Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MADDY
“How could you possibly have burned M&M’s cookies?
That’s, like, our most used recipe of all time.
” Oliver leans against the counter in my kitchen, wearing the glasses no one except our immediate family knows he needs and already wearing the Christmas Eve pajamas Rachel bought for everyone in our extended family and ordered us to wear to her house tonight.
Not to be confused with the Christmas Day pajamas, which are entirely different but also required.
This family holidays extremely seriously.
I drop the baking sheet full of burned, inedible cookies on top of the stove and glance at my brother, giving him a shrug. “The first pancake phenomenon.”
He snickers. “I don’t think you can apply the first pancake phenomenon to a recipe that’s written down with an oven calibrated to the appropriate temperature.
There aren’t enough variables, Mads. Is it possible you got distracted by videos of hockey players and their kids again and forgot to set a timer? ”
I take a fortifying sip of the coffee Cam had delivered to me this morning with cereal, milk, and a note that said You look really pretty in the morning. Then I flip the burned disks into the garbage, grab more parchment paper, and start scooping new batter onto the baking sheet.
“I fucking love those videos. They’re so wholesome.
Like, yes, of course I would love to watch two minutes and forty seconds of a hulking hockey player in all his gear gliding around the ice while cradling his teeny baby daughter or teaching his two-year-old to skate.
Give me one million of them please. Anyway, me burning the first batch of dessert is tradition, Ollie. Keep up.”
I toss a handful of Christmas M&M’s into my mouth and smile, thinking of when I said those same exact words to Cam while we were texting on Thanksgiving and I burned the caramel.
Fuck, I miss him.
The team has a game in St. Louis the day after tomorrow, and Cam’s mom is originally from there, so he left early with her and his kids to spend Christmas with his aunts and uncles, and then he’s going straight from St. Louis to the next away game in Seattle.
I’m skipping this stretch of away games to spend Christmas and New Year’s with my family, so it’ll be over a week until I see him again.
I kind of hoped he would stay around for Christmas so I could drop a casual invite to our Very Rachel Parker Christmas.
It would have been a blast to spend Christmas with Riley and Ethan and to steal a little surreptitious, non-work time with Cam, but I’m here and he’s there and that sucks a little.
So to distract myself, I’m baking cookies. And burning them.
There is something to be said for tradition.
“Set the timer,” Oliver says as I slide the baking sheets into the oven.
“I was going to,” I grumble, mainly because I was not, in fact, going to. “Don’t you have a hockey game to play or something?”
Oliver slides past me, running his finger around the side of the mixing bowl and then sticking the batter in his mouth as he sits back down in his stool at the counter.
“We got the good schedule this year,” he says around a mouthful of cookie dough and M&M’s.
“No games until two days after Christmas.”
Grabbing two spoons out of a drawer, I plop down across from him and set the bowl of cookie dough in between us, taking my own bite. “Fuck, that’s good,” I mumble. “Chocolate chips are for amateurs. M&M’s are where it’s at.”
“Seriously,” he says while grabbing another spoonful. “Thanks for letting me stay here this week, by the way. My building is so creepy and quiet with everyone leaving for the holiday. It’s, like, totally deserted.”
“Afraid The Shining twins will get you in your sleep?” I ask a little wickedly.
“Fuck yeah, I am.” He shudders, and I laugh at his long-standing fear of those creepy twins. All horror movies, really. Oliver may be a hotshot hockey player, but put on a horror movie and ten out of ten times he’s hiding under a blanket with his ears plugged and his eyes covered.
“It’s cool. I’m happy for the company. It’ll be weird this year with Gracie not coming home.” Our youngest sister opted to stay in England for the holidays and do some traveling with a few new friends in her program instead of coming home.
Oliver rolls his eyes. “Why do you think I’m here and not at Mom and Dad’s? I couldn’t listen to him bemoan the too quick passage of time and wonder how it’s possible his baby girl is old enough to be traveling in Europe all alone. He needs to get a grip.”
I laugh because, fat chance. One thing about Jeremy Wright is that he never misses an opportunity to be overbearing about his kids.
But before I can answer Oliver, my phone rings.
I pull it out, and when I see it’s a video call from Cam, I shove it back in my pocket, standing up.
“Take the cookies out of the oven when the timer goes off. I need to take this.”
