Her head turned toward him in extreme slow motion, unblinking, and I was concerned her glare would actually decapitate him. “I don’t recall asking your opinion, so why don’tyoudomea favor and tuck it away with your little dick. Okay? Thanks.”
“Does anyone remember the year we changed all the labels on the presents?” Patrick asked. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out when that was, but we managed to peel all the tags off and rearranged them.”
We glanced at each other, perplexed.
“At first Mom was really confused but then she waspissed,” he continued. “She figured it out within a few minutes and she was steaming mad.” He pointed at Shannon. “She gave us that exact look, that awful face-melting look you just gave Nick, and stared us down until we cracked.”
“It was Matt’s idea,” I said. “But he blamed it on me.”
“Yes,” Patrick laughed, pointing at me. “And he did it because he knew Mom was going to beat his ass with a wooden spoon but she’d never get mad at you.”
“Do you remember when we hollowed out the cake?” Shannon asked. Her voice was quiet, absent of the sharp tone she aimed at Nick minutes ago. “It was this big, beautiful layer cake that she made for one of those holiday parties we always had, and we cut a little piece and then scooped out the inside. We filled it with something—what was that?”
“Leftover stuffing,” I said as they laughed. “Even at seven, Matt was very concerned about preserving the structural integrity.”
“Such a fucking nerd,” Patrick muttered. “But God, when Mom cut into that cake and realized what we’d done . . . shit, we’d never run so fast in our lives.”
“Why do I remember none of this?” Riley asked. He got up to pour another round of drinks but I waved him off.
“You were two or three,” Shannon said. “You were a baby. You wouldn’t have remembered.”
For a second, I felt the impact of Riley growing up without knowing these rare, happy moments, but that meant he didn’t have the horrible moments either. He didn’t have nightmares about Mom’s death and he wouldn’t remember the way Angus dropped into an angry, evil spiral from that point forward.
As I wondered whether I’d be better off erasing all the memories, I didn’t notice Patrick leaning toward me.
“Can I give you some advice?”
I glanced at him and the apartment, surprised to find Nick and Shannon had left. “I get the impression you’ll be giving it regardless of whether I want it or not.”
“That’s accurate.” He shrugged and propped his feet on the ottoman, crossing his ankles. “Don’t keep Shannon out of the loop. She’ll turn into a fucking howler monkey if you try to shut her out, and she’ll do crazy shit like sending you to a shrink because your girlfriend is a beast.”
“Please donotsay that,” I ground out. “She needs time to warm up to everyone.”
“You know what I mean,” he said. “She seems like a handful.”
My mind went straight to Tiel’s naked body. My hands on her breasts. Her thighs. Her ass. Between her legs. “Something like that.”
Patrick edged closer and knocked his glass against mine. “It’s amazing what the right woman can do to you, isn’t it?”
That was an understatement.
Last night’s storytelling dredged an armload of holiday memories, and when I woke up, I stared out at the Fort Point Channel reliving them. Before my mother died, Christmas was a big deal. She went hog wild. The twenty-foot tree in the front foyer, miles of lights, garland covering every surface, wreaths and ribbons everywhere. There were even holiday towels in the bathrooms.
We never managed to resurrect any of those traditions when she was gone, and suddenly, I realized how much I missed them. Drinking beer and watching basketball at Shannon’s apartment on Christmas used to be enough for me, but there was something missing. Something big.
I devoted the morning to finishing the chairs for Riley’s office—finally—and constructing some small tables. One of them was destined to replace the particle board crap in Tiel’s apartment, but I couldn’t decide which.
I’d been thinking about her nonstop since she left for Jersey. I was worried about her. I didn’t like the idea of her spending time with people who found it so easy to turn their backs on her for years. I could also admit I didn’t like being separated from her. Even before we fell into bed, we’d been joined at the hip, and this distance was jarring.
It got heavier for me when I thought about Patrick’s advice.The right woman.
He was too right.
She existed in a different stratosphere, a place where friendship and sex and affection were unsullied by anything I’d done before—at least for me.
Glancing at my phone, I decided to text her.
14:18 Sam:Merry Christmas
