A Merry Little Christmas #5
“I was hoping you’d be up,” he says quietly, curling his fingers into his palm. His gaze flickers up to my face, roaming for a beat before our eyes latch. “Didn’t expect you to give me the exact coordinates, though.”
“Why were you hoping I’d be up?”
It takes him a few seconds to reply. I always loved that about him, that he considered his answers at length, that he seemed to arrange the words in his head before letting them go, but right now I wish he’d spit it out.
“Because we didn’t get to finish our conversation last night,” he says finally. “And today, you were… pretty unavailable for a one-on-one talk.”
He doesn’t say because you were avoiding me, but it’s heavily implied by the look he gives me.
I shift, caught off guard. “What else is there to say? I got the important parts: You had an interview, it went great, and you might be moving to San Francisco.”
With Abby. I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. I don’t want it confirmed, not on Christmas.
His expression softens, even as resolve sharpens in his eyes. “Actually, I didn’t get to the important part at all.”
I’m shaking my head before he even finishes the sentence. “Let’s just leave it for now, Max. It’s Christmas, and I overheard you saying you won’t hear back until next week anyway, so—”
I stutter to a stop, realizing a second too late that I’m not supposed to know that.
“How do you know that?” he echoes.
“I”—shit—“I heard you and Abby talking last night, before you saw me. She was encouraging you to tell me and you were saying you didn’t want to before you knew for sure.
” I swallow hard, trying to stave off the emotion welling in every corner of my body, but it leaks out of my voice when I say, “I heard you tell her you love her.”
It must show on my face, too—how hard that was to hear, how much I wish I hadn’t heard it, how immensely I wish he hadn’t said it—because understanding lights his eyes. Because he lets loose that quiet “Ah.”
I focus on rearranging the blanket on my lap so I don’t have to see whatever emotion comes next: pity or sympathy or some version of Well, what did you expect? I moved on. You should too.
But that’s not what he says. This is: “I hope you know that if I’d known you were going to be here, I wouldn’t have invited Abby.”
My eyes fly up to meet his. “Max—”
He holds up a hand, scooting over until our knees are pressed together and I can feel the heat of his skin through his sweats, through my blanket.
He leans closer, his eyes moving back and forth between mine.
He looks so earnest, a little flushed. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t have asked her to pretend to be dating me. ”
All I can get out is a choked “What?”
“I just…” He lets out a breath, his voice quieting. “Christmas has been hard for me the past few years.”
A knot forms in my throat. “Yeah.”
“Given the Christmas setup this year—all the families together for the first time in years—I knew there’d be questions about whether I was dating, and if I was, who?
If I wasn’t, why?” he says, his attention drifting to the tree.
“I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it, and Abby’s family is in San Francisco, so she was already planning to travel here from Chicago.
It was easy enough to get her on board.” His eyes find mine again.
“She was a great friend for agreeing to help me out, but that’s all we are. ”
“Friends,” I whisper, dazed. “You’re friends. You love her like a friend.”
Max nods, moving closer. “She also has a really fucking awesome girlfriend. So.”
I press my hands against my hot cheeks. “So last night you weren’t trying to gently break the news that you were probably going to move to San Francisco with your fucking awesome girlfriend?”
He laughs, a short, shocked guffaw. “No. That is not at all what I was trying to say.”
“Please tell me what you were trying to say, then.”
“Eleanor, I…” He stops, shaking his head.
A muscle in his jaw jumps before he tries again.
“I saw the posting for that job six weeks ago and wondered if it was a sign. And then I didn’t give a shit whether it was or not, I just wanted it.
I applied for it thinking I had maybe a ten percent chance of making it through the first round, never mind getting to the final one.
” He turns back to me, his eyes lit up from the reflection of twinkling lights.
The color of them brings new, beautiful meaning to the idea of a blue Christmas.
“There was a not-insignificant part of me that was scared of what you’d think of me even trying.
I know it’s been four years, and maybe you want nothing to do with me.
Maybe me being anywhere near you is a nightmare, and fuck, I probably should’ve asked you all that before I applied, but I—”
“No.”
Max stops, inhaling sharply. I swear I see something like hope flickering across his face. “No?”
“It wouldn’t be a nightmare. It would be…
” My breath catches on a knot of emotion in my throat.
“It would actually be the opposite.” A dream.
“And since you confessed first, I’ll confess now that after you told me about the interview last night, I had a meltdown thinking about you moving.
Thinking about you being in San Francisco with someone you loved. ”
“Well”—he stops, then laughs softly as he shrugs, his expression a little helpless—“I would be.”
The confession dumps adrenaline into my veins. Something warmer into my heart. I whisper, equally helpless, “Max.”
A shy smile spreads across his mouth. “Since you confessed back, I’ll give you another one: I did get the job.”
My jaw drops. “But you told Abby—”
“That I didn’t know for sure yet, yeah,” he says.
“She pulled me outside to badger me about telling you everything right then, but like I said, I was scared of how you’d respond, and also completely fucking turned around about seeing you.
” His gaze drifts over my face, resting on my mouth. “I still am.”
“Terrified?”
“Turned around,” he replies, catching his bottom lip with his teeth as he smiles. His eyes bounce back up to meet mine. “Was from the first second I saw you in that shitty frat basement.”
Outside, snow continues to fall, but for a second it feels like that late fall night we first laid eyes on each other. “And here we are all over again.”
“Exactly where I hoped we’d be,” he says.
My throat tightens. “Me too.”
He nods, then murmurs, “Will you come closer, El?”
I do, heart pounding and also perfectly settled, because he’s pulling me into his arms and it feels like all my favorite Christmases, like coming home.
I close my eyes when our bodies crush together, laugh when he pulls me sideways onto his lap, when he presses his nose into the curve of my neck.
But it dissolves into a sigh when he lays a collar of soft, tender kisses across my throat, when he presses his mouth to the underside of my jaw, my cheek, and then my lips.
We sigh together and I think, Finally, at the same time he says it out loud.
The first kiss is light, a snowflake on my skin, but when he brushes his thumb along my cheek, when he angles my head to take it deeper, it turns into something else altogether.
“You’re coming to San Francisco,” I whisper against his lips after a few minutes of dizzying making out.
“You’re going to be in San Francisco,” he whispers back, wrapping his hand around my ponytail, his eyes luminescent, “with me.”
We fall back into it, but eventually Max murmurs, “We have so much time, honey, let’s take our time,” and we fall back into something else that feels just as familiar: me with my head in his lap, him with his fingers combing through my hair, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” playing on my phone.
Jane even brought one of their family’s old ornaments, and it hangs next to the ornaments of the Molinas, the Russells, the Parks.
I swear the glitter that coats the Popsicle sticks winks at me.
We laugh about how shocked everyone—well, everyone but Abby and probably Naomi—is going to be later when the news comes out, and Max tells me his mom is going to cry, which makes me cry.
I’m watching the Christmas lights twinkle, trying not to fall asleep against the warmth of his thigh under my cheek, when he says, “You know, you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?” I ask, rolling onto my back.
Max curls over me, cupping my chin, a soft smile playing on his lips. “If you have good plans this year.”
“Oh yeah,” I say just before his mouth covers mine. “The best.”