Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
CALLIE
It’s a good thing I’m wearing rain boots from the mudroom, because I’m standing in front of Piggie’s stall and not paying attention to anything but the way Gavin is looking at me.
His brogue has grown thicker, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s leaning closer.
When he agreed to help knock something off my bucket list, he had to know I meant kissing me, right? It’s either that or help me pet a Highland cow, and he doesn’t have one of those here.
Gavin takes another step closer, knocking my thoughts askew. I can’t focus, and I’m fully aware of how heavily I’m breathing.
“What did you have in mind?” he asks.
Now that we’re here, I’m afraid of rejection. But he couldn’t possibly mean anything else by the way he’s looking at me, right? His eyes are zeroed in like lasers.
I lean back against the stall door. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t hidden my thoughts at all, Gavin.”
He boxes me in, leaning his hands on either side of my head, but he’s yet to touch me. Electricity crackles in the air between us, static and sparking. “If we cross this line, there’s no going back.”
“Are you sure we’ve built enough of an emotional connection?” I tease, though why I’m trying to push him away, I have no idea. No, that’s not true. I don’t want Gavin doing anything he might later view as a mistake.
He shakes his head so slightly I almost miss it. “What would I have done if you’d never come to Scotland?”
The question must be rhetorical, because he dips his head immediately and brushes his lips over mine. It’s the softest touch first. Velvet sliding over velvet. My hands find the wooden door I’m leaning against and my palms press flat against it. Gavin hovers at my lips, his eyes closed.
We’re suspended in time, set apart from the world. Is this why Scotland has a reputation for mythology and fairies? Because I think we’ve been transported to another place. I’m merely breathing Gavin’s air, and I’m drunk on it.
His lips find mine again, pressing longer. Then time speeds. My pulse thrums, heart slamming, blood rushing through my ears. He tilts his head and his hands caress my neck. His fingers are cold, but I don’t care.
Gavin kisses like he does everything else—intentionally, thoughtfully, thoroughly. His soap fills my senses while the taste of icing hits my lips. He’s sweet and passionate, cradling me gently while he pulls me closer with a need I don’t want to fight.
I dig my hands into his coat, losing myself in the moment—his lips over mine, his hands in my hair, his body pressed against me.
When he leans back, I immediately miss him.
“Not yet,” I whisper.
He doesn’t need convincing. He palms my lower back and cups my head, nearly picking me up off the floor in his enthusiasm.
A warm huff of air hits me in the cheek, followed by a wet nudge, and we break apart. Piggie neighs, her earthy breath washing over us again.
“Thanks, Piggie,” I say dryly, wiping my cheek with my sleeve.
Gavin laughs, and I feel the rumble of his chuckle through his chest. “Bloody horse.”
“Jealous, maybe?”
“She does love a fuss.” He scratches her briefly before taking my hand and pulling me away. Elephant is still eating but glances at us briefly when we pass. “I should probably speak to my parents,” he says.
“You might be glad you did.”
“If I’m not?”
I shrug. “You can’t know until you do, I suppose. But it has to be important to you, Gavin. This needs to be your decision.”
He closes the barn door and latches it, then laces his fingers with mine, gently rubbing his thumb along the back of my gloved hand. “I know. I haven’t felt this calm in a long while.”
We start walking toward the house, the moonlight glowing over the white earth and the charming house ahead.
“You sure you don’t want to quit school and move to Scotland?” he asks.
My stomach flips. “It’s not really in the cards for me.”
“Figured.” He squeezes my hand and pulls me around for another kiss, holding my chin lightly with his thumb. When he leans back, he exhales. “What does that make all this, then?”
“A foolish mistake?”
His light blue eyes are trained right on me. “I don’t think so.”
He’s right. I can’t really regret the time we’ve spent together or how close we’ve grown. When I leave, we don’t need to stop being friends, either. “One of the best Christmases I’ve ever had,” I whisper. “Where I made this really cool friend who kisses, like, really good.”
“Better than an American?”
A laugh rips from my throat. “You know what? Yes. I’d say you do.”
“Objectively speaking, Scots kiss better than Americans.”
Not sure there’s anything objective about it if you take the state of my heart into consideration, but I’m not going to share that with him. “We really should have kissed that first night if we wanted a truly objective analysis. Now I like you. Emotions are all involved. It’s messy.”
Gavin looks in my eyes for a beat. “That’s alright. I like messy better, anyway.”
The gingerbread houses are complete and lined up on the table. Classic Christmas music played in the background the entire time we decorated, and now we’re all gathered in front of the table, looking at our masterpieces.
“Shall we vote?” Nessa asks. “I have a feeling I know which will be our winner.”
Of course we’re all going to vote for Violet’s house. She meticulously placed each gumdrop, candy cane, and a handful of things I don’t know the names for. They’re messy, but it’s a beautiful little masterpiece.
“Aye, let’s vote on it,” Hamish says, lifting Violet as she squeals. “All in favor of naming Vi the Gingerbread Queen, say aye.”
“Aye,” comes the chorus from everyone else in the room.
She giggles. “Where’s my crown?”
“I suppose we’ll have to make one tomorrow, hen,” Granny says. “It’s getting late.”
“Far past your bedtime,” Ruby cuts in.
Violet pouts.
“And tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” Hamish says.
This is the magic phrase, of course. She immediately wriggles down and runs for the door, calling out a good night as she goes. Oliver and Poppy are already asleep in their beds, and everyone else breaks up, some beginning to clean up the table as others escape into the living room.
I watch Gavin, but he doesn’t move to follow his parents. He’s a patient man, I’ll give him that.
