7. Sean
SEVEN
SEAN
The doorbell chimed when I pushed the button, and I glanced down at the plastic container in my hand. This had been a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have come here, or I should have at least called ahead—but then again, it’s not like I had Lizzie’s phone number, and I wasn’t on social media so I couldn’t message her…
Small feet came running toward the door, and Lizzie’s daughter, Hazel, flung it open. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” assaulted my ears, blasting from speakers somewhere deep inside the home. The scent of warm spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves—floated through the doorway. It was like getting slapped in the face by one of Santa’s elves.
I hated every second of it.
The little girl in the doorway blinked at me with her mother’s dark-brown eyes and yelled, “Mom! There’s a man at the door! He’s here with Mikey.”
“What? Who?” Lizzie’s voice called out from the far end of the hallway.
“Mikey! From yesterday!”
A second later, Lizzie appeared, silhouetted against the patio doors at the other end of the house. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel, her brows jumping when she spotted me. “Sean?”
She was dressed in a cream sweater. In the middle of her chest was a felt appliqué of a reindeer featuring a flashing red light on the nose. On her head, a big red bow held her ponytail up. Her legs were clad in jeans, but on her feet, slippers designed to look like Santa’s boots completed the look. It looked like Santa Claus had stopped by and thrown up all over her.
Ridiculous. And adorable.
I despised the holidays, but the sight of her dressed like that made me want to smile.
“Sorry to come over unannounced,” I said, lifting the container in my hands. “I got your address from your mom. Figured you were owed from last night.”
Her hips swayed as she came down the hall, her hand moving to caress Hazel’s head as she reached us. “Owed? What do you mean?”
“Here.” I extended my arm and gave her the container.
Lizzie frowned at it, then at me. She grabbed the plastic tub from my hand and cracked it open, and emotion flashed across her features almost too fast for me to read. Surprise, or maybe shock. A jolt of delight. Then her expression shuttered and something that looked like embarrassment. I had the horrible feeling I’d just made a terrible mistake.
“You…you brought me stuffing?”
“We had another Thanksgiving meal at my aunt’s house today. Hamish’s stuffing isn’t as good as yours was, but I figured it might scratch the itch if you were still wanting some.”
The look on Lizzie’s face the day before had been like a punch in the solar plexus. I was so used to seeing her smiling that the raw emotion she’d shown when she saw that none of us had saved her the one thing she’d asked for…
I’d been ashamed. And just like the moment I’d seen her standing at the window with tenderness all over her features, it had made me sit up and take notice.
Lizzie had always been Aaron and Kyle’s little sister. She tagged along whenever we let her as kids and mostly left us alone when we grew into teenagers. I hadn’t paid much attention to her, other than to think she was a nice girl who wasn’t really all that interesting.
But I was interested now. Not—not like that . Aaron was my oldest friend, and I couldn’t date his little sister. But between her unabashed positivity in the pharmacy and what happened on Thanksgiving at her family’s house, I was beginning to wonder if there was more to her than I’d previously thought.
She worked so hard for her family, and none of them seemed to notice it.
But I’d noticed.
Her throat bobbed. “This…” Her smile was shy, her red cheeks growing even redder. The dimple in her left cheek made an appearance. Had she always been this cute? “You didn’t have to do this.”
“We should have saved you some when you asked,” I admitted.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Hazel, evidently, was bored of our conversation. She looked at my son and asked, “Do you want to help us decorate our Christmas tree?”
Mikey, who’d been standing patiently beside me, glanced over with raised brows. I looked at Lizzie, whose face melted into one of those familiar sunny smiles. A real one. Both dimples on display.
“We put up our decorations the day after Thanksgiving,” she explained. “Family tradition.”
My instinctive refusal was on the tip of my lips. I wasn’t a Christmas person. The next month and a half was something to be endured, not celebrated. Until life went back to normal in the first or second week of January, I’d have to wear a mask and pretend I didn’t feel dead inside.
But Mikey had straightened beside me, and I could see him glancing curiously around Lizzie’s hip.
“I just made my first batch of Christmas cookies,” Lizzie added, grinning at Mikey. “I might need another taste tester.”
My son’s head whipped toward me, and there was nothing I could do but nod. How could I refuse the bald hope in his eyes? I wasn’t a monster. He and Hazel were off like a shot down the hallway, and my gaze was once again drawn to Lizzie. She wore that soft smile again, the container of stuffing clasped in both her hands. She turned and caught me staring, blinked, and stepped aside.
