Chapter Thirty-Three
Sunny
By the time we made it back to the house, most everyone was still in bed, and it seemed that none of them had had any trouble making themselves at home.
Kallum was already awake though, whipping up Christmas morning breakfast pizzas for everyone with Grace standing on a stool beside him, haphazardly sprinkling toppings like a maniacal pizza overlord with very pudgy fists. “I let Winnie sleep in,” he told us, his eyebrow raising suggestively when he noticed Isaac holding my hand. “It’s really the best Christmas present you can give someone with narcolepsy.”
Isaac stared at the piles of dough and cheese. “I thought there wasn’t any food here.”
“Jack brought enough meat and cheese to feed an army last night. Also, let me show you something.” Kallum dusted off his floury hands and then walked over to the pantry, where he opened the door. Isaac and I blinked at the shelves, unsure of what Kallum was trying to show us.
“You see these things? Flour? Sugar? Yeast? These are called ingredients.”
Isaac and I exchanged a blank look.
“I don’t understand,” said Isaac.
Kallum sighed. “I’ll continue with my little red hen role-playalone, thank you very much.”
Isaac and I went upstairs and when I pulled away from him to walk down to my room, he tugged me back.
“I need to take a shower,” I whined.
He nodded and pulled me into his room. “I happen to have a shower. It’s a great shower. You should see it. I think you would agree that it does a very good job at being a shower.”
“Well, as you know, I do identify as bisexual, but I’m also shower curious.”
As the door closed behind us, we began to strip, leaving a trail of clothes from his bed to his en suite. “We should probably just go ahead and test all the showers in the mansion,” I told him. “Yours is a good place to start.”
We stood under the warm spray of the water and just held each other. “This is my Christmas miracle,” I whispered with my head on his chest. We were just two people living with grief, but we didn’t have to carry it alone again. Grief had shaped us, but it didn’t have to define us.
“You are my Christmas miracle,” Isaac said. “My too-good-to-be-true Christmas miracle.”
He washed my hair and kissed my eyelids and my cheekbones and told me all the ways that each spot his lips touched were precious to him.
I watched as his finger traced the letters tattooed on my rib cage. “Love you big,” he whispered.
And he did love me. Painfully and incurably. Two words I might just have to add to my art gallery of tattoos.
After we got dressed, we walked downstairs to find Bee and Nolan shuffling inside with their arms full of gifts.
“The roads were clear enough to go back to the inn and grab everyone’s gifts,” Nolan said. “But they’re mostly for Grace.”
Bee saddled Nolan with her share of gifts so that he was barely visible. She threw her arms around me. “You’re alive! No more driving in wintry weather without cell service.” She pointed at me. “Bad Sunny!”
“You’re not wrong,” I told her, “but who’s to say if the weather is bad when there’s not even a weather app on one’s phone?”
She shook her head and then sniffed me suspiciously. Then she stepped back and sniffed Isaac. “You both smell like the same citrusy body wash.”
And then Nolan approached Isaac and gave him a whiff. “Yep,” he confirmed. “I recognize that signature. You guys did dirty things in the shower.”
I bounced on my toes a little and shook my head. “No, we showered because we did dirty things, which then required a shower.”
Bee swayed her hips and pumped her arms. “This is my Sunny-got-laid-and-hopefully-Isaac-unfucked-up dance. Do you like it?”
“Inspired,” Isaac said.
Bee threw her arms around both of us. “My favorite horndogs made up!” And then she looked to Isaac. “Hurt her again and I will come to your house with people and never leave. You will never know peace again, Isaac Kelly. Capisce?”
