Chapter Thirteen Lily
Chapter Thirteen
Lily
“I think I need new friends.”
Larry sighed, a disgruntled little sound, and merely burrowed farther down into the fuzzy blanket close to the fireplace. His buggy eyes were barely visible, but he was at least looking at me, so there was that.
“I’m serious, you’re terrible at this. It’s Christmas Day and you won’t even listen to my predicament.”
I picked at the edge of my pajamas—yes, I was still in pajamas because no one could tell me not to be on Christmas Day—chest heavy and stomach unsettled as my overthinking reached wild new heights.
I probably had bags under my eyes the size of lemons because that overthinking had elbowed right into my REM cycle.
Normally, I slept like a baby. Every night.
But last night? I had my own Ebenezer Scrooge moment.
Haunted by the ghost of me. Past Lily, who did not think through what she was doing.
This was what happened when you didn’t people very much.
All it took was two cute kids and a Captain von Trapp fantasy come to life, and I was going around acting like a wild animal.
I couldn’t take me anywhere, and that was a good lesson for the future.
“I don’t know why I did it,” I said quietly. “It’s like I can’t help myself sometimes, you know? He’s just so . . . just so contained. I can never tell what he’s thinking. And I just wanted to make him do something. React.”
Larry blinked.
“I used to do this a lot, you know.” I stretched my feet out closer to the fire, sighing happily when the heat penetrated through my socks.
“Push at people to try and get a reaction. It drove Mom and Dad crazy, didn’t it?
” I laughed quietly, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“The Button Pusher. That’s what Aaron called me. You probably remember, don’t you?”
The dog closed his eyes and sighed.
“Fine. We don’t have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable.” I wiggled my toes. “What should we do today? I can’t sit here and talk about Barrett all day. That would be . . . embarrassing. And silly. Wouldn’t it be silly?”
He was unmoved, his eyes still shut.
“Larry,” I said. Whined. Whined petulantly.
I could call myself a lot of names, but that was the first time in my entire adult life I’d used petulant.
It looked like my Christmas present to myself was an absolutely untenable new situation with Barrett King.
Because for a split second, just one teensy little second, when his arm had caged me in, I almost sort of, kind of, wanted him to kiss me.
Really kiss me too. Wrap his big hand behind my neck and tease my lips with his, slide his tongue into my open mouth and make one of those really great noises at the back of his throat—a deep, satisfied noise at the taste of me.
Just for a second, of course.
It hadn’t really been a teensy second, though.
It had been a big one. It had been many seconds that made up many minutes.
Then, when I lay in bed later, revisiting the horrors of those minutes, I swear I could feel the ghost of him, pressing me up against the wall behind my back.
He’d tower over me, his body so much bigger than mine.
I don’t know what universe I was living in that a man towering over my anything sounded like a great fucking time, but regardless, it was where I found myself.
If I wanted to kiss you, I wouldn’t need a fucking plant to make me do it.
I laid a hand on my chest, the thundering of my heart the only distraction.
“I need a hobby. Or I need to go sightseeing.” An errant thought occurred to me.
“Maybe I just need to get laid,” I whispered.
“It’s been a while. That’s gotta be my problem, right?
Any slightly attractive, non-smelly man could’ve trapped me under some mistletoe and I would’ve felt the same way.
And I beat him in Scrabble, so my brain was already wired toward best possible outcomes in that house.
It was just . . . chance. Proximity.” I chewed on my bottom lip.
“It’s not really personal to him at all. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
I looked over at the dog.
He started snoring. Loudly.
“Whatever. Besides, it’s not like he’s sitting at home talking about me.”
Barrett
“She cheats at Scrabble.”
The dish beneath my hand squeaked as I scrubbed the glass mercilessly.
“Uh-huh.”
I added more soap, flipped the water all the way to hot, kept my eyes laser focused on the casserole pan from dinner.
“She constantly tries to push my buttons. From the moment I met her, actually.” I gripped the sponge, the veins in my arms popping out as I scrubbed into the corner.
“Don’t ask me how she’s so different with the kids.
I think Christmas Eve was her idea, you know?
Maybe Maggie didn’t even come up with the idea. Maybe it was Lily. And it worked.”
