Chapter Four
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Adalynn
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The smell of Christmashits me in the face and fills me with sweet nostalgia from when I was younger.I always loved Christmas despite being a disaster most of the time.The last couple of years?Not so much.
“Hello there, darling,” my mom says, waiting for me.“Oh, don’t you look lovely,” she adds, hugging me.No, I don’t, but my mom is sweet and kind, and I guess as an only child I could be wearing a bag over my head, and she’d still say I looked pretty.
She links her arm through mine and drags me to the main living room, where everyone is already gathered, all cozy in front of a roaring fire.
“Look, everyone, it’s Adalynn.”She announces my arrival as if I were someone important.
My dad grabs me in a tight bear hug first.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says, kissing the top of my head, then hugging me again.“How’s my girl?How’s business?”
“Hey, Dad,” I say, smothered against his anchoring chest, fighting to breathe.My dad is a sports guy.He does a good job of covering up the fact that he had hoped I was a boy, and if he thought he could turn me to sports, he stopped when I caught the ball with my face.
I did try, but honestly, I couldn’t catch a ball if my dad handed it to me.Since then, he’s had two sets of questions for me: How’s the book?And now: how’s the business?Still, he loves me, and I love him right back.
“Oh, and how’s my futuresons-in-law now that the cat is out of the bag?”he asks, just stopping himself in time from winking at me.
Oh god.Clearly, I’m not a very good liar.There were way too many other components that I didn’t think through.It was so much easier in the romance novel.Of course, my dad has to know; it’d be absurd if he didn’t.
I glance helplessly at my mom, and she gives me an encouraging smile.
“They’re great,” I say, forcing my lips to spread into a smile.“Just very busy with...umm...business.”
How am I going to survive the next couple of days?Why, oh why, did I not just accept sitting with the kids like the loser I am?
With my stomach in knots, I go around the room hugging everyone and their mother, fielding questions about the men I claimed temporarily as future husbands without their knowledge as noncommittally as I can.
Of course, besides my parents, my two other favorite people are my uncle Jim and his partner Uncle Ralph.They just tease me about being in a quadruple, having my own reverse harem, and only I could pull that off.I’ll definitely be telling them the truth as soon as I get them alone.
I spend the rest of the time with my nieces and nephews who I just adore and avoid all the grownups.
Still, no one is gladder than I am when, after dinner, it’s time to retire.And I’ve been designated the closet, of course.It’s fine.I actually wish I could hide in here until after the holidays, then sneak out the back, go live my life as normal until the next holiday season arrives, because rest assured, I still won’t be married by then either.