She closed the door behind me and gestured down the hallway, where Mariah had ceded to Frank Sinatra on the stereo. I shoved aside the discomfort at hearing the holiday tunes, choosing instead to glance around the room.
Lizzie’s house was on the older side, with a kitchen that looked like an original from the nineties. The wood cabinets had that distinctive orange tinge, combined with brushed brass hardware and an off-white tile floor.
The kitchen opened onto a living room that was dominated by a brick fireplace. On the wall, pictures of her kids as babies were mixed in with beautiful photos of local landscapes. The mantel was strung with a green garland that twinkled with lights, and three stockings embroidered with Hazel, Zach, and Mom hung from hooks over the fireplace. The couch was dotted with holiday-themed throw pillows. Even the curtains screamed Christmas, with red fabric dotted with a snowflake pattern.
And in the corner of the room, an artificial Christmas tree had been put together and strung with glowing golden lights.
It was the exact opposite of my home, where Christmas didn’t make it past the front door. Mikey went to his mother’s house for that, and it was exactly the way I liked it.
My throat tightened as I watched Mikey accept a box of red Christmas ornaments from Zach. He plucked one of them from its plastic casing and considered the tree before choosing a branch on which to hang it. Zach gave him an approving nod, and Mikey grinned.
When Melody and I had divorced, the custody arrangement had been fairly easy to work out. She wanted time to pursue her career, and I wanted my son. When it came to holidays, she knew exactly how I felt about them, and I was more than happy to let her have Christmas with Mikey in perpetuity.
Now, as I watched his smile widen as he helped the other kids decorate the tree, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. I hated Christmas, but he didn’t. Every time Melody came to pick him up for the holiday, it was a relief to have a week or two to myself. I didn’t decorate our home, and I didn’t cultivate traditions the way Lizzie seemed to. I’d get Mikey gifts, but that was the extent of it.
I’d never thought that I’d been missing out. Never considered that I might be depriving my son of something. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Lizzie dropped her dishtowel on the oven rail and pulled me out of my rumination by offering me a drink.
“Water’d be nice,” I said, watching the way her jeans hugged the curve of her hips. She was short and curvy, and I found I liked watching the way she moved. There was something sensual about the way she shifted her weight, how she leaned over. Her dark hair caught the light, that big bow setting off the chestnut tones streaking through the darker brown, a few strands curling against her neck.
There was something innately feminine about her, in the curves of her body, the fullness of her cheeks, the plumpness of her lips. I wanted to feel all that softness pressed against me. I wanted to?—
I blinked and looked away. She was completely off-limits. Aaron would kill me if I got involved with his baby sister, and then where would that leave the support system I was hoping to build? The whole reason I’d moved back to Heart’s Cove with Mikey was to be around people who knew and cared about us. I needed help . I needed to build a better life for myself and my son. Lusting after Lizzie would ruin all of that.
I watched her open up the container of stuffing and, with her face in profile, was able to glimpse the edge of a secret smile. My chest warmed as she glanced over at me, brows raised.
“Do you mind?”
“Brought it here for you to have,” I told her.
She bit her bottom lip, scooped out a portion and placed it in a bowl, then warmed it in the microwave. Her first bite made her hips wiggle from side to side as her shoulders dropped and a soft groan escaped her throat. “That’s good,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied, caught up in the sight of her. In the small, pleasure-filled movement of her hips. The flush warming her cheeks. The sparkle in her deep brown eyes.
“Mom!” Zach called out. “I can’t get the hook on the rocking horse ornament.”
“Bring it over,” she answered, and handed me my glass of water. Her smile was a little wry when she said, “I’ve been collecting Christmas ornaments since I moved out of my parents’ house. Some of them require constant repairs.”
When Zach deposited a small brown rocking horse into her hands, I watched her tease the metal hook into the tiny loop on the horse’s back. She’d painted her fingernails a deep shade of red at some point, and they reflected the light as she worked. A few seconds later, a tiny toy rocking horse dangled from an ornament hook, and Lizzie beamed at her son.
His own face was alight with joy, and it felt like another punch in the chest. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up Christmases with Mikey.
“Feel free to join in,” Lizzie said, gesturing to the tree as the kids buzzed around it.
I shook my head. “They seem to be doing a good job on their own.”
“I want to put my one on now!” Hazel called out, digging through a big brown box with the word “Christmas” written in Sharpie on the side. She pulled out a smaller box. With careful hands, she opened it up and pulled out a pearlescent ornament with pink embellishments all around it. Hazel walked toward us, holding the bauble like it was a baby bird. “Mom, look. Can I put it on the tree?”
