I was trying not to cry. “You fucking punk. Should we hug now? Is that what healthy siblings do?” I asked.
Without another snarky word, he came and sat next to me and held me. It felt so familiar and good and painful at the same time. He was shaped so much like Dad. If I was going to see him more often, I’d have to get used to how much he reminded me of them both. It was a bittersweet feeling I’d learned to live without. But the clouds always made the sunshine so much sweeter.
“I missed this,” he whispered. “You should say something mean so I don’t cry.”
“You have no butt. Your butt is so flat that it looks like you’re wearing your pants backward,” I said.
“That was a good start,” he said. “We’ve got years of shit talking to make up for.”
We sat in the lodge dining room well past lunch hours. Not until the staff began to reset for dinner and the sky turned dark and gray did I finally leave.
When we said goodbye, we made plans for Ruth, Charlie, Jenna, and Gretta to come to the party tomorrow and that seemed like the best path forward for me and Charlie. Just one day at a time. I didn’t know what life after this would look like and what exactly my role would be in Bundles of Joy or if we’d have weekly family dinners or what, but I knew that I would see them all on Christmas.
Charlie and I had so much to work through. It could never possibly be resolved during one Christmas Eve lunch. The road ahead would be messy and difficult, but if professing my love to Isaac and then getting shot down had taught me one thing, it was this: I can do hard things. I can survive them.
The thought of sticking with the company still made me feel a little panicky, even as I also felt excited. I’d hardly stuck with one thing long enough to see it through into something bigger, but maybe that was changing. I loved writing this screenplay, and I loved the idea of continuing Mom and Dad’s legacy. If those were the two things I walked away from Christmas Notch with, so be it.
I ran out to my car with my hood pulled tight. I’d barely driven the rental car since Isaac and I took the truck almost everywhere, but today I was thankful for its functioning heater.
As I turned out onto the white-coated road, the windshield wipers worked overtime to keep up with the falling snow.
“This feels fucking ominous,” I said to any postal worker angels up there who might be eavesdropping.
Chapter Thirty
Isaac
Iemerged from my room—showered, dressed, and no longer looking like a pepperoni shifter—to find my house swarming with people.
Tugging up the zipper on my sweater and then shoving my hands in my trouser pockets, I walked down the staircase into a melee of Hope Channel employees wielding garlands, lights, and frightening vintage blow molds of Santa Claus and his reindeer.
I found Kallum in the middle of it all, chasing a shrieking toddler and then scooping her up to roar into her tummy. When he saw me, he swung her into his arms, where she proceeded to furnish a pacifier from somewhere unseen and then shove it in her mouth.
“Why are these people turning the mansion into Santa’s boudoir again?” Kallum asked, shifting Grace a little in his arms after she laid her head on his shoulder.
“Teddy’s proposal is tomorrow, and I know Sunny wants it to be magical.” I watched as three people struggled to carrythe largest Christmas tree I’d ever seen into the house. One of them was Clayton from the Christmas tree lot, and I gave him an approving nod when he looked my way. He had appeased my tree-wrath, and I would grant him his boon of a séance date in my house. “So I sent out a few texts.”
Approximately twenty people marched past us, all of them laden with totes full of decorations. From the ballroom, I heard the whirring of someone buffing the floor.
“A few texts,” repeated Kallum.
I shrugged. “The Hope Channel employees are really excited about making Teddy’s night special.” At his look, I conceded, “Also some money might have changed hands.”
“You don’t say.”
“Whatever. Why are you still here?”
“Well, Nolan and I came to make sure Sunny’s cat wasn’t eating your corpse, and Winnie and Bee came with us, and this little bean, obviously.” Grace gave me a suspicious look from her place smashed against her dad’s shoulder and then rubbed at her eye with a chubby fist. “And then Teddy was here to meet with the DJ about the party tomorrow night, and then we realized it would be silly for all of us to gobackdown to town to eat, so surprise! We’re all eating dinner here! It was a collective decision made for the good of the group, so I think that morally overrides the fact that we invited ourselves to dinner. At least that’s what Bee said.”
“There is—and I need to convey this in the strongest possible terms—no food here.”
Kallum waved the hand currently patting the Grace-lump against his shoulder. “Jack Hart is taking care of that on his way up here. Something about a charcuterie restaurant being willing to buy his silence or something. And Steph is bringing the wine. But remember when you see her that she thinks tomorrow is just a normal Christmas party. Ix-nay on the ing-ray.”
“Right,” I said. I was just going to mentally compartmentalize the fact that I would be expected to break bread with people two nights in a row, like some kind of habitual... bread-breaker. “Where’s Sunny?”
Kallum gave me an appraising look. “Your man bun is still damp. You want to go in guns blazing with a damp man bun?”
“I’m about to tell my best friend that I’m a jackass who doesn’t deserve her forgiveness and that I want to figure this out. I think a damp bun is the least of my worries.”
