Chapter 21 – ryan
RYAN
My stomach growls loudly right as I turn into Dad and Emily’s neighborhood. It’s the first sound I’ve heard since Pippa climbed in the passenger seat of my car.
Pippa hasn’t said a single word to me since our fight in the car.
Her commitment is honestly kind of admirable.
Every time we’ve run into each other in the hall, she acts like I’m a ghost. Even when I texted her to let her know when she should be ready to leave if she wanted a ride to our parents, she avoided giving a direct answer by putting a thumbs up on the text.
Even now, she just keeps staring out the window.
The silence is like a physical presence around us, pressing against my skin.
Honestly, the tension is practically unbearable.
It’s getting hard to stop myself from blowing up at her and telling her to get the fuck over herself.
So what if we slept together? She told me that I’m nothing to her.
Message received, loud and fucking clear.
The other part of me wants to grab her and kiss her into submission. Because damn, it’d feel good to get her on her knees and make her swallow my cock. I’m fucking ready to show her what an asshole Dom I can really be.
Which would make Christmas day with our parents a real treat.
So yeah. With those two options on the table, silence is probably safest at this point.
There are only a few cars in the driveway today, and I pull up behind them. Pippa’s out of the car like a flash, rushing to the front door before I’ve even turned off the car. I wonder if she seriously plans to go all day without talking to me.
Guess I’m about to find out.
When I get to the living room, my relatives are already getting moving on our pre-dinner cocktails.
Uncle Tommy’s mixing himself a Bloody Mary, extra heavy on the vodka, while my Aunt Paige glares at him in disapproval.
I don’t know how they’ve stayed married for decades, since he’s a barely functional drunk and she’s so prim and stuck-up that even Queen Elizabeth’s ghost would tell her to pull the stick out of her ass.
On the other side of the couch, Emily’s sister Melissa, or Aunt Melissa, as I’ve been ordered to call her, is sipping on a venti Starbucks Frappuccino from her pink bedazzled takeaway cup.
Aunt Melissa has two hobbies: gluing rhinestones on random shit and nitpicking people.
And since I don’t see a glue gun in her hand, that means the only thing on the menu is pointed criticisms.
Not exactly my Christmas dinner companions.
Fortunately, my stomach rumbles again. “Back in a sec!” I wave to them all. “I have to grab a snack to hold me over.”
Leaving Pippa to deal with our so-called family, I head right to the kitchen, where Emily has a bunch of Christmas cookies in Tupperwares. Nothing like some sugar cookies to stop my stomach from rumbling before dinner. Emily smacks me playfully on the arm.
“Straight to my cookies? I don’t even get a hello?”
“Mewwy Chwismas,” I tell her around a mouthful of cookie.
“Don’t eat too many, or you’ll spoil your dinner. I made a whole roast turkey.”
I swallow. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave enough room to eat at least half the turkey.”
“Good.” Emily gives me an evil smile. “That means you can go out and greet your uncle and aunts.”
“Traitor,” I mutter.
Ignoring me, she shoves me back into the living room. Dad’s at the bar cart now, too, pouring a mimosa.
“Merry Christmas, Ryan. Mimosa?”
“Yes, please.”
“Pippa, would you like one, too?”
My stepsister makes a face at the offer of champagne. “I’ve already got an Irish coffee, but thanks.”
The first words I’ve heard from her in days. It’s a Christmas miracle.
“So, what did you ask Santa for this year, Ryan?” Uncle Tommy demands. “Let me guess—a redhead?”
“Thought I might shake it up and ask for a brunette this year.” I glance over at Pippa to see if she’ll react, but her phone rings first. When she checks the caller ID, her eyes get all wide, and her smile shows every one of her teeth. It’s an expression I only see her make for one person—her dad.
“Dad, Merry Christmas!” she says brightly as she picks up the phone. “No, now’s a good time. I’m glad you called.”
She walks toward the door to get some privacy.
“No, I know, you’re not in town for Christmas. But we’ll do dinner soon. My treat,” I hear her saying as she leaves.
I roll my eyes. Pippa hasn’t spent Christmas with her biological father in years.
I’d know, after all the years we both pretended we “forgot” to get the other one a gift.
But every year, she’ll tell Emily she can only commit after she talks to her dad.
As if the answer will be any different. Sometimes, I want to just blurt out the truth, just so she can finally stop waiting around for the guy.
I won’t, though. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt on Pippa’s face.
As far as she knows, Emily just fell out of love with the guy one day—Peter, I think his name is.
So Emily broke up the family and broke his heart.
