49. Im Now the Kind of Guy Who Has a Favorite Knuckle
”Hey.”I lean in to give Lily a quick kiss when she gets to the base of the stairs. ”Dad pulled me out to his workshop to help him finish a project. He made a new rocking chair for the senior center.”
”That”s so sweet. Both of your parents are.”
They are, but since I grew up with it, it just seems normal to me. They always taught me and Barrie that it”s our obligation to help the people who have less than we do. Growing up, that meant volunteering over the holidays and during the summer. Now that I have a lot more money than time, it means donating. Except on Christmas. This is one of the things I love doing every year when I come home for my break.
”So, does this mean you have a hidden talent as a woodworker?” she asks.
I laugh. ”Hardly. Dad started it as a hobby a few years ago, but he”s gotten pretty good. So every year he makes something new for the center.”
”No, I”m asking if you have a hidden talent as a woodworker.”
Maybe it”s jet lag, but I”m pretty sure that”s the same question she just asked. ”No. Just Dad. I wouldn”t know the difference between a table saw and a… some other kind of saw that isn”t on a table.”
”Oh my god!” She tosses her hands up. ”I was trying to set you up, but it”s like you”re the globe and that joke is Ferdinand Magellan. It just sailed right over you.”
I stare at her for a minute before I get what she”s talking about. ”Sorry. But if I remember my high school history, Magellan and his crew were pretty evil. Maybe it”s good he sailed right over me.”
”You”re lucky I”m shallow and only love you for your looks.” She gives me a proper kiss that makes me wish we weren”t in the middle of my parents” house about to head to the senior center. Maybe they could go without us this year while we stay behind. ”Oh no!” Lily gasps and pulls away so hard she collides with the wall on the opposite side of the hall. Her face is as red as mine after a practice full of shuttle runs.
”What? Did you realize that I am pretty smart, after all?” Instead of laughing, she breathes so fast, I worry she”s going to pass out. ”What is it? What happened?” I rest my hands on her shoulders, hoping the contact will calm her and let her know that whatever this is, it”s fine.
”I didn”t mean that. I mean, I did mean it, but I didn”t mean to say it. And oh no, you”re going to leave now, aren”t you? Let”s pretend I didn”t say it, okay? Please Brant? Just pretend I didn”t. Can you please do that?”
Her breaths are somehow even faster, and I feel her heartbeat racing under my palms. Whatever happened, I need to calm her down. ”Lily?” I kiss the tip of her nose. ”Lily?” I ask again, more insistently, and I kiss her again. Doing the same for each breath she takes. ”I”m right here. You”re safe. You don”t have to talk. Just know that I”m here.” But then it smacks me. Apparently, jokes aren”t the only thing going over my head today.
I didn”t even realize what she”d said because I”ve gotten so used to thinking the word. I love her, and I know she feels the same. It”s such a given that I don”t need to hear it. Such a given that I don”t think it”s unusual when she finally says it for the first time.
”Lily, look at me.” Her dark eyes are pinched closed, but she opens them slowly, like she”s afraid of what might be on the other side of her eyelids. Even in the middle of a freakout, it”s the cutest thing I”ve ever seen. ”I love you too. You know that. You can say the word. I”m not going anywhere.”
She shakes her head so hard her loose hair flies from side to side. ”I lose everyone I love.”
”Not me. Not Em.”
”Not yet.”
I put my hands on her sides of her face to hold her still and force her to look at me. I need her to look me in the eye right now. ”Not ever. You”re never losing me.” I emphasize each word as I say them slowly, hoping she”ll believe them. ”I”m not like Tyler. I”m not like any of those fuckers in your life who didn”t really care about you. I”m here as long as you want me to be. Promise.”
”My dad promised he”d always be here too.” She sounds as broken as the day I found her at home on his birthday.
”How do you know he”s not? I didn”t get to meet him, but I know if there”s any way at all, he”s still right here. And that means he just heard you say that you love me.” I lean in so my lips are at her ear. ”And that means I need to be really quiet when I tell you the things I want to do to you when we get back home. I do not want your dad to overhear those.”
Someone clears their throat behind me. ”Your sister doesn”t want to hear those either, so kindly keep them to yourself.”
”Maybe my sister should kindly not sneak up on people.” I turn and glare at her. This trip is my chance to get things back to the way they used to be between us, and I know I should be the bigger person. But it”s so difficult when all the hurt she caused just comes right back up when I hear her voice. Even if she was completely right about everything.
”Whatever. Mom sent me to get Lily and Chloe. She didn”t say anything about you, so you”re not my concern.” She turns away, disappearing through the entrance to the kitchen.
Barrie was never like this growing up. Was I really that awful to her?
I face Lily again. ”Sorry about her. Do you need more time? Do you even feel like going now?”
”Honestly, I think I need a distraction, so yeah.”
