Jenny Lopez Saves Christmas by Lindsey Kelk Read Free Book Online Page B

lighting. Perching myself on a windowsill, I turned my camera to face me, stretching my arm out as far as it would go and holding it high above my head. There, the perfect selfie, every time.
    After cropping, filtering and making sure everything was perfect, I tapped in the message ‘happy holidays!’, decided not to add any x’s or o’s and pressed Send before I could overthink it. What was the worst that could happen? Maybe he’d send me a dick pic. Oh Jesus, what if he sent me a dick pic? How would I ever explain that to our grandbabies? As the message went through, I felt that familiar surge of excitement and slight regret that always comes with texting a guy first. Especially texting him a picture of yourself dressed as a sexy Santa.
    â€˜Jenny!’
    Apparently Sadie’s voice only had one setting today and that was ‘shriek’.
    â€˜Jenny?’
    â€˜Sadie,’ I called, flipping back to my emails. ‘We’re the only two people in the house, you don’t have to yell.’
    â€˜Are the lights working down there?’ she asked, jogging down the stairs, a look of complete horror on her face. ‘Because they’re not working up here.’
    â€˜Of course the lights are working,’ I replied, reaching over to a table lamp and yanking the little silver chain that hung beneath the shade. Nothing. ‘Okay, this one isn’t, but I’m sure the lights are working.’
    â€˜Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘There’s no electricity. We’re going to die.’
    My legs felt like lead after the drive, and dragging myself off the sofa felt like a chore. I needed a coffee or seven. I elaborately strolled over to the panel of switches on the wall by the front door.
    â€˜Stop overreacting,’ I said, wondering how Sadie made it through each day without something flying into her eyes and blinding her, they were so wide. ‘See?’
    I flicked all four light switches.
    And absolutely nothing happened.

Chapter Six
    â€˜Oh my God, we’re going to die,’ Sadie wailed, throwing herself against the staircase. She was wasted as a model; she totally could have been one of those dumb blonde girls that got murdered at the beginning of a horror movie. Preferably one of the really nasty ones. Maybe something in the
Saw
franchise.
    â€˜Sadie, we’re not going to die,’ I said as matter-of-factly as possible. ‘We’re in the Finger Lakes − it’s hardly the end of civilization.’
    â€˜But we have no electricity?’ she replied, pulling her thin jacket around her. ‘And I’m already cold? Are we going to freeze to death?’
    â€˜Yeah, we’re gonna freeze to death,’ I sighed, shaking my head for extra emphasis. ‘You are the most dramatic human on earth.’
    And from me, that was saying something.
    â€˜Can you make it work?’ Sadie asked, snivelling and pushing herself into a broken-down-doll of a sitting position, draped against the stairs. ‘Can you fix it?’
    â€˜Of course I can make it work,’ I said, looking out of the windows to see the sun setting across the lake. It would have been beautiful if our only source of light and heat wasn’t disappearing in the distance as I watched. ‘I’m sure it’s just a blown fuse or something. We just need to find the fuse box. I’ve got this.’
    And as I was saying it, I kind of believed it. I’d lived on my own and with a variety of helpless roommates, and I’d dealt with more than one tripped circuit breaker in my time. Almost every apartment I’d lived in had the kind of wacky wiring where you couldn’t use the toaster, oven and the AC at the same time. Sadie didn’t know she was born,
    â€˜Okay,’ she sniffed. ‘Jenny?’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜Why are you wearing a slutty Santa costume?’
    I looked down at my minidress and shrugged. ‘Happy