“What, you can’t take a phone call with me around? Do you have a secret boyfriend or something?” he asks as I walk out of the kitchen.
If only you knew, I think, with a secret grin.
“Don’t be such a younger brother,” I yell back. “Not everything is about you.”
“If it’s not, it should be!” he calls after me.
Chuckling at his aggrieved groan, I run up the stairs and straight into my bedroom. I flop on my bed against my mound of pillows and answer the call.
“Hey there, handsome,” I say with a grin.
“Hey, Wildcat.” Cam’s easy smile has butterflies swarming in my stomach.
With his messy hair and navy-blue Henley that makes his eyes an even deeper blue, he looks goddamn edible.
As in, I literally want to lick every inch of him.
There’s probably something wrong with me.
I’m fine with it. “Burn the cookies yet?”
I laugh, drawing my legs up and resting my chin on my knees, holding the phone out in front of me. “Forgot to set the timer.”
“Hockey dad videos again?”
I grin at him. “You know me so well.”
“I like to think I do,” he says, his eyes intense as they lock on mine. “And anything I don’t know, I would really like to learn. I want to know everything about you.”
“Is I want to know everything about you a cousin to I want everything with you?”
Now it’s Cam’s turn to laugh, and the sound sends warmth careening through me. “I think they’re both in the I’m fucking crazy about you, and I wish we were spending Christmas together family.” His eyes go soft. “Next year.”
His hopeful tone sends my thoughts spinning straight to next year. Christmas with my family. Me and Cam. Riley and Ethan. No hiding and no secrets. I want it so much. “Next year.”
“Is that Maddy?” I hear Riley’s voice a second before the phone wobbles and then her face appears in the frame. “Hi!”
“Hey, Ry, how’s St. Louis?”
She makes a face. “So boring. Everyone is old, and there isn’t a single cool person to hang out with. I wish I was with you guys. Zoe told me you do Christmas just like you do Thanksgiving. I really loved Thanksgiving.”
“Same!” Ethan peers over Riley’s shoulder, and my heart squeezes at the way their faces take up the screen. The way they look happy to talk to me, the same way I’m happy to talk to them. Ethan turns to his sister. “Did you tell her yet?”
Riley rolls her eyes. “I literally just got on the phone. Dad had to talk to her first to tell her he misses her a hundred times.”
“It was barely even fifty times.” Cam’s deep voice filters through the phone, voice laced with amusement. “You can tell her, Eth.”
“Tell me what?”
He grins. “We got you a Christmas present.”
I grin back. “Did you?”
Riley grabs the phone from her brother. “Check your front door right now. It should have just been delivered.”
“Hang on one sec.”
Setting down the phone, I thunder downstairs and yank open the door.
A large, flat wrapped box is sitting on my porch, the wrapping paper covered in M&M’s, orange soda, and tiny Cinnamon Toast Crunch boxes.
Laughing, I scoop it up and fly back up the stairs to my room before Oliver can ask any questions, closing the door behind me.
Sitting back on the bed, I pick up my phone. “Oh my god you guys, the wrapping paper!”
“Right?” Riley says. “I found this website that does custom wrapping paper, so I did your favorite snacks. I designed some for dad too with footballs, candles, and waffles, for Lola with boxing gloves since she’s a kickboxing maniac, and for Ethan with hockey stuff.
Every wrapping paper that isn’t custom is officially the worst.”
That she made some for me makes me ridiculously happy, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face. “Well, I think it’s entirely perfect.”
“Open it!” Ethan says.
“Yeah, Wildcat, open it.” Cam’s face comes back into view, and with all three of them on the screen together, triplet smiles on their faces, my heart practically takes flight.
Looking down to try to get my emotions in check, I slide my finger under the taped edge of the box, trying to take the wrapping paper off without ripping it too much, already knowing I’ll be keeping it.
I lift the top of the box, setting it aside and lifting the tissue paper to reveal a Renegades jersey.
Pulling it out of the box, my breath catches when I see “Lowry” emblazoned above number sixty-eight.
It’s a jersey that’s sold in a million stores in this city.
A jersey owned by thousands of Renegades fans.
But the way my heart gallops in my chest, emotion washing through me as I trace my fingers over the fabric, staring down at Cam’s name and number, you would think they just gave me something precious. Something one of a kind.
