Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
JOSH
“Darling!” His mother’s adenoidal voice brashed over FaceTime. “It’s been forever! Did your bollocks freeze off yet?”
Josh twisted his mouth to hide his smile. “Still here, last time I checked.”
“Your father’s upstairs. Hang on. David! Get your arse down here! Josh is on the phone!”
It was fine. Eardrums were overrated, anyway. His father’s face crowded into the frame seconds later, forcing his mother to share the screen, and their matching smiles beamed back at him.
“We can’t talk long, sweetie,” his mother continued in the thick Australian accent that hadn’t faded in the almost forty years she’d lived in Canada. If anything, Josh was convinced she hammed it up to charm her clients. “Your father has a client meeting in Burnaby, and I’ve got a showing in West Van.”
A simple thing like an impending statutory national holiday wouldn’t derail business, as usual.
Despite a reckless youth spent in the southern sun without SPF, his mother’s skin remained smooth, her few laugh lines making her look joyous instead of tired, her hair so resolutely black, Josh wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t colouring it.
He dreaded the day his mother would tip into old age overnight li ke his grandparents had. One day, thick heads of black hair and the complexion of teenagers; the next, wispy white fluff held back by full face visors with wrinkles cross-hatching their skin.
His father’s age had crept forward in measured steps every time he saw him. The salt-and-pepper in his hair advanced at a stately pace until it turned a fully lustrous white by the time Josh had graduated university. The last time they’d had dinner as a family, his heart squeezed when he noticed his father had begun to stoop, just a little, and for the first time Josh could see the barest thinning on the crown of his head.
Josh pushed the memory aside. “When are you two retiring?”
“When we run out of houses to sell—” his mother started.
“And contracts to negotiate,” his father finished, and they laughed in tandem at the joke they’d told a thousand times in the past, but Josh chilled at the reminder.
He could have retired earlier if I had taken over like we planned. It was on him, not his father. His father had never said it, not once. Two more years and Josh could have taken over the practice. But they both knew it was true. Right now, his father could be limbering up for his golf game instead of driving across the city to meet with clients days before Christmas.
“What kind of crazy people want to have meetings on December twenty-third?” Josh said.
His father grinned. “Lots of them.”
Josh frowned and pulled up the calendar on his laptop balanced on the couch pillow beside him. Filming had wrapped, and after a boozy party last night—where everyone except him and Cass had consumed their weight in alcohol—everyone who wasn’t local had scattered back to their homes for the two-week break. Cass had begged off early, and he’d watched her exit the pub with a closed expression and her phone in her hand.
He reminded himself it wasn’t his business if she was texting another guy and spent the rest of the night scowling into his tepid kombucha.
People had refreshed flight departure notifications with nervous energy, but everyone had made it out as planned. Everyone needed the break. Including himself. Eight days before filming resumed. Nine, if he included today. He scrolled through the remaining flights back to Vancouver, grimacing at the remaining departure times.
“What’s the plan for Christmas?” If he booked now, he could still get the last flight out tomorrow.
His mother glared at his father. “You didn’t tell him? You said you were going to tell him!”
A sheepish look was the only reply.
“We’re leaving for Oz tomorrow,” his mother said, and then looked uncomfortable. “Grace is staying here, but I’m not sure what she’s doing.”
She knew what his sister was doing. They both did. Which fully precluded Josh from joining her. He bit down on his reply.
“Or we could get you a ticket,” his father said, brightening. “It can be your Christmas present.”
It was tempting, but that was a lot of travel and crushing jetlag for what would end up being four days of visit. And he’d be on the other side of the world if an issue came up on set.
“Or maybe your sister will change her plans,” his mother said about the plans she’d just said she knew nothing about. “I could add her to the call?—”
“No.” He’d heard the arguments enough to last a lifetime.
His father’s voice softened. “Son?—”
“When’s your flight?” he interrupted.
“Seven a.m.”
That was so perfectly his dad. All that money and still flying on a holiday to save the flight fare. Josh snickered despite himself. “You cheap bastard. Think they’ll serve turkey on the plane?”
“I hope not,” his mother said, the smile held on her mouth but faded fr om her eyes. “We’ll try not to call you in the middle of the night on Christmas.”
Josh signed off the call and stared down at the black screen. Christmas in his family was practically just another day. And if he couldn’t spend it with his parents, then spending it alone for the third year was infinitely preferable to the alternative, as much as he’d love to see his sister again. At least, like it used to be.
He sat on the floor and stared at the blank wall that never decided what it wanted to be. Its expanse had mocked him as he sat for hours in front of it. His original idea of the mountains, the Rockies or North Shore, never took hold. A passing fancy of a drone’s eye view of the confluence of the rivers came and went.
Did it matter if he started the mural now? He could just plan how to paint over the one he had at his condo back home or review the revised schedule for the final shots he’d need to get back to Vancouver for, anyway. So long as he missed the holiday itself.
A blunt pounding rattled his door.
He should have just had an extra key cut.
“Did you get your flights?” Stephen barged his way past Josh and into the kitchen. He stuck his head into the fridge before rifling through the cupboards. “You have no food.”
“Please, help yourself.”
“Su casa es mi casa.”
“I don’t think that’s how that goes.”
“Close enough.”
“Jackass.”
Stephen liberated a half-empty bag of nori snacks from a drawer and flopped onto the couch. “Well?”
“Not going home.”
“Why?” Green flecks coated his teeth. Josh handed him a bottle of water.
