Chapter Eleven Lily
Chapter Eleven
Lily
“I think you’re cheating.”
“I would never.”
Barrett scoffed. “If it meant winning, of course you would. I’m starting to think you have a weird addiction to humbling me.”
I laughed, and Barrett’s eyes dipped briefly down to my mouth. Well, since he was already there, I picked up another cookie—I’d lost count at this point—and pointedly bit the head off a gingerbread man. I finished chewing the bite, then licked the crumbs from the corner of my lips.
“Sore loser?” I asked when he stared down at the board with a slow shake of his head.
“That’s not a word,” he insisted.
The kids watched us with wide eyes, because the game of Scrabble after the Monopoly round where Barrett wiped out his son had gotten much more competitive than anyone could’ve foreseen.
“It is a word, you just don’t know it,” I told him. “I told you I was good at this game.”
“She did,” Bryce whispered loudly. “And we looked it up; it counts.”
Barrett sat back in his chair and pinned me with a fiery look. I merely smiled, settling my folded hands on the table in front of us. “Q is on the triple-word score too.” I sighed. “Brutal.”
“Definition,” he bit out.
“Sorry?”
“I want the definition,” he said, enunciating the words. “I think you found some cheater Scrabble loophole, and my kids are ganging up on me because they love seeing me lose this game.”
Maggie giggled. “We do. We can’t ever beat you.”
Bryce moved around to Barrett’s side of the table and cuddled in under his dad’s raised arm.
The easy affection was killer on my resolve.
To my utter dismay, he was not a scary militant Christmas dad.
We’d gone the entire day without a single mention of the time.
He’d let his kids pick the movies—we’d moved on to A Christmas Story—as well as the games being played.
The mood was chill. And dare I say, fun?
Until this sweet, delicious moment right here, he was a levelheaded competitor who did a great job patiently herding his kids through whatever was in front of them. Honestly, who needed drugs when there was winning at Scrabble against Barrett King?
“Q-A-T,” Bryce read slowly. “It refers to the leaves of a shrub.” He leaned in and whispered to his dad, “I can’t pronounce the scientific name.”
“I can see it,” Barrett said patiently, sending me a quick glare.
Again, I smiled. Just a little one. Enough to make his glare intensify.
Bryce continued, “You can chew them like tobacco or make them into a tea, and it, um, it gives you a eu-euphoric sensation. What’s that?”
I leaned back and spread my arms out over the chairs on either side of me. “Buddy, this feeling right here is euphoric,” I said, holding Barrett’s gaze. “Winning against someone who badly needed to be beaten. There’s nothing better in the world.”
Barrett exhaled steadily, and the sheer annoyance in his eyes made me fucking giddy.
“Fine,” he said, raising his hands and letting them drop. “I concede. You win.”
Maggie whooped, giving me such an enthusiastic high five that the skin on my palm stung. “That was awesome. I’m using that on everyone now.”
“Too bad this was our last game of Scrabble ever,” Barrett said lightly.
“No,” the kids wailed, laughing as their dad started picking up the pieces of the game.
“Yup. New house rule: No Scrabble, no weird leaf names.”
I bit down on a grin and picked up my tile board, fingers brushing lightly against his when I handed it over. He glanced at me, then back down at the box as he put everything away.
“Can we do one present tonight?” Bryce begged. “We’ll save everything else for tomorrow morning.”
“Please,” Maggie also begged. “Then Lily can see us open something.”
Barrett and I traded a quick look, and when he gave a subtle arch of his eyebrow, I turned to his daughter. “If your dad says yes, I might have brought something for you and your brother.”
“Really?” She bounced on her toes, gripping her dad’s arm. “Daddy, please. Just one. I’ll never ask again.”
He laid a big hand on the top of her head, and his mouth almost pulled into a visible smile.
Almost.
“What have we said about making promises we know we can’t keep?” he said evenly.
She let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. I won’t ask again this year.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile. Barrett noticed.
“One,” he said.
The kids shouted, running over toward the tree and settling on the ground to study the pile of boxes. I picked up the top of the Scrabble box and handed it to Barrett. His eyes were fixed on the tattoo on the inside of my forearm, visible now that I’d pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt.
“Have a problem with tattoos?” I asked lightly.
Here we go. Here’s where grumpy Barrett would come back out.
He’d say something about marking your body permanently and how unwise it was, how it sent a bad message to his kids or something.
