Chapter Twenty-Seven
W e had most things baking, frying, boiling, and marinating by the time the others showed. It was around lunchtime, so Janice helped us make light snacks for everyone so they’d survive for another couple hours before all the food was ready.
Toby and Justin showed up first, Toby his usual bundle of energy and Justin a solid presence behind him.
“I like your sweater,” I said as Toby pulled me into one of his bear hugs. He was wearing a mostly black sweater with a lot of white and green for the trees and snow. Three snowmen were on the front, smiling and looking cool with their sunglasses. Above that said ‘Chillin’ with my Snowmies.’
“Thank you, Candyflake. Seth got it for me.” He gave me a huge quick kiss on the lips, not caring that Justin and Seth were in the room with us. I blinked, a little surprised. That was the first kiss given so blatantly in front of the other guys. Everyone had been keeping the intimate moments private so far. Paxon’s reaction flashed through my mind when he ended up seeing Seth kiss me and unease settled in me.
What if the others reacted like he had?
Before I could overthink it though, Justin pulled me into his own hug, practically enveloping me in his arms. “Merry Christmas,” he whispered in his husky voice.
My whole body was practically on fire from everyone’s attention like this. It was almost too much at once. Justin opted to kiss me on the cheek, the tips of our noses brushing against each other before he pulled away.
“Merry Christmas,” I said to both of them, my cheeks burning from so much attention at once like that. “Did you guys have a good morning?”
“Yeah, Aunt Laura just got off work, so we did presents with her before feeding her and letting her go to sleep. She’ll be here later after she gets more rest,” Toby said.
“And your family?” I asked. Wouldn’t he want to spend time with them?
“I’ll see them tomorrow,” he said simply, but the way his shoulders sagged and the brief flicker of sadness in his eyes betrayed him. Something was going on. “Austin had a long night so they asked me to come over tomorrow instead.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Are you okay?”
He forced a smile and I hated that. I never wanted him or anyone close to me to give me those stupid polite, practiced ones.
When he opened his mouth to reply, I spoke quickly. “Remember what I told you,” I said, not willing to hear him tell me a lie.
Toby closed his mouth, his lips pressing into a tight line before he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His chest expanded as he drew in a measured breath and then slowly released it. His grip on my hand tightened as his gaze darted to Seth and Justin before coming back to me.
When his shoulders slumped in resignation, I knew he pushed back his instincts and what he was going to say was going to suck, but it was at least going to be the truth. “No. I’m not okay.” His voice was rough as he blinked hard. “I wanted to see them today. But I get it. I do. So I’m going to enjoy my day with you guys and tomorrow I get to give my parents a hug and I get to see Austin. So it’ll be okay. This is second best scenario.”
“Just because it’s second best doesn’t mean it can’t suck,” Seth said, coming over and squeezing Toby’s shoulder. “Once I can make sure Cadence won’t burn anything, I’ll bring you over to at least see them for a few minutes.”
Toby’s eyes widened. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I’m doing it,” Seth said firmly. “You’ll still see them tomorrow, but at least you also get to see them for a little bit today. Say hello and give them a hug. Make sure they’re at least doing okay.”
Toby’s jaw worked as he tried to process Seth’s offer. “Ok—” Toby coughed. He nodded, his voice cracking as he said, “Okay. Thank you.”
He turned away abruptly, trying to fight from breaking down right then and there. His back was stiff, shoulders trembling as he fought to keep his emotions in check.
I didn’t think, my instincts taking over. I closed the distance between us, wrapping my arms around him from behind and pressing my head against his broad back, feeling the tense muscles beneath my cheek. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “You don’t have to hold it all in.”
Toby’s breathing hitched, and for a long moment, he didn’t move. Then his hands came up to rest over mine where they were clasped around him.
Justin chimed in quietly, breaking the heavy silence. “You’ve got us, man.”
Toby nodded, not trusting himself to speak, but the subtle shake of his shoulders gave him away. He didn’t let go of my hands, and I held him tighter, willing him to feel that he wasn’t alone in this.
It was quiet while we let Toby have the time and support he needed. Then I felt Toby’s chest move as he took another deep breath and exhaled shakily. “I don’t deserve you guys,” he whispered.
“It’s never about deserving,” I said, not loosening my hold on him.
We stayed like that for another minute before Toby finally pulled away from me. He turned, giving me a hug.
He shook his head and chuckled, lightly smacking his cheeks. “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. Let’s enjoy now and if you really mean it, I’ll take you up on that offer. I’d like to at least see them briefly today.”
“Of course,” Seth said. “Ready whenever you are.”
