She held up her left hand and tapped her wedding ring, and I laughed again. No. Not this year. But I did appreciate her going over-the-top to make sure I knew Jordan was welcome in the family. Too much, too soon? Not in my book, and clearly, she and I were wired with the same kind of insanity.
If I had my way, one of these days, Jordanwouldcall her Mom.
20
Jordan
Andy’s momhad the entire mantel and half the other surfaces in their living room covered in family photos, and about half of them were of Andy and his sisters dressed in bed head and cheesy-as-fuck Christmas pajamas, holding fat stockings in front of a Christmas tree. That shit went all the way back to one where it was just Mrs. A holding baby Andy with another dude hovering next to her. I assumed that was Andy’s bio dad, who sounded like a dick from the little I’d heard. Andy was a cute-ass baby, though, and the whole thing of being able to see their family expand and the kids grow up every year in the photos was kind of awesome.
The only thing was, there wasjustfamily. The original dad disappeared from the pics when Andy looked about middle-school aged, and for all the ones in his geeky teens, it was just the four Archers. Eventually, William started showing up in the pics. But who I didn’t see? Anyone else. At all. Ever. No other boyfriends for Andy or his mom, no one who wasn’t actuallyfamily.
“Donotlook at that one, Jordan,” Liz said, darting in front of me to slam one of the mantel pics face down, her own face going bright red. “That haircut was totally not my fault.”
I’d already seen it, and it was a classic bowl. “Dude, you sure about that?” I teased her. “Looked like you were rocking it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Andycut it that year—” It had looked like the first one without his bio dad, “—and we’re not allowed to fix our hair on Christmas morning before stocking pictures.” She fixed me with a stern look that reminded me way too fucking much of Andy’s Daddy-look. “They’re supposed to becandid.”
“They’re cute.”
I got another eye roll for that. “I’m just saying, I know you’re used to looking hot, but you donotget to do anything to your face or hairat allin the morning. You have to come straight down in your Christmas PJs to open stockings theminuteyou wake up. It’s tradition.”
Tradition, but were they all sure they wantedmein it?
“What if not everybody wakes up at the same time?” I asked, partly to tease her and partly because I had no fucking clue. Nichol’s family used to hang a stocking for me every year, but I wasn’t actually there on Christmas to get it, it was just a nice thing they did because they were like that. And at home? Yeah, no. That shit was not how my dad had rolled.
Liz got an evil grin on her face. “Oh, everyone will definitely wake up at the same time,” she said. “First one awake takes care of that.”
Andy’s stepdad, William, was flipping through his tablet on the couch, and he peered over his glasses, the lights from the tree reflecting on the lenses and making him look like an alien. A chill one, though. I liked the dude.
“And first one up is always our Elizabeth,” he said, winking at her. “Last year, I believe she made the rounds to wake the rest of us at five a.m., so fair warning, Jordan. You and Andy may want to lock the door to the guest suite if you don’t want to be surprised.”
“That’s cheating,” Liz said, pouting.
“Dude,” I said, shaking my head and holding up my hands to ward her off. “Five a.m., seriously? That’s brutal.”
I was definitely going to make a case for locking the door.
“It’sChristmas,” Liz said with a huff. “You don’t want tomissit.”
Yeah, I kind of didn’t. Weird, since just a week ago, I would have been happy to miss it. This was the night I would have had to figure out somewhere else to be during Paolo’s little dinner party, and I’d fully expected tomorrow, Christmas day, to suck ass, too. Andy changed everything, though. It was surreal to have his family be so damn into having me crash their holiday. Their whole house was decked out like some kind of department store Christmas display. I felt like I’d fallen into one of those cheesy Hallmark movies Nic’s mom used to binge watch every December… I definitely didn’t hate it, though.
“Lizzard’s been waking up at the crack of dawn since birth,” Andy said, coming into the living room with his mom and Katie, who was carrying a tray full of whipped-cream-topped drinks in red and green ceramic mugs. Andy came straight to me and wrapped an arm around my waist, kissing my temple like we were some kind of boring old-person couple. I kind of loved it. Nic would have laughed her head off at how down I was with that shit, though… or maybe not, actually, and not just because she had Scott so was definitely doing some cutesy couple stuff of her own now. But she’d been pushing Andy on me from the get-to, telling me he was exactly what I needed, and shocker, turned out she was right.
Andy hadn’t just changed everything, he was also thebestthing, and I—
Shit.
I fuckinglovedhim, didn’t I? I mean, I was no fucking expert on the subject and couldn’t imagine actually having the balls to ever say it out loud the way he’d started doing all the damn time, but yeah, bitches, pretty damn sure that’s what this was.
And maybe... fuck. My stomach got squirrelly, but I fought back the urge to shy away from the thought: maybe Ishouldtell him, since I knew how fucking good it felt to hear it.
I grinned, then scrubbed a hand over my mouth to hide it. Not soon enough, though.
“Jordan, Itoldyou not to look at it,” Liz said, giving me a serious case of stink-eye.
“What?”
Oh.
