The Spirit of Christmas. Liz Talley

      CHAPTER FIVE

      MARY PAIGE OPENED the door to her duplex in midtown and smelled something burning. Simon must have made himself dinner because her place always smelled like this when Simon cooked. She also knew the dirty dishes would be in the sink and he’d be gone. Wonderful houseguest, he ain’t.

      “Simon?”

      His head poked out of the kitchen. “Oh, you’re home early.”

      A giggle from the kitchen proved she’d been off base about what Simon had been doing in the kitchen.

      “I took the day off,” Mary Paige said, zipping her purse and setting it on the table in the narrow foyer and trying to gauge whether she should leave or blaze into the kitchen and kick her goat of an ex-boyfriend out of her life for good.

      “Uh, Mary Paige, I kinda have a friend here,” Simon said, jerking his head toward the depths of her tiny kitchen.

      “I heard, but I need a drink,” she said, heading toward the fridge where, hopefully, she’d still find her dime-store bottle of Zinfandel.

      “Stop,” Simon said, flinging out a hand. “We’re not exactly decent.”

      Mary Paige almost skidded into the sofa table she stopped so fast. Oh, heck to the no. He better not be naked with some floozy in her kitchen.

      Disgusting.

      “Simon, please tell me you’re not—”

      “We’re doing some experimental art. That’s all,” he said with the shrug of a thin naked shoulder.

      “Fun experimental art,” someone of the female persuasion called out with a slight giggle.

      “Okay, fine. I’ll go to my room for a moment while you two get decent and clear out of my place. Both of you. Clear out.” Mary Paige hurried toward her room because though she’d seen Simon without clothes, she never planned on doing so again. Letting him crash here had been a favor…one that had long ago proven a huge mistake.

      Because she couldn’t get him off her couch or—obviously—out of her kitchen.

      But she’d reached the end of her charity.

      “Okay, we’re good,” Simon called after Mary Paige studied the wonder of her new cherry sleigh bed covered by a cream batiste spread. She’d looked hard at it, making sure Simon and whoever was posing for his experimental art—aka sex in the kitchen—hadn’t tried to use her new bed.

      She stalked out to find Simon slouching on her couch wearing a pair of sweatpants and tank top. His bare feet were propped on her new Glamour magazine, and the bimbo—Mary Paige recognized her as the girl who sold her fancy cookies at a bakery down the street—perched on the corner of the couch. Her hair fell around her shoulders in a sort of dirty-looking dreadlock do that wasn’t flattering and hadn’t been in style for ten years.

      “What’s up, M.P.?” Simon said, folding his arms behind his head and giving her a quasi-smile.

      “What is up is your time,” Mary Paige said, nudging his bare feet off her table with her knee. “You said you only needed to crash here for a few days, and it’s turned into almost a month. This little escapade was the last straw. You need to pack your stuff and leave.”

      “Come on, M.P. As soon as Rick gives me that commission, I’ll get a place.”

      “No. My couch hasn’t been my own for too long and I miss it. Go stay with her.” Mary Paige pointed to the cookie girl, who made a funny face.

      “He can’t stay with me. I live with my boyfriend.”

      Right. Of course she did.

      “Babe, if you’d let me sleep with you, I wouldn’t be out here on this couch.” Simon spread his hands and tried to give her his little-lost-boy smile, the one she’d fallen for over a year ago—before she knew that her highly artistic, creative boyfriend was a slug in disguise. He’d milked her checking account while bleeding her heart dry. And she found out she wasn’t so into a carefree, bohemian lifestyle when he asked if she was up for a three-way.

      She’d ended the relationship last spring and hadn’t seen him until almost a month ago when he’d shown up at her front door with a hangdog expression and a pretty good reason why he’d cheated on her before—he had a large sexual appetite she couldn’t handle, which meant he’d actually been doing her a favor, right? Mary Paige had been caught so off guard by his tale of woe regarding some scheme a gallery owner had pulled on him, she’d agreed to let him sleep on her couch for a few days.

      Yeah, she was a dumb-ass that way.

      Not only that, but she owned all those Dead Sea salt scrubs and lotions sold in kiosks in the mall.

      Giant sucker.

      But not today.

      “Get out of my apartment and take the cookie girl with you. Now.” Mary Paige stomped her foot. Twice.

      “Babe, just a few more days. I swear. Rick’s a man of his word and he’ll get me my money.”

      “And I’m a woman of mine. I told you that you could stay here for a few days…a month ago. Now it’s time to find some other sucker to mooch off. And you better leave the forty bucks you took out of my purse on the table before you leave. Oh, and the extra key.”

      Simon straightened. “I didn’t take your forty bucks. I borrowed it.”

      “Well, I want my borrowed money back or I’ll walk my butt down to the police station on the corner and file charges.”

      He threw his hands up. “Whatever. I’ll write you a check.”

      Not even worth the paper it was written on, no doubt. But it was better than nothing. “Fine.”

      “Don’t know why you’re busting my ass for forty bucks when you got a two-million-dollar check squirreled away.” He gave her a little-boy smile aimed at making her feel crummy for holding out on him. “Naughty little M.P.”

      His guilt trip didn’t work.

      “You went through my jewelry box?” Mary Paige curled her hands and parked them on her hips so she wouldn’t wrap them around Simon’s scrawny neck. What had she ever seen in him? Okay, he was cute in a starving artist, funky, unconventional way, but that was where the charm ended.

      Cookie Dreadlocks’s eyes widened. “She’s got a check for a cool two mil?”

      “Looks real,” Simon said, stretching before glancing at the girl he’d more than likely bopped on Mary Paige’s grandmother’s vintage table. “Is it real?”

      Mary Paige glared at him. “Of course not. Why would I have a check for that much lying around for you to find? It was a joke gift from my uncle’s party.”

      The doorbell dinged like the bell in a boxing match.

      Sweet relief.

      “I’ll get it,” Cookie Dreadlocks chirped as she skipped to the door.

      “This isn’t your—” The door swung open to reveal Brennan Henry standing on Mary Paige’s stoop.

      “Yo, lookie,” Cookie Dreadlocks said, glancing over her shoulder at Mary Paige. “You got money in your doorway.”

      Brennan slid off his sunglasses and glanced at the brass numbers affixed to the weathered exterior boards.

      “Fake check, huh? Yeah, I know who that is.” Simon pointed toward Brennan. “Saw him at a show once.”

      Mary Paige had no clue what to do when a hot, rich guy showed up on her stoop in the middle of kicking Sir Simon the Leech and his consort from her life, so she took a good thirty seconds to think about it.