Chapter 35 Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses #2
Aria looks just the same as always. Her long brown waves of hair are spilling out from underneath her wool cap, and her green eyes are sparkling.
She rubs her nose, right over the dark freckles, and looks every inch the cheerful, harmony-needing person I’ve known half my life.
Gwen, on the other hand, looks like a cat who’s just been shot in the face with a water gun, and Wyatt is as gray as a shriveled mushroom.
“Aria!” William pushes back his stool while Aria is putting the pudding down on the table and takes her into his arms. “How wonderful to see you!”
“Thanks, William.” The cold has left red splotches on her face, which reach all the way up to her high cheekbones.
“It’s good to see you, too. How wonderful to see all of you together so happily.
” She says it brightly, no trace of mockery in her voice whatsoever, but all the while she’s looking at Wyatt and Gwen, and, to be honest, her smile’s got something psycho about it.
Kate seems overwhelmed. She can tell that things are tense, and I think she heard about the two of them breaking up, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know anything about Gwen.
She pushes the cranberry sauce next to the mashed potatoes and then back between the turkey as if she couldn’t make up her mind and says, “Yes, wonderful. Have a seat.”
Aria sits down next to her mother, across from Paisley. Half a table and all of America lie in between Wyatt and her, but, God, it is so obvious that that’s not enough. Aria can make all the effort she wants, but she is smoldering.
Dad is the first to raise his champagne glass, and the others all follow his lead. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and we all repeat it in unison and take a sip. Wyatt almost downs his entire glass, Camila does her usual, and Aria appears strangely content.
She looks at Paisley. “You must be the new figure skater. Mom told me about you.”
Paisley serves herself some turkey and smiles. “Yeah. Thanks again for letting me stay in your room. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch the marten.”
“And I had such high hopes for you!” Aria says.
“She’s my girlfriend,” I say, annoyed that she’s only been introduced as a figure skater. Now I’m the one everyone’s staring at. I clear my throat, take the beets from William who’s filled his entire plate with them, and say, “Paisley and I, yeah, well, so, we’re together.”
Camila chokes on her garlic bread. Kate begins to beam so intensely it’s like she’ll turn into the sun.
For a second, Wyatt forgets that Aria’s here and slaps my back, Ruth squeaks, and William jumps up from his chair.
It falls over, everyone laughs, and I feel like my relationship status has become the sensation of the century.
Paisley looks almost pleadingly in William’s direction as he picks up his chair and sits back down. “Please do not post that on @Apsen, Will. Please.”
“Of course not,” he mumbles. “I only publish interesting things on @Apsen. Information regarding the new gully in town, for example, or Woody’s new rain gutters.” He winks at Paisley from across the table, and Paisley is visibly relieved. She smiles.
Aria reaches for the gravy and in the process grazes Wyatt’s hand as he reaches for the beans. He pulls back so quickly that he inadvertently hits Camila in the face. His sister closes her eyes and flares her nostrils. She’s probably counting to ten so as not to lose her mind.
Aria acts as if she hasn’t noticed a thing. “I’m happy to see you’ve given your bad-boy image a rest, Knox. It never really fit you.”
“Oh, I think he did a pretty good job,” Ruth says.
She’s wearing a blue scarf, but it doesn’t really cover her wrinkles, which seem to have doubled over the last few months.
All the same, her similarity to her daughter is unmistakable.
They have the same eyes. Ruth smiles at me.
“But next to Paisley, I like you even more. Just don’t mess it up. ”
I roll my eyes. “Why does everyone assume that I’m going to mess it up?”
“Because it’s in your blood,” Wyatt says. “It’s a chronic thing with you.” He says that in his usual Wyatt tone, that casual-funny tone that gets him every woman he meets.
My eyes drift over to Aria. She’s looking at her plate and cutting her turkey but doesn’t seem to have noticed that her knife’s been scraping the plate for quite a while.
Ruth lays a hand on her arm, subtly and discreetly.
Aria’s hands are trembling as she puts her silverware down. Then they disappear beneath the table.
“How’s Brown?” my father asks, and Aria immediately picks up the thread, as if he’d tossed her a lifeline.
I can see the relief shoot through her body.
“It’s wonderful. Really. I love the people there.
” She casts Wyatt a brief glance. “And with the exception of Mom and the mountains, I don’t miss a thing, really, not a thing. ”
Wyatt’s Adam’s apple jerks up and down. He just stares at his plate and grinds his teeth.
His sister is looking at him, then Aria, then back to him before clicking her tongue. “We got it, Aria, all right? He understands how happy you are without him. You knew that he would be here, and you knew that he fucked Gwen. Deal with it.”
My Dad curses. “Camila!”