“I’m not sure—”
“And then,” I interrupted, “she tells me that I must have hung the mistletoe. Like I’d ever hang mistletoe. Trapping people under some silly plant, forcing them into situations they don’t want to be in. Non-consent hidden under the facade of a horrible tradition.”
“Right.”
Two days.
It had been two days and I couldn’t force that woman from anywhere. Not from my brain. Not from . . . other parts of my anatomy that were still very interested in thinking about her. Not from my—
No.
Once the gifts were finished—after Bryce opened up his gift from Lily with an awe-filled expression that made my throat tight—I’d made it through Christmas Day just fine.
Watched football with the kids. Played a few more games—not Scrabble—and never once did I ask them about her or look next door or wonder, even the slightest bit, if she was sitting home alone that day too. Good for fucking me.
Not only that, but I survived one more day of my kids terrorizing the front offices before they went with Bridget to pick up my parents from the airport.
They were still awake when I got home from the office around ten p.m.
“And do you know what happened today at work?”
“It is very hard to say at this point.”
I kept scrubbing and scrubbing. “I was late to a meeting because I started looking up words for Scrabble.” My voice rose in volume with each consecutive word, and for the first time in my life, it felt like I was strapped to a runaway train.
“Now she’s ruining my first day back to the office when I have the last game of the season against a division rival on Sunday—and if we lose, it’s going to be because I was thinking about mistletoe and Q words and how the hell she smells like cookies all the time! ” I yelled.
The dish slipped out of my hands, clattering into the sink. Chest heaving, I braced my hands on the edge of the counter and hung my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
When I finally looked up again, my parents were staring at me like I’d lost my mind. My dad still had one of Lily’s cookies in his hand, frozen halfway to his mouth. My mom kicked him under the table.
“I just . . . I just asked how she made these cookies taste so good,” my dad said. “I didn’t know all that would happen.”
My mom tried to hide her smile.
It would’ve been so much easier to brush it all off, to change the subject, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that either. The decision to dismantle whatever softened feelings for Lily that had emerged had been a good one.
Smart and wise and logically sound. I didn’t have time to feel things.
Didn’t have time to think about her tattoos or why she was alone or the color of her eyes.
But there had been a slow deterioration of that decision over the course of the forty-eight hours that followed.
When I stopped to think about that deterioration, the only thing that made sense was because Lily didn’t make any logical sense.
I couldn’t make her fit into a single, neat definition, and ultimately, it was proving to be my undoing.
Helpless frustration, as it usually did, made me feel like the worst version of myself.
Control clawed to the surface, a desperate bid to ignore the one thing—the person—making me feel the most out of control.
The dish towel sat next to the sink, and I snatched it up, then wiped down the casserole dish until it was dry.
My mom cleared her throat. “I’d already washed that, you know.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, praying that the heat crawling up my neck wasn’t visible.
“Well, now it’s extra clean,” I said gruffly.
Dad was finishing the cookie when I turned around, sneakily reaching forward for another one when my mom reached over and smacked his hand. “You’ve had four,” she admonished.
“It’s Christmas,” he stated, shooing her hand away and getting a fifth. “And they’re really good.”
I crossed my arms, leaning up against the counter. “Kids okay while I finished up work?”
Mom nodded. “Perfect as always.”
I snorted.
“Perfect for us, at least,” my dad said. “Maggie’s gonna run the world someday, you mark my words.”
My shoulders relaxed at the change in subject. I just . . . I needed to stay away from the topic of Lily. Needed to stay away from Lily until I had a better handle on whatever this was.
“How was practice today? Archer getting in line for the last game of the season?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Was Archer getting in line?
He’d skipped all film-review sessions that morning. Hadn’t taken a single note in the offensive meeting. Hadn’t joined me for lunch with his receivers. And in practice, he’d said the game plan for Sunday was something his grandma could’ve planned better.
“Practice was fine,” I said tightly. “He’ll . . . he’ll be fine by Sunday.”
There was a beat of silence, and I ignored the wordless glance shared by my parents.
“You okay, son?” my mom asked. “You’re not really acting like yourself.”
Not being the perfect son who never stepped out of line. Not being the guy who never lost his grip on the leash of his legendary restraint. She was right—I wasn’t acting like myself, and there was only one person to blame. It didn’t matter whether I wanted to be around her. I shouldn’t. Couldn’t.
I held her gaze and sighed. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get a few things under control.”