Page 1 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

1

JOY

Am I embarrassed?

Humiliated?

Mortified?

Check, check, and check.

I’m back. Yeah me. I couldn’t make it in the big city, so now I’m back in Carlton Hill, Utah. I flew too close to the sun and I got burned. Singed. Fried.

And I’m also taking charity from family. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Not that I was ever mighty, but it felt like I could be one day. Living in New York City had been my dream since forever. And I made it. I had my eyes on a sweet apartment on the Upper East Side and envisioned black tie parties and finding Mr. Right and Rich one day.

I eased my overstuffed Toyota Camry to a stop in the cracked driveway of the house I’d grown up in. The car was about to burst at the seams. Boxes pressed against the rear window and tote bags bulged from the backseat. I’d had to put all my weight against the trunk to get it closed, and I hadn’t riddled out how I would open it without all my things bursting out. A problem for later.

Aunt Victoria stepped onto the porch. She had obviously heard me pull up. One thing about living in a small town, you knew when a stranger was in the area. Every neighborhood dog barked and there was just a feeling of being invaded. People didn’t lock their doors around town. They didn’t have to because people like Aunt Victoria were always watching.

She was a welcome committee of one. Just like always. I loved my aunt, and she’d been a safe place for me when I was orphaned as a child. She’d saved me in more ways than one, showed me what family meant in the wake of grief I couldn’t comprehend, and now here I was, showing up yet again needing saving. She had to be getting tired of me by now.

She had on a quilted vest that looked about three decades old and jeans that I just knew had an elastic waist. Aunt Victoria dressed for comfort, not style.

She waved like I was a soldier returning from war, which, in a way, I supposed I was. The losing side.

“Well, you made it,” she called, cheerful as a bell.

“Barely,” I muttered, climbing out of the driver’s seat. My legs ached from the four days of driving. I stretched and tried to shake off the road fatigue, but really, it wasn’t just the road. It was months—years, maybe—of dragging myself around like a half-deflated balloon.

Aunt Victoria clomped down the porch steps and enveloped me in a hug that smelled of peppermint. She was sturdier than I remembered. She always gave good hugs.

“You look thin,” she said, pulling back to inspect me.

I grimaced. “I think that’s called unemployment chic. Very in right now.”

“Mm. Well, it suits you. But we’ll fatten you up with some proper food. No more instant noodles.” She gave the side of my car a dubious glance. “Good Lord, Joy, how many boxes did you bring?”

“It’s my entire life. In my car. That’s it. That’s all I have to show for twenty-seven years on this planet.” I made half-hearted jazz hands and then pretended they were cheerleading pompoms. “Go Joy!”

She squinted at the mountain of belongings visible through the windows. “It’s not so bad.”

“It’s terrible.”

“Well, come on then. Let’s unload your car and get you settled in your old room. We might need to put some of this in the garage, though.”

We started with the trunk. It took both of us to wrangle out the first box, which had been wedged in like a Tetris piece from hell. It was apparently keeping everything in place, and as soon as it came free, everything else spilled out onto the driveway like sad confetti.

“Careful!” Aunt Victoria said with a cheerful laugh. “What’s in these heavy ones, bricks?”

“Books,” I grunted. “I should have given them away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

She carried one of the lighter boxes with ease, while I waddled like a penguin with mine.

By the time we stacked three boxes in the front hall, sweat prickled at my neck despite it being December in northern Utah.

“So. You going to tell me the whole sad tale while we do this, or do I have to wring it out of you?”