fucked your cousin, Jell-O Tits. Now that’s a new low even for me.”

  “Cousin by marriage,” I mumble out.

  The End

  About the Author

  USA Today Best Selling Author, HJ Bellus is a small town girl who loves the art of storytelling. When not making readers laugh or cry, she's a part-time livestock wrangler that can be found in the middle of Idaho, shot gunning a beer while listening to some Miranda Lambert on her Beats and rocking out in her boots.

  * * *

  BLOW ME by HJ Bellus

  Full Length Novel coming in 2017

  Visit HJ Bellus at her Website

  Scabby Nipples

  Kennedy Ryan

  Note: The characters in this scene, Rhyson and Kai, appear in Kennedy Ryan’s Soul Series. If you have not read My Soul to Keep, Down to My Soul and Refrain, this scene will contain spoilers.

  I have scabby nipples.

  Literally. My nipples have scabs. In the small rec center bathroom, I stare at my beleaguered breasts in the mirror. They look worse than they feel, the tips inflamed and slightly crusty. Two days ago, the pain was so excruciating I cried during each of my daughter Aria’s feedings. Blissfully unaware, she’d just powered her way through the left tit and then the right. She fell asleep with her little rosebud lips wrapped around that raw nipple. She fell into a milk-induced stupor, and I couldn’t stop crying. The thing ab
out breastfeeding a greedy infant is that there’s no down time. She eats with vicious, unrelenting regularity. As soon as my injured nipples begin healing, that little mouth starts rooting at my chest and suctions unrepentantly until the scabs come right off.

  It’s disgusting.

  It’s painful.

  It’s slightly humiliating.

  But I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

  My eyes drop from my reflection to my phone on the counter. I press the home button, bringing the screen saver to life. It’s a picture of my baby girl in her daddy’s arms.

  That mysterious connection I’ve heard so much about, when the mother takes her baby to her breast, it’s real. I used to roll my eyes when women said that. I was one of those people who shifted uncomfortably when moms would whip out their tatas in public to feed. When the breastfeeding counselor urged me to give it a try, I’d glanced down at the meager offerings in my barely B cups, unsure I’d have enough to sustain another living creature with my little handfuls. In my line of work, “the business” – show business, that is - I’ve had the best Hollywood executives disparage my less-than-impressive rack. Depending on my breasts to make me feel connected somehow to my baby wasn’t a very promising prospect.

  And yet…

  From Aria’s first tug at my breast with that toothless vacuum of a mouth, some emotion, some new category of love I hadn’t known existed, insinuated itself into a heart I thought was completely full. It was already brimmed to bursting with love for her father, my husband Rhyson. But somehow as soon as she drew on me for life, it happened. I don’t have to fully understand that connection to know it’s true. To know it’s real. I’d do anything for that little girl.

  I lift the flaps of my nursing bra up over my burgeoning breasts. The double whammy of the material scraping against my tender nipples and the discomfort of constraining their fullness makes me wince. They may be small, but they’re still bigger than they’ve ever been. I button my blouse, checking to make sure the pads I’d slipped into the nursing bra are doing their job, absorbing any leakage. I should have pumped before I left Aria home with my Aunt Ruthie. It’s not just the scabs causing me pain. A map of blue veins also colors the topography of my skin as the milk balloons in my breasts.

  The bathroom door swings open behind me, and I lift my eyes to the mirror to see who just entered. My mouth hangs open and I swing around to face my husband.

  “Rhyson! This is the ladies’ room.”

  He leans against the door and folds his arms across the width of his chest, shrugging his broad shoulders. He’s covered in nonchalance, from the burnished hair dipping into his eyes to the black boots on his feet.

  “You left me with those weird people, Kai. What was I supposed to do?”

  I swear his bottom lip juts out. Rhyson Gray, ladies and gentleman. Musical genius. Rock star. Professional pouter.

  “They’re not weird.” I can’t help but laugh and roll my eyes at him. “Mr. and Mrs. Claymore run the shelter. They’re doing good work.”

  “Baby, all good people aren’t normal.” His look tells me this should be self-evident.

  The elderly husband and wife team running the downtown shelter, You Fed Me, are…eccentric. Between his Hawaiian shirts and tube socks and her oversized caftan and cowboy boots, I kind of get a Mr. and Mrs. Roper vibe from them. Was that Three’s Company or All In the Family? All the reruns run together. My point is the Claymores are doing good work, and one of my mother’s Christmas traditions back in Glory Falls, Georgia was feeding the hungry. If I can’t honor that tradition in my hometown this year, I’ll do it right here in LA.

  “You were having a good time.” I prop myself against the counter, enjoying his grumpiness. “Don’t deny it. I saw you talking to that group of teenagers in the corner.”

  “Little punks,” Rhyson mutters, but a small smile curves his lips. “You’re right, though. I’m glad we’re doing this.”