“You were outside for a while,” Luna says quietly, hip-checking me as she leans across the table to gather bowls of candy.
I ignore the insinuation.
When she returns to put away more candy, she smirks. “Maybe it was a good thing I dragged my feet that morning.”
Of course it was, but I’ll never admit it out loud. “There are too many people in here,” I hiss.
“No one’s listening. Mom’s got the music too loud.”
That’s true. She’s dancing at the sink while she does dishes. Dad’s trying to push her aside, though, and she finally relents. “You’ve been working in here long enough,” he says.
Mom takes a square of chocolate fudge on her way out the door.
I help Luna and Rhys get the table cleared off—except for our lovely gingerbread houses, of course—and wiped down. We clean the counters and put away the caramels, fudge, and cookies Mom and Dad made earlier.
“What do you plan to do with all this?” Nessa asks, surveying the abundance of sugar.
“I’m guessing my mom wants to go caroling tomorrow and give them to the neighbors. Would you want to join us?”
Nessa’s smile grows. “Count me in.”
Gavin walks Nessa and Hamish to the door and hugs them good night. I follow them from the kitchen and sit on the couch next to Mom, enjoying the pop and crackle of the fire while they talk quietly in the vestibule.
She sips at a hot mug of tea someone must have brought her while I was helping clean up. The faint strains of “Santa Baby” filter through the doorway, but Luna’s laughter drowns it out periodically.
“Talk to me, Cal.”
My body sinks into those words. My immediate response is to want to throw up everything I’ve been keeping from my mom over the last year about school and Kayla and my overall malaise with LA, but something deep within me puts up a wall and stops me from making a—potentially—huge mistake.
Mom doesn’t need to worry about me. She lives too far away to make any actual difference, and I don’t need to give her reason to lose sleep over me for the next five years.
Instead, I gesture toward the window. “This is the most picturesque Christmas we could have asked for. Not counting Luna’s wedding, obviously.”
Mom’s quiet for a beat. She must decide not to press the matter, though, because she sips her tea and pretends I didn’t deflect. “That was a wedding. This is Christmas. But we need to put up our stockings. I have them in one of my bags somewhere. Do you know if Gavin has one?”
The mantel is lined with Hamish, Ruby, Violet, and Poppy’s stockings. Once we crowd in the three from my family, and Luna, Rhys, and Oliver’s, there’s hardly going to be room for more.
The hinges creak as Gavin closes the door behind his grandparents. I’m met with an overwhelming urge to make sure he has a stocking hanging in his own house this year, not all the way across town, safely nestled with his granny.
He perches on the sofa’s arm as his dad comes down the stairs.
“Thought I’d make a pot of tea,” Don says.
“There’s already one going,” Mom tells him.
“Brilliant.”
We’re quiet while Don disappears into the kitchen.
“Your grandmother is a delight,” Mom says. “It must be so lovely having her nearby.”
Gavin’s smile grows. The light in his blue eyes twinkles, reflecting the fire as a warm expression takes over him. “She’s one of my favorite people. Forgive Grandad, though. He can be a grump.”
“He helped with her gingerbread house tonight.”
If by helping, Mom meant drinking “tea” that was more whisky than water and telling Alexa when to skip the songs he didn’t like.
“I think I saw him place a sweet on the roof,” Gavin concedes.
Mom sits up, setting her empty cup on the end table. “I was thinking we could plate up all the treats we made today and take them around to some of your friends and neighbors tomorrow. We can sing carols while we do it. How does that sound?”
“Bringing a little Winter family tradition to Scotland, Mom?”
“Trying to,” she says, then looks at Gavin. “Will they find it odd?”
“Not odd.” He glances down at me, and the look in his eyes chases fire down my spine. I can feel his hands on my back and the nape of my neck, his lips trailing a hot path to my ear. A chill spreads over my skin. Is he doing it on purpose?
Judging by his little smirk, he is.
“I can think of a few who will enjoy that,” Gavin says.
“Then there’s Douglas. Will he put up with it?” I ask.
He laughs. “Caroling might just earn you your own set of socks.”
“One can only dream.”
The door to the kitchen opens and Don comes through, tossing us a genial smile as he carries two cups toward the stairs.
Gavin’s laughter fades. “Dad, can I have a word?”
Don pauses on the bottom step. “Eh, what for? I’m taking some tea up to your mum.”
“I’ll come.” He follows his dad up the stairs, his back straight and tall.
He glances at me over his shoulder just before disappearing, his mouth quirking into a soft smile while his eyebrows lift, almost as if he’s saying wish me luck.
My chest squeezes as I watch him go, wishing I could hold his hand and be a support at his side.
Not that he needs it, but because I want to be there for him.
He can stand up for himself. I know this. He deserves this.
Dad pushes through the door with Luna and Rhys just behind him. They pile onto the couch and the chair.
“Okay. Who wants to play a game?” Mom asks.
“As long as it’s not Garbage,” Rhys says. “We’ve probably overdone that one.”
“I’m up for anything,” Luna says, leaning harder against my arm.
I nod. The distraction will be good. “Me too.”
I don’t want this moment to end. Being together with the fire and the tree and the music and the gingerbread has filled my cup to overflowing, but none of that compares to the way Gavin made me feel tonight.
I’m anxious for him to return, to tell me how things went, to know I didn’t give him terrible advice, to know he isn’t going to spiral into a depressive episode.
My phone dings to indicate I have an email, and I scramble to pull it out, anxiously hoping it’s an answer about the Youth Center internship.
Nope, just a sale on Disney earrings at BaubleBar.
Nice, but not what I wanted. Deflated, I slide my phone into my pocket.
“Okay, let’s choose a game.”