Except I think maybe they did.
“Do you like it?” Ethan asks, and I look back up at the screen, at my three favorite faces lined up in a row.
Something precious.
“I love it,” I say, not entirely trusting my voice.
“It was my idea,” he says, his face turning serious. “Riley and I have my dad’s jersey, and I thought you needed to have one too. So you could match us and we could all match Dad. Like a family.”
My gaze lands on Cam, and I can see the emotion swirling in his eyes. The intensity on his face. And I can hear the words like he spoke them out loud.
Be my family, Wildcat. Be ours.
I give him a small nod, and the grin that stretches across his face is so beautiful it’s almost hard to look at. “I would love to match with you guys. I think I’ll look great in a Lowry jersey.”
“No one looks good in a football jersey, but it makes Dad happy, and he’s weird about his superstitions, so we do it anyway.”
I laugh at Riley’s flippant tone, and then I laugh harder when Cam ruffles her hair like she’s a toddler and she shoves him away, giving him a look that would kill a lesser man.
“I miss you guys,” I say, lying down on my stomach and holding the phone out in front of me. “Can we do another blanket fort breakfast when you all get back?”
Riley nods. “Definitely yes. I think next time maybe we need to add cereal to our waffle bar. I’m thinking of a Cinnamon Toast Crunch, caramel syrup, whipped cream situation that will put every other waffle to shame.”
I grin at her. “See, that’s why you’re a smart girl now.”
She gives me a sly grin. “I think the term you’re looking for is smart bitch.
” She enunciates the bitch and Cam groans, taking the phone from her hand.
“Language, Ry. There are a lot of people here who don’t appreciate a well-placed swear word like we do.
Try and pretend I did at least a passable job parenting you and go see if Lola needs help setting the table. ”
“Ugh, fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Bye, Maddy, Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas,” Ethan says with a grin before darting away.
Once we’re alone, Cam drops back into a chair, holding the phone closer to his face. “Hi. You’re so pretty. The prettiest girl in the world.”
I grin at him. “You just want to see my tits.”
He groans. “Fuck, I would love to see your tits, but I’m currently sitting in the guest bedroom of my aunt’s house with my mom’s entire family downstairs, so I think nudity is…ill advised.”
“Rain check.”
His eyes swirl with heat as his gaze bores into mine.
“Definitely rain check.” Then his face goes serious and a little…
uncertain maybe? “The jersey,” he starts.
“Was it too much? It was Ethan’s idea, and he was so excited about it, but I didn’t realize why he wanted to give it to you and I should have.
I have two kids and that’s a whole thing, and I really like you but I don’t want you to think I’m looking for, like, a new mom for them or whatever.
It’s just that…I mean…I don’t…fuck,” he mutters, scrubbing his free hand over his face.
I giggle, delighted and charmed by him and his ramblings.
“I love the jersey. I love that Ethan wanted to give it to me because he wants us all to match when you play. I love that you all called me together, and that Riley and Ethan wanted to talk to me. They’re amazing kids, Cameron, and you’re an incredible dad. I’m crazy about all three of you.”
“Crazy about us, huh?” Cam says, his lips tipping up in that smile I love, dimple winking in his cheek that makes me a little weak in the knees.
I nod. “Definitely crazy about you.”
The small smile turns a little devious. “Crazy enough to be wearing my jersey and only my jersey next time I see you?”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those athletes who goes feral over a girl wearing his jersey.”
“Not a girl. You. I’ll go feral over you wearing my jersey. My girl. My name. My jersey.”
“Well, fuck,” I mutter, squeezing my legs together to try to quell the ache between them. “Are you sure nudity is entirely off the table right now?”
Cam laughs. “The second I’m home, I’m taking you on a date.”
I gasp, pressing a hand to my chest. “The long-awaited first date?” Between both of our schedules and his kids and waves hands everywhere, almost all of our time together has been spent either at the practice facility, the stadium, or at one of our houses.
“Bet your ass. And there will absolutely be nudity.”
I grin at him through the phone. “I can’t wait. I miss you.”
Cam looks at me for a long moment. “Wildcat, you have absolutely no idea.”
I think I do because even though I love my annual Pittsburgh Christmas, I know that tonight, while I’m celebrating, my heart will be in St. Louis with the three people who now own its biggest piece.