Even though she still loves her mom, Pippa never quite forgave her for that.
Because to Pippa, love is forever, and calling it quits is sacrilege.
She’s always been a romantic like that—loyal to a fault.
And of course, selfless fucking Emily would rather take the blame for the whole divorce than tell Pippa about what her dad really did.
All the nights he left Pippa at home alone when Emily was working the night shift at the hospital.
All the goddamn debt he put their family in because he lost both their paychecks at the fucking casino.
Hell, I only know the story because my dad tried to use it on me as a cautionary tale.
You keep up this poker playing crap, and you’re going to end up just like Peter. Showing up hungover at the casino every morning at 8:00 a.m. Living in a shithole with two roommates because you’ve burned every bridge you built in your life.
Emily sits next to me on the couch and puts her hand on my knee. “Have you heard from your mother today, Ryan?”
I snort. The woman who spawned me hasn’t called or texted me in years. She occasionally sends me a random meme on Instagram for some reason—probably because she’s been drinking and trying to message a different dude named Ryan.
Emily smiles sympathetically. “I’m sure she’s thinking about you, anyway.”
“I’m sure she’s not thinking about anyone not named Jack Daniels,” I quip. “Everyone I want to talk to at Christmas is right here on this couch.”
She chuckles. “Flattery will get you everywhere, I suppose.”
Aunt Melissa and Aunt Paige spend the next ten minutes flipping through a celebrity magazine from Melissa’s purse, debating who’s gotten too fat. Soon enough, Pippa comes back in, offering them a new target.
“You wore black on Christmas?” Aunt Melissa says, looking Pippa up and down judgmentally. “Not very festive.”
Pippa’s smile looks strained. “Well, I did wear red shoes.”
Fuck, yeah she did. She’s in a pair of bright red high heels with a little bow on them, which make her legs look a billion miles long in her tight black jeans. Her silk blouse has a bow on it, too. She looks like a present I’d kill to unwrap.
“Pippa, why don't you put on a Santa hat for the pictures?” Emily offers, giving her a glance that transparently says, yes, I know your Aunt Melissa is being a cunt, but let it go because it’s Christmas.
Reluctantly, Pippa pulls the hat over her tousled bob. It should make her look ridiculous, but it’s actually fucking adorable. Man, if I could have her in bed with just that hat and those red heels, I would be a happy man.
“You too, Ryan.” Emily shoves another hat into my hands. I put it on, because I’m a good sport, even though it’s not going to look any cooler on me. “Now get in front of the fireplace. We should take the picture.”
Ugh. The Picture.
Every Christmas since we were kids, Emily has put Pippa and I in front of the fireplace and has us hold up our stockings.
If you flipped through all those photos, you’d see exactly the same thing—Pippa and I standing stiffly next to each other, managing to scowl even as we smile for the camera.
I think the only difference between them is that one year I had a nose piercing—an error in judgment—and one year, Pippa had bangs.
I thought since they’d traveled the last few Christmases, the tradition had finally and mercifully died, but apparently it’s been raised from the dead. Yay for miracle resurrections.
Pippa doesn’t look at me as she grabs her pink stocking and stands in front of the fire.
Fine. I won’t look at her, either. We stand at opposite sides of the fireplace, with a good meter of space between us.
“Oh, come on, you can get closer than that,” Uncle Tommy chortles.
Pippa and I each shuffle an inch closer to the other one. Because even though she pretends to be the mature one, she’s just as bad as me.
Emily holds up her phone and focuses on us. “Say cheese!”
I don’t smile. I’m pretty sure Pippa isn’t, either.
“She said, ‘say cheese,’” Dad grunts. The or else is implied.
“Fucking cheese,” I say through my grinning teeth, but I’m the only one that says it. Pippa doesn’t bother.
“Someone’s grouchy on Christmas,” Uncle Tommy says, his eyes furtively tracking to Pippa like if he looks too closely he might set her off.
“Pippa’s staying at Ryan’s place while she looks for a new apartment,” Emily says. “I’m sure it’s just regular roommate tension.”
I almost feel bad about how hard she’s working to keep things light. Between Uncle Tommy’s shitty jokes, Aunt Melissa’s nitpicking, and Aunt Paige’s pointed sneering, Emily has enough to deal with, even without Pippa and me airing out our grudges.
“Poor Pippa,” Aunt Melissa says like I’m not even here. “I’ve heard he’s up all hours with strange women in and out of that cesspool of an apartment building.”
“Nothing wrong with bringing a few girls home for a little fun,” Uncle Tommy chortles.