I nod. ”I”ll go get Chloe. She”s probably still trying to decide which lipstick to wear.”
”Earrings,” Lily says. ”When I last looked, she was deciding between earrings.” I start up the stairs, but Lily reaches for my hand and doesn”t let me leave. ”I meant that, by the way. Don’t think I didn”t. Even if I don”t want to say it again just yet.”
”I know. It was so fucking great to hear those words, but it felt just as great to say them. And you need to hear them over and over. So I”m going to say it so often you”ll be sick of hearing it.”
She laughs. ”I doubt that ever happens.”
”Challenge accepted.” I pull her hand to my lips, and as I kiss it, I realize I”m now the kind of guy who has a favorite knuckle. The knuckle of her left middle finger fits perfectly between my lips. I give it the tiniest nibble as I finish kissing it. When she lets go of my hand, I jog up the steps to find Chloe.
Upstairs, I have to convince Chloe that her hair is fine, that the reindeer earrings are cute but not too childish, and that her eyeliner is eyelinery enough, or something. When she starts rambling about cats and eyes with wings, though, I”m lost. So I just agree with everything she says after that. But finally, I get her to come downstairs with me. When I do, Lily is already in the kitchen with Mom, Dad, and Barrie.
”Before we go,” Mom announces, ”we do have some gifts to exchange.”
Lily”s eyes fly to me, and she looks like she would kill me if there weren”t four witnesses. I”ve spent the last two weeks convincing her that she doesn”t need to buy gifts for my family. Once I was drafted, we stopped buying them. Growing up, there were some years when we really struggled. Those were the years when Christmas gifts meant the most to all of us, the givers and the receivers. But we”re all financially secure now, and Barrie and I are flat-out rich. Christmas now is about being together and celebrating the people we love, not buying things for each other.
I hold my hands up, palms out. ”Don”t get that look. It”s not what you think.”
”What I think, is someone told me not to buy anything for his family.” She”s snarling, and fuck if I don”t love the way she snarls. ”His exact words were, ”oh we don”t do that, so it would be awkward if you brought anything.” But here I am feeling extremely awkward. Thanks for that Brant.”
”My brother is a jackass who deserves to feel like shit about a lot of things, but I do have to defend him on this,” Barrie says. ”We really don”t do gifts. Mom, maybe you should have phrased that a little better?” She calls out to Mom who disappeared into the pantry.
When she comes out, I smile. ”What was that, dear? I didn”t hear you. Anyway, Lily and Chloe, these are for you.” She”s holding up two of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen. It”s perfect.
”Oh, that”s lovely.” Lily stammers. ”They both are. And they”re in the colors of the Salt Lake City Sting. That”s… wonderful. Do you, uh, want us to wear these now, or are they for back home?” She looks desperate for someone to help her out and say how truly ugly these things are, but none of us says a word. That would be letting her off too easy.
”Even better,” Mom says, ”they have the mascot on them.” She points to the knotted mess of yellow and black yarn that is supposed to be the bee we wear on our home jerseys. I guess I can see it, when I know what to look for.
Lily taps Chloe”s arm. ”Look, it is the mascot. I can”t believe I didn”t recognize that at first. So lifelike, right?”
”Can I have the one where the bee is wearing the Santa hat?” Chloe asks, completely unfazed by just how hideous these sweaters are.
Mom hands it to her. ”Absolutely, my dear. And that means you get to wear this one. Well, don”t just stand there, girls. Put them on and let”s see what they look like.”
Lily holds her sweater out in front of her to get a better look. ”I love it, Mrs. Morrison. Thank you. I can”t wait to put it on. Chloe? Say thank you for these… truly spectacular sweaters.”
”Thank you. We can wear these to the senior center, right?”
”Of course,” Mom answers.
”Sweet.”
”Wait.” I stop them before they go to the living room to change. ”You”ll want these underneath. Sometimes Mom”s special sweaters can get a little itchy.”
Lily narrows her eyes as I hand her a black shirt like the rest of us are wearing. ”You just happened to have these? You knew about this,” she accuses.
I raise my shoulders. ”Or I was a Scout. Always prepared.”
She squints even more. ”You were never a Scout.”
”Maybe I should have been.”
”Yeah.” She drags the word out and gives me a look that tells me I”m not getting off the hook for this for a while.
Once she and Chloe go around the corner to change, I turn to the rest of my family. They”re all smiling, even Barrie. I put my finger over my lips to keep them quiet as we go to the pantry for our own sweaters. It”s not long after we have ours on that Lily and Chloe come back into the kitchen. They stop as soon as they see us.
”I may have forgotten to mention that we would all be wearing matching sweaters. Oops.” Mom smiles. The two girls look around the room. Each of us is wearing black and yellow sweaters, and we all have some form of the bee mascot on our chests.
