He bumps my fist and transfers bacon to a silver tray for warming. “Don’t sweat it. I would’ve beat you anyway.”
“He’s been working extra hard this year,” Evie teases, leaning my way and mock whispering, “He thought he was gonna have to fight Tommy Watkins a few months back.”
“Tommy?” Surprised, I look between the two. “He’s Stacked Deck now?”
“No!” Evie laughs. “But he got hitched, and there were rumors someone might throw hands at the reception, so Sasquatch wanted to be ready, just in case.”
Amused and exasperated, Ben wraps his arm around her head, lays his palm over her mouth, and drags her back until she’s pinned to his side.
He manhandles her the way I’m too afraid to emulate,because it feels just a little too like the shit my prick father pulls, and I’m not ready to find out how far this apple fell from its tree.
Ben, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have that issue. “You okay, Warner?” He studies my left side, even the parts covered in jeans and a jacket. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I am,” I chuckle. “A bit.”
“You seriously got hit by a car?” Evie mumbles from behind Ben’s hand. “You weren’t lying?”
“Seriously got hit. Wasn’t a tap and bump, either. She flipped over her hood and got me good.”
“Cops have taken a report?” Ben questions seriously. “Driver was charged?”
“Nah.” I dig my hand into my pocket and grin, shaking my head. “I said no to the cops. Then I crashed on her couch and fell in love.”
Evie’s eyes pop wide. “I’m sorry, you… what?”
“You love me?”
Stunned, my shoulder aches as I spin on the gravel and lock eyes with Anna fucking Maxwell. Hers are swollen and pink, her cheeks red from the cold, and her entire sinful body is wrapped in a jacket two sizes too large. She stands just ten feet away, her feet on the curb, and our dry erase board gripped in her shaking hands. Stacked on top of that, a small gift box sits, the bow already torn off.
“Anna?” I swing my gaze back to Evie and Ben, then around to Anna once more. My heart pounds, aching and bleeding right there in my chest, and yet, my feet carry me forward. Three steps. Four. Five. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard on the radio just now that they caught the jewelry heist trio.” She peeks up at the beanie covering my dark hair.The mask I sometimes wear to keep the icy wind off my face when I run. “You weren’t one of them.”
“I told you I had nothing to do what that.”
She coughs out a soft laugh, dropping her gaze and snickering. “I totally thought I was harboring a criminal inside my home.” Shyly, she peeks up from beneath long lashes. “It was so naughty, but kinda thrilling, too. It was silly and a hell of a distraction during a month I absolutely despise.”
I take another step closer and bend my neck. To be nearer. To breathe her in. To study every speckled color hidden within deep brown eyes. “I let you believe it.”
“Why?”
“Why not? It made you smile sometimes, and it gave you something to focus on when you could barely keep yourself together.”
“I didn’t ask for those files from Carter.” She blinks fresh tears into her eyes, her breath catching in her throat. “I never asked, and when he showed them to me, when heforcedme to see them, he misrepresented them. Made out they were your charges, not your dad’s.”
“Mine?” My heart skitters and thuds, bouncing against my diaphragm. “You thought I?—”
“No. That’s just it. Ididn’tthink you did any of those things. I told Carter he was wrong, and then I told you to tell me it was a load of shit. I had a moment on the dance floor last night where everything was too heavy, Carter’s words were banging at the back of my head, and you were saying goodbye. You didn’t even give me a second to straighten my thoughts, because then you were gone, which felt like an admission of guilt.” She releases her breath, the hitching exhale warming my chin. “None of it felt right to me.”
“I thought you were asking about my father.” I clear the rasping crackle from my throat. “You thinkyou’vegot daddy issues?” I chuckle, but fuck, the sound is weak. Pathetic. “Ihave daddy issues, Anna. This whole time, I’ve been nagging about how you need to see Christmas through a new lens and stop letting your father’s death affect you. Meanwhile, I was deflecting so fucking hard, I basically pushed Earth off its regular axis.”
“I want you to go back to the stuff you told her.” She tips her chin, gesturing past me to a wildly wide-eyed, overly invested Evelyn Kincaid. “About how you love me.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She barks out a loud, startling laugh. “Because I had a bunch of,what I thought was,insane information dropped in my lap last night. I was handed an exit strategy with neon lights and glitter cannons. It was the bestget out of jail freecard a commitmentphobe could ask for. It was gift wrapped and smelled of roses, and then Ithoughtyou confirmed it all. And even after all that, I wallowed in my ‘did he really?’ pity party for about three minutes. Then I saidnah, no freakin’ chance.” Licking her lips, she takes a step forward, her fogging exhale wafting into the space between us. “I figured you out too, Dean Warner. And I knew Carter was full of shit. So, I did my research, realized your father’s name isalsoDean Warner, and that was the end of it.I knew. Then I got home to this.” She takes the whiteboard in one hand, and the small gift in the other. Lifting the board between us, she shows off the last note I wrote to her. The last one I ever thought I would write.
The magic is inside you, Anna. Thank you for sharing your family with me this Christmas.