“I thought you had to make sure Cadence doesn’t burn anything.”
“I would never do that,” I said.
Both Toby and Seth looked at me with similar expressions of disbelief.
“I’m not that bad,” I argued.
Everyone laughed while I pouted. To prove my point, I went back to making the apple pie. Dad taught me how to make it so I was confident I could at least pull that off.
Seth put the others to work and then went to check in on his parents and Janice with a tray of drinks for them.
Toby happily took over cutting some vegetables for the platter, eating more of it than he was putting on the platter itself. Justin was peeling potatoes to be mashed.
“Thank you,” I said to them. “For the presents under the tree.”
“Presents?” Toby gave me an innocent confused look. “Sounds like Santa came to visit you.”
I snorted. “Right. Well, either way, I’m grateful. I can’t remember the last time I had real presents under the tree.”
“As opposed to fake ones?” Toby asked.
“Empty boxes with pretty wrapping paper so visitors could feel the holiday spirit,” I replied.
Justin made a small grunting sound. “What do you normally do for Christmas?”
I thought about that. “Mostly, Lindie would throw a party at the house with all our big important clients. Shower them in expensive gifts. I’d sing some holiday songs.” I shrugged. “It’s the perfect time to make connections.”
“Similar to Bryan. He hates this time of year because he feels like he becomes a show pony for his parents at parties. We’ll have him for a couple hours, but he’s needed at an event tonight,” Seth said as he came back into the room.
“He told me about it,” I said. I had volunteered to go with him, but he didn’t want me spending my Christmas there.
“Cadie!” Cal’s voice boomed through the house. It was loud enough to get a bark from Bebe who was in another room somewhere.
“Not so loud,” George said.
A moment later, Cal was running into the room.
“Merry Christmas!” He hugged me, his arms nearly a steel band around my waist.
“Merry Christmas,” I said, resting my hand on his head as I gave him an awkward hug. Hugging kids always felt weird with how much smaller they were than me.
“We have presents for you,” he said. “Want to open them now?”
“I told you later,” Paxon said as he came into the kitchen. “Once everyone gets here, we can do presents.”
“I’ll have to run over to my house to grab yours,” I said to Cal.
His eyes practically sparkled at the idea of more presents.
“Cal! Come here,” George yelled.
“Now who’s yelling?” Paxon mumbled as Cal went to his dad.
We laughed.
Paxon gave me a simple hug. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
My smile slipped. “Merry Christmas. How’d you sleep?”
He ran his hand through his hair, which looked like it was already in disarray. “Fine. I got a treat for Bebe, so I’m going to go give it to him.” He slipped out of the room before anyone could say anything else to him.
“What side of the bed did he get up on?” Toby asked.
“Not the right side,” Seth said. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped out of the room.
We shared glances with each other before going back to our tasks.
My dad was the next person to show up, giving me a big hug and handing me a present. I grinned when I saw the record player. He even gave me some records for it.
“This is perfect,” I whispered.
“Good. Was hard to find this particular one. You should be able to play music from your laptop through it too.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek.
Justin helped me set it up in the kitchen, and it wasn’t long until we had Bon Jovi’s raspy voice in the background. Paxon seemed back to normal as he worked on some of the salads.
“Smells good,” Liberty said as she came in to check on us.
“It’ll taste even better,” Seth said and then had to talk her into going back to hang out with all the other adults in the living room.
Soft laughter from the living room made all of us grin.
At one point, Seth and Toby left, but no one said anything. And when Toby came back, looking like he was in a better mood, we only smiled and kept making sure the adults in the house got to relax in the living room and stayed out of our territory in the kitchen.
Bryan finally showed up just as it was nearly time to go open presents and it felt right having everyone together, even if it was only for a short time.
We got the table set. Seth gave his parents some directions on the last little bit that was left to be done. The ham needed another hour and then everything would be ready.
“Okay, we’ll be back,” Seth said as he practically threw my coat on me.
Janice was laughing at me as we were herded out of the house and over to mine. She had stolen some of the food that had already been cooked and shared it with the police officers. They were different ones this time, which helped to alleviate some of our guilt. While they had to spend some of their holiday babysitting, at least it wasn’t the entire day.
“Any word?” I asked Janice when she glanced at her phone.
“They’re going to be boarding soon,” she said, sounding happier at the news. She turned her phone so I could see a picture of Rowan dressed in a red and green onesie that said ‘My First Christmas’ with the current year underneath it.
I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be away from your fiancé and baby on Christmas. Especially since it was going to be the first one for them all.
“All right,” Toby said, going right over to the tree as soon as we got inside. “How are we going to do this?”
“Just dig in?” I asked.