”And Mom didn”t make these.” I add. ”There”s a client at the senior center whose claim to fame is knitting the ugliest sweaters possible. She literally has half a million followers on Instagram. We have her make us a new ugly Sting sweater every time someone new comes into the family.”
”The last time we gave out a new one was to the person who I won”t name. She refused to wear it. I”m surprised the bitch didn”t burn it right there in the living room.”
”Barrie!” Mom scolds her.
”She threw it away at the airport,” I say. ”She refused to even board the plane with it in her bag.”
”Bitch,” Barrie mutters under her breath. I”m sure Mom can hear her, but she doesn”t say anything.
Lily looks around the room. ”So it”s okay to not like this?”
”Oh yeah,” Dad says. ”We would think there”s something wrong with you if you did like them.”
Lily and I look at Chloe. ”What?” she asks. ”I just liked it ironically.”
”Mm-hmm,” Lily and I respond at the same time.
”This makes me like you guys even more,” Lily says. ”And I already thought you were pretty great.”
Mom hugs her, and the only thing that surprises me about that is that she was able to hold off this long. ”We think the same about you.” I watch Barrie as Mom says it. She”s focused on their hug, but her eyes flick to me for an instant.
”And while we”re all gathered here,” I say, ”I think this is the perfect time to announce that I love this woman.” I try not to laugh at the different shades of red that spread over Lily”s face, but I can”t help it. ”I told her I would say it so much that she would get sick of hearing it, so I might as well start now. I love you, Lily.” It looks like she wishes she could telekinetically fire the knives from the knife block into my chest. But I think I”m pretty safe, so I give her a teasing wink.
Mom and Dad look at each other with grins that might be wider than when my team won the under-seventeen hockey championship. ”We should probably get going. The center is expecting us at two.”
We all pull on our coats and take a container full of cookies as we head out the backdoor. Dad and I loaded the rocking chair into the back of his van earlier, so that means I”ll have to drive Lily, Chloe, and Barrie in Mom”s car.
It doesn”t take long to get there. Chloe and Barrie ride in the back and spend the entire time discussing something about clothes. I knew I probably wouldn”t understand whatever it was, so I didn”t even pay attention. Besides, I have something else to do. Every time we stop at a red light, I turn to Lily and tell her I love her. And every time, she acts more and more irritated with me. Unfortunately for her, I know when something is really bothering her, and this isn”t. So that means I get to keep it up until we get to the senior center.
When we come to a stop, she makes a show of throwing her door open to hurry and get away from me, but before she gets out, she leans across the center console. Her lips brush my cheek for just a second. ”You know I want to say it back, right?” I nod. ”Good.” I watch her as she gets out and goes over to help Mom with the cookies.
”What”s that about?” Barrie asks from the backseat. It makes me jump. I was so focused on Lily that I thought everyone else was out of the car too.
”What”s what about?” I sigh.
”What Lily just said.”
I turn to look at her, and I expect the annoyed, judgmental face I”ve had to get used to over the last few years, but she looks genuinely curious. ”It”s none of your business.”
”You”re my little brother, so it is my business. It”s my job to make sure you don”t get hurt. Not like you listen to me anyway.”
I want to snap and tell her that it”s not her job. I”m not some little ten-year-old being bullied by the bigger kids at school anymore. I am one of the bigger kids now. But I remember the things she said about Serenity. The warning that Serenity didn”t really care about me and was just using me. I didn”t want to hear it, and… well, I said things I shouldn”t have. Today, we”ve already spoken to each other more than we have in the last two years combined. But Barrie was right, even if it hurt. And I”m tired of fighting, so I give in. ”If you say anything, I will forever replace your shampoo with the kind that made you lose all your hair in high school.”
”You know I won”t,” she says. Her voice is softer than I”ve heard it in years.
I nod. As angry as she”s made me, I”ve never once doubted that she would keep a secret for me if I asked her to. ”I won”t get into specifics, so don”t ask. But Lily is convinced that she loses everyone she loves. She”s scared she”ll lose me if she says the words.”
”Hmm.”
”Hmm? What does that mean?”
”It means we both know you would never do that, but I guess you need to do more to make sure she knows that.”
Fuck, I”ve missed being able to talk to her without me or her or both of us feeling like shit afterward.
”And it means I was wrong.” I quirk an eyebrow but don”t say anything to her. We just look at each other in silence for a moment. ”About Lily, not Serenity. I expected Lily to be just like her. She”s not. Let”s go.” Before I say anything in response, she practically jumps out of the car and takes a load of cookies from Mom.
Inside the senior center, everyone is gathered in the front room. It”s the space they use for community meals and card games that get a lot more rowdy than I”d ever expect from a group of ninety-year-olds. It”s been pretty full in years past, but today, it seems like every older adult in town is here. When I walk in, almost every one of them is gathered in a circle around Lily and Chloe.