My loins were girded before he even opened his mouth, defensiveness making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Just wondering what it is,” he said, giving me a brief look. “You’ve got a few of them.”
Oh. The neck hair settled as his simple answer deflated the response cocked and ready to go. Even that made me feel prickly, the unexpected reactions.
“I have more that you can’t see.” His hands stilled as he closed the box, and he didn’t lift his gaze to mine, but the air thickened all the same.
Briefly, I touched the simple outline of a car on my skin next to the bend of my elbow.
“They each have a story,” I told him. “But I don’t usually share them. ”
Barrett straightened, his handsome face inscrutable.
“Then why get them if you don’t want people to understand?”
His eyes weren’t a simple dark brown at all. They were gold and hazel and a touch of green, and I never would’ve known that unless I got close enough to see.
So I stepped back. Added space. Provided distance where it was badly needed.
“Because I didn’t get them for anyone else,” I told him. “They’re just for me.”
Barrett hummed in response, the low pitch to his voice raising the hair on my arms this time. Not a defensive reaction at all. It was awareness, tugging at a neglected part of my brain, and the pleasant reverberations of that awareness had me breathing a little unsteadily.
If he noticed, he didn’t show it. There was nothing to be gleaned from his facial expressions.
What a pair we were, because I imagined my face held a similar look. Like two Sphinxes staring each other down.
What secrets were held behind his walls? I knew what was guarded behind mine. Which was why, in typical Lily fashion, I desperately searched for a change in subject.
“Do you have fifteen-minute gift-buying breaks during your day too?” I asked, picking up my bag from where I’d set it on the floor. “That’s an impressive pile for a single dad who works a million hours a week.”
He paused, holding my gaze for a moment before answering. “No. I have a very thorough executive assistant who knows my children well, and shops for me because she knows I don’t have time.”
“Ah yes, Bridget.” I smiled. “We’ve texted.”
“I heard.”
The grump made his first appearance with that growly, annoyed response, and my smile spread.
“And she puts up with you full-time? You must pay her a lot.”
“I do,” he answered. “Though she’d argue I can always do more, especially on the days I drive her crazy.”
“Daily, then?” I asked sweetly.
“Dad, come on,” Maggie begged. “You can pick up later. You said we have to be in bed in thirty minutes, and if we get something really cool, I’m going to want to play with it.”
Barrett nodded toward my empty glass of ice water. “Sorry, I’m not a very good host. I don’t have any wine or beer to offer.”
I shrugged. “I don’t drink, so water is fine with me.”
He paused, giving me a thoughtful look. “I don’t either.”
We walked into the family room, his shoulder brushing mine before he stopped, allowing me to choose a seat first.
Nothing about this man was what I thought it would be. He chose a seat a respectable distance from mine, a full couch cushion open between us. There was no manspreading into my space, and I tucked my legs underneath me while I studied him.
Before Scrabble, he’d changed from the button-down into a well-loved black sweatshirt with a yellow O on it. He caught me staring while the kids poked and prodded at the gifts. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, blinking away. “Just wondering what the O stands for.”
“Oregon,” he answered. “My brother and I played college ball there.”
I nodded. “The fun uncle,” I said lightly. “I’ve heard all about him.”
Barrett’s smile was faint, hardly even a real smile—more like a begrudging softening to the normally firm line of his mouth. “I’m sure you have. Kids don’t see him as much as they’d like, but he’s just as busy as I am.” He rolled his neck. “He plays for Denver.”
“Parents must have one hell of a gene pool.”
He huffed a small noise of amusement. “I guess. I never really thought about it.”
“Lily, can we open your presents tonight?” Maggie asked.
“Sure, if that’s the one you pick, but it doesn’t have to be just because I’m here.”
Bryce pursed his lips and stared between the box I’d brought for him and the other presents marked as his under the tree. “I think I’m going to open my present from Mom.”
Barrett raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”
He nodded. “Then I can tell her thank you when we talk to her in the morning. Is that okay?” Bryce asked me. He looked nervous.
“Of course,” I assured him. “It’s your Christmas, bud. Open whatever you’d like.”
His shoulders dropped as he exhaled. “’Kay, cool.”
“I’m opening Lily’s,” Maggie announced. “I get presents every year from Mom, and they’re never good.”
“Maggie,” Barrett admonished gently.
“What?” She shrugged. “I’m not saying anything bad about Mom; I know that’s not allowed. I’m talking about her gifts.”