Chapter 28
NADINE
The rest of December flies by, and soon, it’s Christmas.
The league rotates through teams that play on the holiday, and while the Founders aren’t, they still have practice for their regularly scheduled game.
I drove to Jersey with Paisley for Christmas Eve dinner with my parents and Benedict.
Felix was working, Emmaline jetted off to a beach in the Caribbean with some friends, and Erik stayed home with Molly and Kai, sticking to their normal nightly routine, so it was only the five of us.
But I thought it would be nice for Paisley to hang out for a bit in the house I grew up in.
Again, she and Mom were like two peas in a pod, and my parents even bought her a few gifts.
The same kinds of things they buy every year for their own children: socks, soaps, and gift cards.
My parents are practical gift-givers. Even as a kid, I don’t remember opening a whole lot of toys, but I actually started to look forward to the new pack of colorful pens and silly socks with tacos on them.
After dinner, dessert, and some rounds of Cards Against Humanity, Paisley and I returned to the penthouse late, though Camden waited up for us. We’d left before he returned home from practice, but he greets us now in plaid pajamas with a reindeer on his long-sleeved shirt.
“New tradition,” he declares as he signs then hands each of us a bag. The silent instructions clear. We are supposed to put on the matching pajamas.
Paisley shoots me a look, and I shrug. My man wants a new tradition? He’s going to get a new tradition.
“It’ll be fun,” I sign to Paisley.
“It’s pajamas.”
“That match.”
Camden butts in. “Yeah, and we’re going to take a picture with them. Even Rocky and Balboa. Go on. Get moving.”
Paisley groans but pivots on her heel to change, and I glance over to Camden, who’s grinning with excitement. After so much loss, they both deserve to have joy in their lives. Whenever and wherever they can find it.
Once we’re all dressed in our matching plaid, Paisley and I each take one of the guinea pigs in our arms as Camden sets up his phone. He positions us by the tree, his arms wrapped around both of us, and I decide we’re going to blow it up and frame it when he shows it to me.
All of us together and smiling.
Then Paisley says she’s going to watch a movie in her room, which I suspect is code for texting the boy she likes, but it gives Camden and me an excuse to bring out all the presents we hid from her.
She obviously doesn’t believe in Santa anymore, but Camden refused to put any presents under the tree yet, arguing that it took all the fun out of waking up to them.
Once they’re all placed, we lounge on the sofa together, my head on his chest, his arm around my shoulders.
“We’re going to go to your brother’s place tomorrow for dinner,” he informs me.
“We don’t have any meetings, just practice, and we don’t have to be there until ten.
Plenty of time for cinnamon rolls and presents. But I want to give you this now.”
Then he pulls a jewelry box from his pocket.
I sit up straight with a gasp.
“It’s not a ring,” he says immediately, as if to calm my racing heart. “Not that kind of ring, I mean.”
I gingerly take the box from him as he explains, “I know you like to wear rose gold, so I had this made, but if you don’t like it, I will—”
“Oh, Camden.” I open the box to find a delicate bracelet with tiny diamonds along a curved cuff, almost like a river, with a chain on either side to fasten it. A matching ring accompanies it, and he turns it over so I can read the tiny inscription on the inside, love like a river.
I’d come across a poem a few weeks ago that I shared with Camden, about wishing for love to be like a river, strong and free, finding a love that twisted and turned but always stayed together. I thought it more than appropriate for us, and he loved it too.
A lot, apparently.
I slip the ring on my finger, admiring the tiny glittering diamonds. “I love it.”
“Yeah?”
I kiss him and then ask him to clasp the bracelet on me, so it sits next to the one his sister made. “It’s perfect.”
I hold my hand up, turning it this way and that, the diamonds catching the light. “I feel so bad. All I got you was—”
He clamps his hand over my mouth. “Don’t spoil it.”
“But you gave me this now,” I mumble behind his palm.
“Because it’s the first gift. You can open the rest tomorrow.”
“Camden,” I scold.
“River.”
“I don’t need or want multiple gifts.”
“Until you see them. You might not need them, but you’ll want them.”
Camden is one of the most generous people I’ve ever known, and if he wants to spoil me, he can. He has the means, so I won’t ever say no, but it does make the relationship feel a little lopsided. “Just makes me feel a little silly, knowing what I bought you as a gift.”
He shakes his head, hands molding to my face. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it. Besides…” He kisses my lips. “You are my most treasured gift.”
I thump his hard chest, biting back a laugh, wondering what the world would think if they knew Bad Boy Camden Long was a total simp. “You are so cheesy.”
“Most definitely. Come here.” He pulls me into his lap and then turns on the TV, streaming the original Grinch cartoon, at my request, and after it’s over, he scoops me up to carry me to bed, where we fall asleep cuddled together in our matching pajamas, though his don’t last long.