”Are these Shirley”s sweaters?”
”They”re even uglier than the last ones!”
”It takes a true artist to make something so repulsive.”
I weasel my way through the crowd—careful not to bump anyone too hard—and put my arms around Lily and Chloe. My chest is tight. I should have come in with them so they wouldn”t be mobbed like this. Well, they still would have been. These people do love to hate these sweaters. But at least I would have been here. Then I notice that neither one of them seems nervous. In fact, they”re laughing about how ugly the sweaters are. I even hear Chloe insist that she refused to wear it at first but finally gave in after we begged her.
”So how do you two know the Morrisons?” someone asks. Lily looks at me and smiles, and I recognize my cue.
”These are my girls, Lily and Chloe.” An aww moves through the crowd. ”This one is the woman I love.” I put my hand on Lily”s head, and I can feel her scalp vibrate from her growl. But if the crowd notices, they don”t care. An even louder aww builds around us.
”That means she”s going to sing, right?” someone else asks.
This is another tradition that I intentionally didn”t mention to Lily. Like the sweaters, I wanted it to be a surprise, but now I think that was a mistake.
”I can”t actually sing,” Lily says. ”I”m sorry.”
”Neither can any of them. That”s the point,” Evelyn says. I”m pretty sure she might be older than the town. She”s been here every Christmas since I was a teenager, and it just wouldn”t feel the same without her.
I ask Chloe to help Mom organize the cookie buffet, and then I wrap both my arms around Lily from behind. ”You don”t have to do anything you don”t want to,” I whisper. ”But she is right. None of us can sing. We each pick a Christmas carol and sing it for them anyway.”
She pulls in a sharp breath. ”Alone?”
”Yeah. There”s always someone here who knows how to play that piano in the corner. They accompany us while we make fools of ourselves.”
”And these people like that?”
”Almost as much as they like the sweaters.”
She shakes her head, and a loose hair tickles my chin. ”That”s so weird”
Maybe, but there”s nothing else I would rather do on Christmas Eve. It”s why I hoped Mom would still insist on doing it this year.
”What song should I sing?”
The crowd has moved over to the cookie table, so we”re alone in this part of the room now. I turn her so she”s facing me. ”Do you want to?”
She nods. ”If you”re serious that it doesn”t matter if I”m good, because I”m very, very bad.” She smiles.
”Do you know that I love you?”
”Still not sick of hearing it. Sorry.”
Good, because I”ll never be sick of saying it. ”Do you know any songs? What about that one? Deck the Halls. You know that.” I might never forget hearing her hum it under her breath when she was obviously trying to do everything she could to avoid checking me out.
”Will that work?”
”As long as they have the sheet music for the piano. Unless Kay”s here. She can improvise to anything.” I glance around the room, but I don”t see her. Every visit there are people I remember from previous years who aren”t here, and I always hope it”s because they”re spending the holidays with family. ”I don”t see her, so let me see if they have the music.”
I flip open the top of the piano bench and search inside until I find it. By the time I close the lid and stand up, there”s a crowd gathered around me. Most of them are holding a cookie in one hand and a plate full of cookies in the other. All of them look like they”re ready to watch people make fools of themselves. Who are we to disappoint them?
I hold the music up and wave it at Lily. She nods and comes to my side. ”You know you don”t have to do this,” I tell her one more time.
”I know. But make sure Chloe really knows that. She might be sensitive about her voice. Lots of us are. While I”m up here embarrassing myself, make sure everyone knows not to pressure her, please.”
”You”re going first?”
She snatches the music from my hand and sets it on the piano. ”Scared I”ll set the bar too high for you, Morrison.” She says it loud, and everyone in the room chuckles.
”You go ahead and set the bar wherever you want, Richards. You”re going down.”
”Promise?” she asks, and I never realized until now that a roomful of seniors could titter the same as a bunch of middle schoolers.
I just shake my head and walk to the back of the room where Chloe is standing with Barrie. I put my arm around Chloe”s shoulders. ”Ready to watch Lily make a fool of herself?”
”Only if I get to see you do it too.”
”You will.”
”Good.” She shoves half a cookie into her mouth and leans into my side.
Lily jokes with the crowd gathered around her for a couple of minutes, but then she motions to the man sitting at the keys. He starts, and after a couple of measures, she joins in.
”She”s not making a fool of herself,” Chloe whispers between bites.
I don”t know if it”s because she”s mine, but I swell with pride. She can fucking sing. And everyone in the room who is used to the awful off-key singing they get from us every year looks amazed. Hell, I”m amazed. How did I not know she could sing? Every once in a while I catch her humming, but it”s just a few lines under her breath. It”s never anything like this.
”Sorry, dickface,” Barrie rests my hand on my back and whispers into the ear opposite Chloe, ”but that woman is way too good for you.”
I nod in absolute agreement.