“I don’t want to miss you opening our presents,” Toby said.
“Same,” Seth said.
“Why? Did you guys buy some prank gifts?”
Justin made a weird snorting sound but didn’t say anything.
Toby had a sly grin. “Not this year. We promised to behave. But next year, all bets are off.”
My eyes widened as I looked at them all, wondering what kind of presents they’d bought each other in the past. Everyone laughed at my expression.
“Okay, sit here,” Bryan said, sitting me down on the couch.
The next couple of minutes, all the presents were sorted out so each person had a small pile in front of them.
“And now we dig in!” Toby cheered, grabbing one of my presents to him and opening it before anyone could say anything.
I grabbed one and did the same.
The room quickly turned into a noisy mess of crinkling papers, laughter, and teasing remarks.
“Hell yeah,” Toby exclaimed, holding up a sleek black hoodie with the words ‘I went outside once. The graphics were not so good’ in bold white letters. “Now I don’t need to steal the hoodie from Cadence.”
“Why do you think I got it?” I asked, thinking of a similar hoodie hanging in my closet.
Apparently, Toby liked to steal some of Seth’s clothes too if the sayings on them were good enough. I wondered how Seth even had enough clothes at this point if the two of us were always ‘borrowing’ them.
Justin quietly tore open his present, his lips curling into a soft smile as he pulled out a big, mesh bag full of goodies perfect for swimmers. I didn’t go as far as picking out swimming trunks for him. That felt like it was too far. But there were a couple of swimming caps and goggles thanks to Seth’s help. There were also two water bottles and a towel.
Bryan opened up the small present I got for him. It was a fancy wallet with extra features to help protect what he had inside against theft.
“Whoa,” Paxon said as he lifted up the jewelry box. Inside was a tech ring that was supposed to track his workouts and everything else.
“A smart ring instead of a smart watch, that’s pretty cool,” Toby said.
“I thought you’d like it since you’re such an active person,” I said. “Help with keeping track of information for you for soccer season.”
“I love it. And it fits.”
“You’re welcome,” Bryan said.
I laughed. “I had to have Bryan help me with the size.”
Paxon blinked and then laughed. “That’s why you were shoving that ring on my finger a few weeks ago. People thought you were proposing to me.”
Bryan just shrugged as he grabbed another present.
“Oh, this is perfect, I needed a new one,” Seth said as he lifted the bag tool roll up that I got him.
We continued to unwrap all the presents, loving everything we got. Some were thoughtful, others useful. Plus food. Jerky and candy all around.
Janice was really happy with some of the gifts too and the guys were so sweet for thinking about her. She ended up with a pretty lamp used to melt scents, a variety pack of shower steamers, a survival kit of must haves in case of emergencies, a bunch of warm, fuzzy socks, and a pretty turtle statue with cute flowers that lit up on its back.
The guys got me a bunch of fuzzy socks too, wireless headphones, a smartwatch, a couple of books perfect for writing music, like a rhyming dictionary. There were a couple of lyric notebooks filled with sheet music, a shirt that said ‘Look at you writing songs & shit!’ and a bunch of other thoughtful, little gifts. I even got a ribbon microphone that I was excited to try. I never had one before but I heard good things about using them with an electric guitar. I did have an electric guitar I wanted to play around with more. I’d bought it last year to expand my capabilities with my productions.
“This is amazing,” I said as I picked through all the gifts. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Toby said as he held up the guitar picks I got for him, engraved with his initials. “Looks like we’re raising the bar this year on presents.”
“Oh man, I love a good challenge. I can top this next year. Easy,” Seth said.
The fact they were even talking about doing this again next year left me warm and excited. With them, it really was beginning to feel like we had a future. College was going to throw things off, but I could see how that was only going to be more of an inconvenience than anything. These guys were determined to not let it affect their relationship.
They were the kind of guys to fight for their family, and I was beginning to feel like I was really a part of that.
By the time we finished opening everything, even the little ones that only contained random Christmas candy that Toby had decided to wrap, the floor was covered in torn wrapping paper and ribbons. Everyone was poking through their gifts, opening the ones they couldn’t wait to check out.
Seth leaned back in his chair, watching everyone with a content smile. “Best Christmas yet,” he said, raising the hot chocolate Janice got for everyone when she had finished opening her presents.
“Agreed,” I said, looking at the pretty charm bracelet the guys got me. Each charm was related to the boys in some way.
It wasn’t just the presents that made me feel like crying. It was this moment, this feeling of belonging, that made it so special. And there were already promises and ideas being tossed out for next year too.
I didn’t want this to end. I just wanted to hold on to it forever.