“How could I?” Brooks’s face lights up. “If you need proof of that, check this out.”
Brooks holds something up for me to see.
“I didn’t know you still had this.”
I grab the frame from his hand, looking at the picture of us from high school. It was maybe our junior year, and the two of us thought it would be a good idea to make our own ugly sweaters to wear to school. With the other’s face on our own sweater.
It’s the faces of two skinny kids, each wearing their best friend’s face proudly on their chest. It was one of my favorite Christmases because I loved that I could be so ridiculous with Brooks and he would never judge me for it.
“It’s one of my favorites,” Brooks tells me, looking at the photo with me. It made me fall that much harder for him back then, and with his clean scent mixing with the fresh pine, my heart speeds up.
I sigh, setting the picture down on the bookshelf.
“Maybe we should make some more ugly sweaters for this year and wear them on Christmas morning.”
Brooks bursts out laughing. “Yes. We have to. Maybe we can even make one for Comet to wear.”
Comet lifts his head up to see what we’re doing before going back to his bone that I picked up for him.
“Deal.”
The two of us work together, hanging tinsel on the tree that glimmers in the colored lights we hung earlier this morning.
“For someone that loves his tree so much, I’m surprised your ornaments aren’t perfectly matched,” Brooks tells me, hanging an ornament that I hand painted a few years ago.
A merman with a rainbow fin.
“Because,”—I straighten the ornament—“all of them hold special meaning.”
“What meaning does a half-naked mermaid have?” Brooks laughs.
“Merman,” I correct, poking him in his muscular abs. “You just wish your abs were as good-looking as this.”
Brooks pulls his hoodie up, flashing me his stomach.
Fuck. Me. I should not have started this. How does Brooks not know the way he has me drooling over him?
“I think they are.”
“These?” I feel around on his stomach against my better judgment as Brooks shies away from me. “I’d need a map to find them.”
“I guess you just have a thing for mermen.”
“Don’t make fun of him.” I push Brooks out of the way with a hip check. “This was a fundraiser night we did at the tavern. Donate five dollars and you get to paint your own ornament. It was a huge success and it helped people in need over the holidays.”
Brooks studies me. “You’re a good person, in case no one has told you that.”
His words make me blush. “Thanks.”
“And because you’re a good person, please tell me you are going to do that again.”
“Maybe.”
“Pleeeease?” Brooks pleads. “I want to do it. I want to paint a merman and put ridiculous tattoos all over his chest.”
Brooks pokes at the one now hanging on the tree.
“If I say yes, will that mean you won’t paint the merman I already have?”
