He bends and kisses my head, and I can feel his smile. “Couldn’t help it. When you’re in a room, you’re all I can see. It’s always been that way. Always will be.”
“Gah, listen to that peak swoon!” I turn just as Molly and Gabe walk up behind us. Ellie is fast asleep on Gabe’s shoulder, but Sophie is bouncing on her toes with excitement.
“Livvy!” she squeals, throwing her tiny arms around my knees. I lean down and swing her up, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Uncle Bry! It’s Christmas!” she exclaims, her blue eyes wide and sparkling with fun, brown curls bouncing around her head.
“Sure is, Sophie Girl,” Brian says, grinning and leaning over to kiss her cheek. “What did you ask Santa for?”
“Makeup,” she whispers. “I loooooove eyeshadow.”
“Who doesn’t?” Molly laughs, running a hand over her daughter’s hair and leaning in to hug Rachel.
“Soph, Grandpa’s in the kitchen baking cookies,” Rachel says with a grin.
“Chocolate chip?” she asks, eyes wide with excitement.
“Why don’t you go see?”
“Yes!” she yells. “Livvy, put me down!”
The second I do, she makes a beeline for the kitchen, disappearing around the corner with Rachel following close behind. I turn, hugging Molly and Gabe. “Merry Christmas,” I say against Gabe’s shoulder the second I’m wrapped in the arm not holding his daughter. It hits me, not for the first time today, that in a week I’ll be on a plane to Italy. That I’m about to spend six months an ocean away from him and Molly.
My family.
Brian.
Nerves suddenly swarm my stomach.
“Merry Christmas, Liv.” His voice is a comforting rumble in my ear, and I take a deep breath, reaching back for Brian’s hand. He tangles his fingers with mine, and I shove the nerves away because it’s Christmas and I can worry about Italy eight days from now. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
I laugh, leaning back to look at him. “I’ve been here for two years.”
He shrugs, shifting Ellie to his other arm. “Doesn’t mean I’m not still glad you decided to move here. To be close. I’m just glad you’re here. Both of you,” he says, looking from me to Brian with a smile.
“Me too,” Brian says, squeezing my hand. “This is the only place I want to be.”
Surrounded by my family, with him at my back and the sounds of Christmas stirring inside the house, it’s the only place I want to be, too.
“But all my friends have phones,” Maddy says, giving Jeremy a very dramatic eyeroll.
I laugh at Jeremy’s nonchalant shrug. “Little Red, when have you ever known me to be someone who cares about what everyone else is doing?”
Maddy puts her hands on her hips and gives Jeremy a calculating stare. “You might not care about everyone else, but you do care about me. Which means you should care that I’m going to be a total social outcast when I go back to school in January and it turns out I’m the only one who didn’t get a phone for Christmas.”
Jeremy just smiles. “Being a social outcast builds character. You’re twelve, Mads. Twelve-year-olds don’t need phones. Talk to me in a year. Maybe two.”
“Arghhh, you don’t know anything!” she yells, turning and flouncing out of the room.
Jeremy chuckles, glancing over at Brian and me. “She’ll need to sulk for a while. I’ll be right back. Going to go help Ems get thelittle kids down. The ones who still want things like books and toys for Christmas.”
When he heads upstairs, Brian stretches his arm across the back of the couch, his fingers brushing over my neck. A shiver runs down my spine. I love his hands on me. Anytime. In any way. “Ten bucks says he caves on the phone by Valentine’s Day,” he murmurs.
After the Parkers, Brian and I went to Gabe and Molly’s for an hour to read Christmas bedtime stories to Sophie and Ellie and then drove over here to hang with Jeremy and Emma and their family. It’s already such a cozy Christmas, and I will time to slow down so I can hang onto all these moments just a little while longer. I lay my head back so it’s resting on his arm and roll to face him with a laugh. “I don’t think he’ll even make it to New Year’s.”
Brian wraps his arm around my shoulders, tugging me closer to him and bending to kiss me. The feel of his lips on mine has tingles spreading over my entire body, and I press closer to him, sinking into the kiss. “You taste like peppermint,” he says quietly, rubbing his lips over mine and then pressing a kiss to one cheek and then the other. “I love it.”
I smile against his lips, the wordlovemaking my stomach explode in butterflies. Even though he doesn’t mean it that way, I can’t help but think of a day when he might. “I was eating mini-candy canes with Cait and Jack,” I say, referring to Hallie and Ben’s four-year-old twins. “They thought it was funny to see how many they could eat without their parents noticing and, well, I thought that was worthwhile behavior to encourage.”
Brian chuckles, kissing the side of my head. “Hey, you’re talking to the guy who hoards candy in a kitchen drawer and doles it out to all the kids like their dealer. No arguments here.”
