Ice Cold

Chapter 9

I woke up the following morning to a knock at my door. I rolled over to grab my phone and checked the time only to realize it was barely 8 o'clock in the morning. I closed my eyes and hoped that whoever was knocking would stop, but of course luck wasn't on my side. The knock came again, but it was louder. With a groan, I pushed myself out of bed and yanked open the front door.

"Merry Christmas Eve," Elliot chirped, barging past me and making his way inside my apartment.

I blinked away my surprise, before closing the door. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Celebrating Christmas, remember?"

"It's only Christmas Eve nimrod," I muttered, making my way to the kitchen to make some coffee. It was too early to deal with Elliot Ryan, especially without caffeine.

"I know that, I just decided that why spend only Christmas together when we can spend Christmas Eve together too," he explained, following behind me. "Plus I was getting bored hanging around my place."

"Why not just add in New Years to that deal too?" I mocked.

"Sweetheart, I know you love me, but you need to give me some space," he teased. That earned him a hard punch in the shoulder from yours truly.

"It's too early in the day for you to be annoying me this much," I whined while taking my first sip of liquid gold, hoping the coffee would give me enough energy to last the next 24 hours.

"I could never annoy you," he insisted. He then proceeded to swipe my mug from my hands, and had the nerve to take a drink from it.

I stared at him wide-eyed, my jaw dropping to the floor. "You did not just do that."

"What are you going to do about it?" he teased, his signature smirk plastered on his face.
I didn't give him an answer, I just proceeded to the door, opened it and pointed to the exit. "Get the hell out of my apartment."

"Let's not be too hasty," he backtracked, handing me back my coffee and ushering me away from the door, closing it behind him.

"How do you even know where I live? I specifically didn't give you my address so you wouldn't just randomly show up."

"The usual. I texted Jase, who then texted Gianna, who gave me the address. It was pretty simple." I rolled my eyes at his antics. I shouldn't be surprised at this at all. Elliot Ryan does what Elliot Ryan wants.

For once, I decided to let things go. It was almost Christmas after all, and as the bible says 'Thou shall not be a bitch.'

"Well since you decided to show up 24 hours ahead of schedule, I hope you have something planned because I was only prepared to entertain guests tomorrow."

"Sweetheart, there are plenty of ways you could entertain me," he winked, giving me a mischievous look.

"Friends don't fuck," I all but screamed at him.

"But best friends could," he added before making his way to the couch and turning on the tv.

I pinched the bridge of the nose and closed my eyes, wondering how the hell I was going to make it through the next 24 hours without murdering the guy. There was just something about Elliot that brought out the killer in me, and it was getting harder and harder to fight back the urges. If I had to guess he would die fairly young.

"So what should we do?" he wondered, rubbing the stubble on his jawline.

"You're the one who barged in unannounced a whole day early," I reminded him.

"I thought we were past all of that," he groaned.

"It just happened."

"Fine, why don't we go ice skating?" he suggested.