Chapter 1
What A Ho Ho Ho
Phoebe
OfallthewaysI ever imagined spending the Christmas of my thirty-first year, I can say, with certainty, tracking down the Santa Claus who impregnated me was not one of them.
Yet, here we are.
“Oooh, this place is nice, Phoebe.” Gavin walks into the living room and sets down a box markedLincoln. “Maybe the owners will decide to stay overseas so you can buy the place. The furniture is pretty sick.” My idiot brother flops face down on my furnished rental’s overstuffed blue velvet couch and groans obscenely into the cushion. “Oh, man. You don’t want to know the dirty things I’m thinking of doing to this couch.”
It’s not every day I rent a place sight unseen, so you can imagine the relief I felt when we got here and the place looked precisely like it had in the photos. That I found a furnished place on such short notice, right before the holidays, could be considered a miracle in itself. Finding a nice place in a safe neighborhood? Yeah, there had to have been some divine intervention involved for that to happen. Maybe I’ve had a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present. Heh. Get it? Because finding this place had been a gift. A gift that I don’t want defiled by my disgusting brother and whatever he plans on doing to my new couch, regardless of how temporarily it’s in my possession.
“Ew, don’t be gross, Gavin. And get your stinky ass off the couch. You’re filthy.”
“Hey! Is that any way to treat the guy who spent one of his infrequent days off both school and work carrying all your boxes into the house?” He drags himself off the couch. “Speaking of carrying boxes, didn’t you promise me pizza and beer as payment for helping you move?”
“Ha! Nice try, kid. I’ll order pizza, but you’re sticking with soda until you’re of legal age. Plus, you still need to drive home so I wouldn’t let you drink even if you were old enough.”
Gavin is only eighteen, my much younger sibling from my mom’s second marriage. Two days after my mom gave birth to Charlie, and with a few months left to go before my second birthday, my biological father decided being a father wasn’t really his thing, and he left. It took Mom a long time to find another man worth taking a chance on after that. She started dating Warren ten years later, and they married a couple of years after that when Gavin was born.
Like most teenage guys, Gavin is all raging hormones and unrestrained snark. But, despite his many annoying traits, he has a huge heart, and that’s why he’s one of my favorite people. No one was angrier than Gavin when I found myself waiting at the altar for a man I knew in my heart wasn’t right for me. He spent that night a year ago storming around the hotel, hoping to run into my former fiancé so he could unleash his teenage fury. It’s probably a good thing he never found him, though. I doubt it would have been a fair fight. Webster kept himself in excellent shape and would have been more than a match for seventeen-year-old Gavin.
Seventeen-year-old Gavin was a short, scrawny little shit. Eighteen-year-old Gavin is almost six and a half feet tall and packed with muscle. He’s never said so, but I’m pretty sure he started working out after the wedding disaster, so he’d be ready if he ever saw my ex again. After a year of protein shakes and lifting weights, not to mention a huge growth spurt, Gavin is formidable. It still wouldn’t be a fair fight, but the advantage would go to Gavin, not Webster. He took it pretty hard when I told him Webster did me a favor that day.
I almost felt guilty for not being as upset as Gavin about the situation. It had been a shock when I got the text telling me he wasn’t coming, but not marrying Webster Day turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. It seemed like a dick move at first, but in the end, he made the best decision for both of us. I’d been considering making that same decision that morning as I sat through the hours of hair and makeup appointments required to turn me into a blushing bride. I should have done it, too. If we’d both skipped out on the wedding, I bet we’d have been able to get past it a lot faster. To this day, I’ve yet to speak to Webster face to face. The failed wedding incident has forced me to connect with my lifelong best friend through phone calls and the odd video chat only. Which sucks. I could have used his support when I found myself pregnant and alone.
“No way. Charlie said she would do the driving on the way home.” Gavin jumps up off the couch and yells down the back hallway, “Isn’t that right, Charlie?”
Oh, shit. Despite being one of my favorite people, I will still murder Gavin if he wakes up Lincoln. That thing they say about never waking a sleeping baby? Yeah, that’s not just an old wives’ tale.
“Shhh. Will you shut up?” I slap my hand over his mouth. “Lincoln is sleeping.”