  Not only are we serving Christmas dinner at the shelter, but Rhyson’s making a huge donation at the end of the night. Being celebrities has some redeeming qualities. Rhyson’s been a celebrity in some form or another since he was little more than a kid. He was a piano prodigy who had played for the queen by the time he was eleven years old, and one of the world’s biggest rock stars as an adult. Me – I’m still getting used to all of this. Dancing in music videos, featuring on platinum singles, now on the verge of my own debut album and with my first movie on the horizon. As hard and as long as I’ve worked toward it all, I still can’t believe it’s actually happening. It’s beyond surreal. It doesn’t feel real most days. Serving at this shelter reminds me of where I came from and anchors me to the real world when the artificiality of this Hollywood thing starts feeling real. This place reminds me of the lessons my mother taught me from the day I was born until the day she died.

  “I’m glad, too.” I check the time on my phone by the sink. “And we only have another hour.”

  “Good.” Rhyson’s thick, dark brows pinch together. “We need to get home to Aria.”

  His sexiness meter goes even further through the roof when he’s all sweet about our daughter. Not that Rhyson’s sexy wasn’t already stratospheric. Especially lately with us being on post-baby lock down. It’ll be another week before the doctor clears me to have sex.

  The longest week of my life.

  I’m not sure if I give off some pheromone, but Rhyson seems to always sense when I’m turned on. He stalks over and wordlessly lifts me onto the counter, spreading my legs and wedging himself against me. I can’t ignore the beam of steel pressing into the juncture of my thighs. My breath hiccups in my throat. The blood burns through my veins like lava. There is a persistent throb happening in my panties.

  “You can’t be in here.” My voice comes out like I sifted it through a strainer, wispy sounds that barely clear my lips.

  Rhyson pulls back only far enough to give me a wicked, knowing grin, his silvery grey eyes glinting with…that look. The look that ultimately got me stuffed into a nursing bra in the first place.

  “I can’t be in here, as in the girls’ bathroom?” He trails kisses down my chin and throat, nudging my collar aside to suck the skin curving from my neck to my shoulder, spiking the pleasure rushing through me. “Or I can’t be in here?”

  He pushes deeper into the vee of my thighs. Our eyes meet and hold, both of us expelling a harsh breath at the sensual contact. We have found ways of the oral variety to take the edge off, but nothing replaces that deep plunge of his body into mine. When I stretch around him. When he drowns in me.

  “Both.” I push the strangled word past the constraints of my throat. “You know we can’t until we get the clearance next week from the doctor, and we can’t because someone could walk in.”

  “You’re right.” He scoops me up my thighs, wrapping my legs around his waist as he rushes to the handicap stall at the very end. “We should hide in here.”

  “Baby, no.” I slap his back, but in my highly horny state, even that little bit of contact arouses me more. My fingers linger over the taut muscles flexing under the cotton T-shirt.

  “Now no one will see.” Rhyson reaches behind him to slide the stall latch into place, and then presses me against a wall. “As for this one more week thing, isn’t it a recommendation more than a rule?”

  It really is. I mean, I had a pretty standard birth. No complications. Besides my overstuffed breasts, I’ve had very little discomfort. Not a twinge of pain in weeks. I’ve heard of women pulling the trigger a little early and being just fine.

  This string of rationalizations zips through my mind as my body slides down his. As his fingers slip into my leggings, push aside my panties and brush like fire across my clit before thrusting into me. My knees go so liquid I’m sure I’m only still standing because of the two magic fingers inside me.

  “Fuck, Pep,” Rhyson says, using the nickname only he calls me and dropping his head beside mine against the wall until our temples touch. �
��You’re so damn wet.”

  If it weren’t for the desperation building at the base of my belly and slow dripping to every other part of my body, I’d manage to be embarrassed. But we’ve been together too long, been through too much, shared our bodies too deeply for me to be even self-conscious when I grind into his hand, slow stroke after slow stroke, and then fast and urgent as I close in on that moment that feels like a stick of dynamite exploding in my heart and leaving no part of me untouched.

  And just as I’m right there. Just as I’m about to cross over that peak, it happens.

  “Motherfucker!”

  The uncharacteristic expletive shoots out of my mouth before I catch it.

  Rhyson looks up curiously, his fingers still latched onto my nipple through the button down shirt.

  “Pep, what—”

  “You pinched me,” I squeak, pulling back until his forefinger and thumb set the tender, turgid nipple free. “And it hurt like a—”

  “Like a motherfucker?” he inserts with a grin that doesn’t look nearly repentant enough to me. “Sorry. You usually like that.”

  “I’m not usually an overgrown mammary gland.” I scowl as much from the painful pinch as from not coming. Scorching need still churns in me, and this must surely be the single most sexually frustrating moment of my life.

  “Sorry.” Rhyson bites his lip in that way that usually makes me want to bite his lip, too, his eyes fixed at the base of my throat. “Let me make it better.”

  He slides a few buttons free of the holes until my blouse drops open, the cool air like a breeze on my balmy skin. His fingers skid smoothly over my collarbone, and I close my eyes, anticipating the pleasure.

  “What the hell?” The thin layer of agitation under his words pops my eyes open to watch him fumbling with the front of the bra. “I’m trying to…how do I get the…”

  “No, see it’s these flaps.” I shoo his hands away to unsnap the hooks at my shoulders so the cups fall and free my aching breasts. “And then they—”