But she just grunts, shrugs, and empties her champagne in one go. The legs of Gwen’s chair scrape across the floor as she pushes it backward and disappears through the door behind the counter. Paisley gives my arm a brief squeeze then follows.
Kate looks shocked. Her beets fall off her fork.
She’s sitting stock-still in her chair and staring at Wyatt, who is tensed up next to me, holding onto the tablecloth with all his might.
He wants to go, I know that much. He wants to go, but he’s holding back because he doesn’t want Camila to end up sitting around with him alone on Christmas Eve.
He’s putting up with this for his sister, and I can feel that it’s tearing him apart.
The mood is awful. Gwen and Paisley haven’t come back, no one’s speaking, suddenly the Christmas music sounds like a funeral march, and William alone is humming along as if he were walking with the bees in a field of sunflowers on a hot summer’s day with his soul at ease and a pot of honey in his arms.
For the rest of the evening I count the number of glances that Aria and Wyatt exchange.
Obvious glances: zero.
Secret glances: the number is too high, the champagne too good, and, at some point, I simply can’t count anymore.
The next morning I’m woken up by something scratching my nose. I need three tries before I manage to open my eyes. A green ribbon finds its way into my nostril: Paisley’s dangling a little present in front of my nose. I look at the clock. Seven. Her eyes are glowing.
“Merry Christmas.”
I rub my eyes, sit up, and lean back against the head of the bed. It’s too early. I’m still out of order.
“What’s that?” My voice is sleepy and hoarse.
Paisley rolls her eyes. “Yeah, hmm, what is it, Knox? Looks like a giant shrimp, don’t you think? But I’m not sure. It’s really so hard to figure out.”
I laugh, ruffle her blond hair, and take the package. It is big and heavy. I shake it, but it doesn’t make any sound.
Paisley impatiently waves her hands. “Open it already!”
To annoy her, I take my time. I look at the paper and amusedly note that Paisley is terrible at wrapping gifts. She patched the paper together in all sorts of places and used a hundred thousand strips of Scotch tape.
She punches my shoulder. “Come on! Do it already!”
I laugh, then tear open the paper. It’s a brown leather shoulder bag. Exactly the kind I wanted to buy myself.
“Now you’ve got to accept your offer to study,” Paisley says, bobbing up and down next to me in bed. She is so ridiculously happy about her present that I can’t do anything but pull her toward me and bury my nose in her flowery smelling hair. “Do you like it?”
“Just as much as I like you.” I can feel her smile against my cheek.
“I’ve got something for you as well.” I softly push her to the side, get out of bed, and dig around in my desk drawer until I find the two little packages.
“Here.” I clear my throat, and start to feel warm, as I’ve never given any woman other than my mom a gift.
Paisley looks so excited that I have to wonder when the last time she got Christmas gifts was.
In the first is a photo of the two of us that she took with my phone to show me how a story works on Instagram. I saved it, had it printed, and then framed for her. It’s just a photo, but Paisley clutches it to her chest and looks so happy that I almost believe it’s more than that.
“Thank you,” she says warmly.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other and notice my heart is beginning to race. “Open the next one.”
She dampens her lips with the tip of her tongue while her fingers strip the paper from the second packet in careful, excited movements and lift the lid of the small box.
Jackpot. Any moment now and Paisley’s eyes are going to fall out of their sockets.
Every kind of emotion and delight crosses her face as she takes the silver charm bracelet out of the velvet cushion and looks intently at the small pendants.
A pair of ice skates, some mountains, a heart, and a little bird. She takes it in her hand.
“Wyatt once told me that birds still sing even when they’re sad. That’s why there’s the little bird there. You remind me of one because you’re so strong.”
Paisley wraps herself around my neck. She kisses me, and at that moment, I know I want to experience another hundred such moments with her, another hundred Christmases when I can make her happy.
We spend the rest of the day with my dad and a few board games in front of the fireplace. Eventually my dad makes his way to the hot tub and Paisley gets a call from Gwen.
“Hey. Merry Christmas.”
I can hear Gwen’s voice. She sounds excited and is talking a mile a minute. Paisley is frowning. Then she says, “Hold on. I’ll have a look.”
“What’s up?”
“One sec.” Paisley’s jaw is tense while she types away at her phone.
She looks completely panicked, and I can’t bear waiting, so I look over her shoulder.
Her phone opens a website, but our internet is a disaster because of the snowstorm, and it takes ages to load.
Finally, the front page of the USA Today website opens, and there we are, Paisley and I, on the very first post, our hair ruffled, lying on our bed of hay, huge.
Finally Revealed! Knox Winterbottom’s Heart Beats for This Figure Skater!
I look at Paisley.
I take her in my arms.
But it’s too late, she’s already falling.