He looks so sheepish I could almost believe he felt bad about waking my baby if I didn’t already know better. There’s no way Gavin would leave here without saying goodbye to his nephew, even if that nephew is a baby who still hasn’t figured out things don’t disappear when he can’t see them. Gavin is sure he has a special bond with my baby, though, and it’s something he’s incredibly proud of. I believe they have a bond, too. Lincoln always seems calmer when his Uncle Gavin is holding him. And Gavin never misses a chance to hold him, even when he has to make his own chances.
“Too late,” Charlie says, coming out of the back hallway with a tiny baby snuggled in her arms. “The little guy was awake when I tried to sneak into the room to drop off a box. I think he sensed me because as soon as I walked in, an unholy rumbling started coming out of his little rear end. You’ll need to do laundry, by the way. I rinsed everything and left it to pre-soak.” She looks down at Lincoln with a grin and singsongs, “Isn’t that right, Linky? Mommy has to do laundry. Yes, she does. She’s lucky Auntie Charlie changed you and the sheets instead of running away and letting her deal with it.”
My heart swells while I watch my little sister snuggle my baby, and not for the first time, I second-guess my decision to move back to Westborough. What am I going to do without my family around to help me for the next three months? Why did I follow through with this terrible idea? Oh, right. If I want Lincoln to have the chance to meet his father, this is where I need to be. And my sense of right and wrong won’t let me entertain the thought of not trying to find his father. There’s a man out there who doesn’t know he has a son, and that doesn’t sit right with me. There’s still a possibility he will decide not to, but I want him to have the option to be involved in Lincoln’s life. So, even if he ends up being a dickhead like my own biological father who wanted nothing to do with me or my sister, I’m going to find Lincoln’s father and give him a chance to do better.
“Hey, hey. None of that now. I can see your brain working from here.” Gavin is back on the couch, getting his sweaty teenage boy smell all over it. Whatever, I’ll use a fabric refresher on it when he leaves. He can’t stink it up too badly in such a short time, can he? “Everything is going to be fine. Tell her your news, Charlie. I can’t handle seeing Fifi cry.”
I rub my fingertips over my cheeks, and sure enough, they come away wet. “Sorry if my feelings offend you, you little twerp. I’m going to miss you guys, that’s all. I’m allowed to be sad about that.”
He jumps up off the couch and wraps me in a sweaty hug. “I’m going to miss you too, Fifi,” he says. “But you won’t have to miss Charlie.”
I blink a few times and pull myself out of his embrace. “What’s he talking about?” I ask Charlie, then repeat my question to Gavin. “What are you talking about?”
Gavin takes Lincoln from Charlie, snuggling him to his chest, and takes him into the kitchen. I hear the cupboard doors open and close and the water running in the sink. Sounds like Uncle Gavin is making his nephew a bottle.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to talk me out of it, but I’m staying with you. You have the third bedroom I can sleep in. I even got myself a part-time job at a coffee shop. I’m staying to help you with Lincoln so you can focus on finding his dad. It will be easier to track him down if you don’t have to bring Lincoln with you everywhere you go. Plus, I can’t be away from you guys for that long.” Charlie’s eyes are shiny with unshed tears. “You know I can’t get enough of those midnight feedings,” she jokes.
I chuckle. “Are you sure? You don’t have to put your life on hold for me, Charlie. I love you for wanting to do this, but you don’t have to stay.”
“I know that,” she says, wrapping her arms around me. “I want to stay.”
“You’re the best sister I could ever ask for,” I choke through a sob. “I couldn’t have made it this far without you.”
And it’s true. The seemingly endless months of my pregnancy would have been so much harder if it hadn’t been for the help of my brother and sister, and, of course, my mom and stepdad. I’ll never admit it to them, but after living back home with my parents for the last year, and having my family around all the time, I was a little scared to be on my own with Lincoln. I loved living here with Webster, but being on my own with a baby is different. The excitement of Westborough seems almost scary when I think about protecting my son from unseen dangers. I tried to play it cool, but I’m thinking I didn’t do such a good job of it if Charlie covertly arranged to move here with me.