“Of course, honey,” Lizzie said.
Hazel looked at me and smiled proudly. “Mom bought this when I was born, and I’m the only one who gets to hang it on the tree every year. Zach has one too.”
“That’s pretty special,” I told her through a tight throat.
Mikey watched avidly as Hazel showed off her glass globe, the three kids going quiet as Hazel hung it. She turned to her brother and gave him that same megawatt smile her mother had. “Your turn!”
“You must think this is all very silly,” Lizzie said, eyes on her kids. Tearing her gaze away, she met my eyes. “I know I go overboard with the traditions this time of year.”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” I replied, and it surprised me to realize I was telling the truth. In fact, watching the reverence with which Zach and Hazel handled their birth-year ornaments made me feel like I’d failed as a father.
I had my excuses, of course. I had all those years of memories pressing down on me. All the drunken fights my dad picked with my mom. The anxiety of the weeks leading up to the holiday, wondering what mood he’d be in on the day. And then there was what happened after, when Dad was gone and Mom was sick. Every year, the anniversary of her death came around, and it never seemed to get much easier.
Then there was Melody. The years where things had seemed to heal me, only to have the rug ripped out from under my feet.
When Mikey was born, I’d vowed to be a better parent to him than my father had been to me. And I’d thought I’d succeeded. I couldn’t give him Christmas traditions, but I could give him stability and a shoulder to lean on.
But now…
“Here,” Lizzie said, placing a few star-shaped sugar cookies on a plate for me. Half of them had been sprinkled with red sugar crystals, the other half with green. “They’re still warm.”
They were delicious. I was on my second cookie when I turned to Lizzie and said, “I’m impressed you manage to do all this on your own. I haven’t been able to think of holiday traditions, let alone put anything like this together for Mikey.”
Lizzie waved a hand. “This stuff comes easily to me.” She plucked a green sprinkle-covered cookie from the plate and bit off one of the star’s points. I watched as her tongue darted out to pick up a sprinkle from the corner of her lip, tightness beginning to pull at my lower stomach. Had she always been this pretty? How had I never noticed?
Even in that ridiculous Christmas sweater featuring Rudolph with a light-up LED nose, she managed to make my mouth water.
What would life be like with a woman like Lizzie by my side? Someone who cherished her children instead of seeing them as a roadblock to the life she wanted? Someone who put effort into the thousand little things that truly mattered. Someone who reminded me that life could be enjoyed in all the tiny little moments and traditions that I’d let lapse. Someone to lean on.
And, I thought, watching her lean a hip against the counter, someone I could unwrap like my very own Christmas present every single night from now until old age dragged me six feet under.
I cleared my throat. “I should probably get going.”
“Oh.” Lizzie put the cookie down and wiped her lips. “Sure. And in exchange for being so thoughtful, I think I really should set you up with a friend of mine. My mom was a little over-the-top about it yesterday, but I do have a bit of a knack for figuring out who will click. And everyone deserves a New Year’s kiss.”
At that moment, the only person I wanted to kiss was Lizzie, so maybe she didn’t have as much of a knack as she thought.
But, I reminded myself for what felt like the millionth time, Lizzie was my oldest friend’s little sister. If there was one person in this town I couldn’t get involved with, it was her. So as much as I wanted to let her sprinkle some of that red and green sugar over her lips so I could lick it off myself, I knew that I needed to pull myself together and remember why I was here.
A support system. A community. A better life for my son.
So all I said was, “Maybe, but I’m out of practice with dating. Might be a harder match to make than you expect.”
Her smile widened. “I’m not one to back down from a challenge,” she told me. “Describe your perfect woman.”
“I’ll know her when I see her,” I said, and it sounded like a vow.
She pursed her lips. “Not helpful, Mr. Hardy. Let’s see.” She tapped her chin. “You look like you still enjoy fitness. Is that true?”
She thought I looked fit? Through sheer force of will, I didn’t let my chest puff out with pride. “I do,” I told her.
“Outdoor activities?”
“I like the odd hike in the summertime. Haven’t been snowboarding in years, though.”
“Someone to make you enjoy the sweeter side of life.”
“Yeah,” I replied, gaze dropping to a sugar crystal on the corner of Lizzie’s lips that her tongue had failed to lick up. “That sounds good.”
“Leave it with me,” Lizzie told me, eyes sparkling with mischief. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I left the warmth and light and comfort of Lizzie’s presence and took my son back to the unpacked boxes and unfamiliar rooms of our new home, and I tried to stop myself from thinking of the one woman I wasn’t allowed to have.