“There he is,” Bryn says, nodding as his truck heads up the lane. My hands form into fists, but my throat is choked with emotions. He’s here. Now what?
“Bryn,” Rory’s mother calls from the kitchen.
“Hey,” I say, catching her attention before she turns. “When are you going to make the big announcement about my niece.”
She shakes her head at me in fond annoyance. “When we make the rounds and say what we’re thankful for at the dinner table.”
“Oh, shit, we’re doing that?” Rowan asks from around a hunk of the bread I threw at his head.
I snort. We’ve never been the holiday tradition types, owing largely to the fact that our family felt different every year growing up. We had Rowan and Willow’s dad for a couple of years after our dad left, and then when he sayonared, Mom was single for all of a hot second before she met Jay. There was no possibility of forming lasting traditions because our mother has the unenviable habit of adopting the ways of whatever man she’s obsessed with at the moment. So, we opened our presents on Christmas Day with Rowan and Willow’s dad, and with Jay, we had Christmas crackers and hot chocolate on Christmas Eve. God, Jay really is the best. Other than Willow and Ivy, he’s the only person in our family who actually reached out to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving today.
“It’s Ellen’s favorite tradition,” Bryn hisses, “sobe nice.” She steps away just as her mother-in-law comes toward us from—well, God knows where, this place is huge. She’s wearing a turkey sweater, and she somehow makes it look sweet instead of stupid. They’re nice, Rory’s parents, as if there ever were any doubt.
“Bryn, dear, do you think I should put my sweet potatoes in the oven?”
I almost laugh. Ellen insisted on making her trademark sweet potato dish because it was Rory’s favorite as a child, and come hell or high water, she was going to make it, even if Bryn did order enough food for an army.
“Yes, that sounds great, Ellen,” she says, patting her on the back.
“Oh, is our other guest here?”
I turn back to the window in time to watch him step out of the truck. He looks up, and our eyes meet for a second. I feel the same empty ache I’ve felt for days, along with a tripping of my pulse. He’s always affected me, always made me burn for him, and there have been times where I hated him for it.
I don’t hate him anymore.
I can’t.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be a carpet he walks all over with his shoes.
I turn my back to the window. “Maybe I do want some appetizers.”
“That’s the spirit,” Rowan says. Ellen and Bryn have already walked off, presumably toward the kitchen, but he pats me on the back, then swears when some unidentified food item rolls off his plate and onto the probably priceless rug.
“Shit,” he says again.
“Swear jar,” I say, laughing, as I bend to pick up the cranberry tart. There’s a distinct red spot on the gray-toned rug.
“You think they’ll notice?” he asks. We both laugh and attempt to buff it away, something that only makes it worse.
“No one should let us go anywhere,” I tell him.
We stand back up, and he gives me a different kind of look, one that goes deeper.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to break his face?”
I laugh. “No, it’s my great misfortune to like his face in its current formation.”
“I don’t like seeing you like this, Holly,” Rowan says, and there’s so much big brother in my little brother’s words it hurts. Then again, he’s probably heard my cry in my room, since I still have enough of an ego that I don’t like to do it in front of other people.
“I’m fine, Rowan. I’m better than fine. For the first time in my life, I’m owning up to my own feelings. It’s not a bad thing.”
He lifts his brows in disbelief. “Even when they’re bad feelings?”
“Even then.” I think of what Bryn said the other day. “You’ll see for yourself someday.”
He gives me a disbelieving look. “No offense, but you don’t make being in love look all that fun.”
“That’s because sometimes it really fucking sucks,” I say, stealing one of the clean cranberry thingies off his plate and popping it into my mouth. Of course, it’s delicious. “But when it’s good, it’s really, really good. Today is not one of those days, though.”