He wakes up around midnight to strip down to his underwear, saying he’s too hot to sleep, yet he has no problem pulling me on top of him. He swears he sleeps better with my weight next to him, which reinforces that I made the right purchase.
Because he grins when he opens my gift the next morning—a weighted pillow and a pillowcase I had made out of my old Montclair State T-shirt. “It’s for when you can’t sleep or feel anxious on the road.”
He gives the pillow a squeeze, arms around it like it’s me. “It’s perfect.” He even puts the pillowcase on it then tugs me to him for a kiss. “Thank you.”
Among the miles of professionally wrapped paper torn to shreds are the piles of gifts he bought for Paisley and me: purses, jackets, gift certificates for spa days, and best of all, an easel and paint supplies for his sister since she’s recently become interested in painting through the art class she takes.
So now she can do it whenever she wants.
After a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, with a large side of turkey bacon and eggs on Camden’s plate, he heads out for practice, while Paisley and I laze around, doing absolutely nothing.
My parents text me to ask if I’m going to Mass, knowing full well I’m not planning on it, but I’m guilted enough to say a couple of silent prayers and then find homes for my new gifts.
A lot of my belongings have migrated over to Camden’s bedroom, closet, and bathroom, so when I stay here, I don’t need to pack a bag anymore.
Erik might not have noticed, but Molly definitely has since she popped her head into my room at their house last week and raised her eyebrows in silent question at the emptiness of it.
Without saying a word, she understood. Because she merely hugged me and said, “I told you so.”
She did. All that Pride and Prejudice talk. She Jane Austened me.
But then I asked her not to say anything to Erik because Camden and I would tell him after the season, and she easily agreed before helping me pack up a few more of my things.
Now, I’m back at my brother’s house with Camden and Paisley in tow, a few gift bags in hand.
Molly greets us with Kai on her hip, and I immediately take him from her, smothering his cheek with kisses.
Camden leans over my shoulder to coo at him.
“What’s up, little one? You’re getting bigger every time I see you. ”
Kai waves his chubby hands, reaching for him, so I pass my nephew off to Camden, who holds him comfortably, his forearm under Kai’s little bum covered in a onesie.
His other hand spans the baby’s back, and I’m tempted to give in to Camden’s little breeding kink.
Seeing his big form cradling that little body is too adorable for my ovaries to stand.
I know that when the time comes, he’ll be a great dad. Giving and patient, though I’m sure he’ll be soft when it comes to rules. I can already imagine he’ll be the good cop, and I’ll have to be the bad one.
“All right?” Erik asks, slinging his arm around my shoulders, rousing me from my daydream of Camden on the floor next to our baby, a toddler running behind him.
“Yep. Mm-hmm.”
“You were out of it for a second.”
“Yeah.” I force a laugh. “Tired, I guess.”
“Come on.” He tugs me to the dining room. “Dinner’s ready.”
With so few of us, Erik and Molly asked their chef to “whip something up.” The supposedly quick meal is filet mignon, grilled shrimp and vegetables, along with salad and mashed sweet potatoes.
We all dig in, Molly, Paisley, and me on one side with Erik, Camden, and Kai in his high chair on the other, having a grand time mushing the potatoes against his tray.
The boys talk shop while we chat about the cat Molly’s trying to talk Erik into adopting and how Paisley and I have given in to Camden’s whims to call the guinea pigs Rocky and Balboa.
But since Molly isn’t as fluent in ASL as everyone else, I translate for the both of them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Camden must spot the bracelet and ring he gifted me on my hand while I sign because he offers me a sweet, shy smile, turning to watch me for a moment before going back to his conversation with my brother.
But I should have known Erik would clock it, and after we exchange gifts—mostly presents for Kai to open, ripping at the tissue paper, smacking his hands on the little light-up keyboard—he corners me, hands on his hips.
“What’s going on with you and Cam?”
“What?”
He tips his head back toward the living room, where his best friend—my boyfriend—is seated between Paisley and Molly, flying Kai above his head. “Is something going on between you two? Are you sleeping with him?”
I don’t like the accusatory tone in his voice, or the fact that he says “sleeping with” like it’s “murdering people.”
I roll my eyes, pushing his shoulder away, so I can brush by him. “Even if my personal life were any of your business, I wouldn’t tell you.”
He catches my wrist. The one with my new bracelet. “But you are my sister. And he is my best friend.”
“Then act like it,” I spit, whipping my head around to him.
“Don’t come at me, asking if I’m sleeping with him as if it’s a mortal sin.
You wanted me to work with him in the first place.
You told me what a good guy he is deep down.
And you know what? You were right. So you can shove this holier-than-thou attitude up your ass.
” I pull away from him, aiming my finger in his direction. “You are not my keeper.”
Then I march back to my boyfriend, my brother’s best friend, and the man I’m head over heels for.