Josh dropped beside him. He crossed an ankle over his knee and stole back one of his snacks, its salty crunch crackling in his mouth like a map in the desert. “Parents are heading to Melbourne. Grace is staying in Van, but you know.”
“Shit.” Stephen tossed the empty bag on the coffee table and swished the water in his mouth in contemplation.
“Yeah.” Josh raked his fingers through his hair and bit back a sigh. It wasn’t spending the holiday alone that was the problem, per se. It was the fact that every choice he’d made in the past three years made him alone at Christmas. Again.
Stephen brushed seaweed confetti from his pullover onto the coffee table. “I’ll ask Libby’s family to set another place for dinner tomorrow night.”
Josh swept the nori remnants into his hand and dumped them into the sink. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Her folks are great. They’d be more mad at me for not inviting you if they found out you spent Christmas alone.”
“I don’t have anything to bring.”
“Bring a bottle of wine and your charming self.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“They aren’t formal. You could show up in a tutu and they’d be happy.”
“It’s pretty short notice.”
“Cass is going to be there.”
What happened to the cabin? Maybe she didn’t head out until Christmas morning, and he’d have one more chance to see her before the break. Josh ran his tongue over his teeth. “What time is dinner?” he asked.
“Seven. I’ll text you the address.”
He couldn’t see Stephen’s expression with his back to him, but he could hear the triumph in his voice well enough.
Dick.
The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, its rusted brick facade pitted with years of weathering. A yellow glow spilled through the open cur tains in a stretched square on the front lawn’s perfect snow, while multi-coloured lights winked through the branches of the Christmas tree like Morse code.
If he had to hazard a guess, the dots and dashes spelled here lives a happy family . He’d lay good money down that there were ugly Christmas sweaters on display. Matching ones.
Josh stepped out of the Uber into a blast of wind that gusted glittery snow up the hem of his jacket and under his sweater.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he bleated.
The driver snorted, unfazed by the blasphemy, and waved as he drove off.
Fine. Anyone driving on Christmas Eve was either not religious, needed the cash, or needed to stay away from family. Any combination of those reasons, plus the fact that his ride had been blessedly silent, deserved five stars. Josh added the rating and a fat tip at lightning speed and sheathed his hands in his pockets before frostbite set in.
The door flung open as he was finishing his last rap and he dipped forward like he was about to slap a bet on a poker table. A wall of heat and steam curled around him through the open door and Libby yanked him inside.
“Get him in here! I’m not heating the whole province!” a deep voice bellowed from the living room, and Libby slammed the door on the cold.
The house smelled like a pending food coma. Turkey and pumpkin pie and who knew what else wafted in from the kitchen. His salivary glands ached in anticipation. His family had the barest adherence to Christmas traditions, as evidenced by their cavalier approach to holiday planning. His father hadn’t ported over any Graham traditions from his side of the family, and his mother’s side was far more likely to go surfing than roast turkey in the peak of Melbourne summer.
More than once his father had joked they should just convert to Judaism for all the Westernized Chinese food they’d consumed at Christmas .
Josh suddenly had a visceral craving for mediocre sweet and sour pork.
Libby wrapped him in a sweaty hug, the bells on her festive sweater jingling merrily.
“Glad you could make it,” she said.
Josh returned the hug cautiously. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because,” she said, baring her teeth, “your husband asked me to be.”
Stephen popped around the corner and grinned, the bells on his own sweater swaying.
Matching novelty sweaters. Called it.
“Hello, darling. Glad you could make it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Josh gave his friend a one-armed hug, peering past his shoulder. “Thanks for the invite. Both of you.”
“She’s not here yet,” she replied smugly.
Josh suppressed a chastising sigh. Of course, he’d want to see the only other person he’d know here. He shoved the wine into Stephen’s chest, who cradled the bottles like a linebacker. “Introduce me to the hosts, why don’t you?”
Libby’s parents welcomed him like a long-lost cousin. Her mother squawked over the turkey, a garish apron cinched under her matronly bosom, cheeks flaming from bending over the oven and her second glass of wine. Her father shoved a beer and a candy cane into Josh’s hands, and he wondered absently if it was a Calgary tradition to stir the beer with the candy cane. He left both the full beer and unwrapped candy cane on a coaster by the fire.
With an arm slung around Josh’s shoulders, Libby’s dad steered him from room to room for the house tour, ending in what was a childhood bedroom. The navy walls sagged with photos and ribbons, with a shrine dedicated to boy bands that was twenty years out of date, posters peeling at the corners. A twin bed with a wrinkled coverlet butted against a melamine bookshelf in the corner that displayed rows of YA books and trophies with dancers frozen mid-twirl on the risers.
If he swapped the dance trophies for basketball and the navy for mauve, he could have been in his sister’s room in middle school.
“Here’s Libby and Cassie for Halloween in third grade,” her father said, gesturing at a framed photo. He squinted, peering over the top of his bifocals. “They’d gone as … I’m not sure what they were that year, but they had fun.”
Josh couldn’t recognize the costume either, but their blue-painted faces beamed under layers of makeup, buck teeth like Chiclets in their tiny mouths, and he felt his own mouth stretch in response.
“And here they are at the Canadian nationals.” The girls wore matching black leotards, tee shirts strategically ripped to look simultaneously badass and age appropriate. Cass had been right. They had to have been all of fifteen years old in this photo. Libby looked like any other teenage girl, but Cass could have passed for a skinny twelve-year-old.
“And here they are, at the eleventh-grade formal.”
The two girls stood side by side, flanked by gangly, spotty boys. After a double take, he realized one of the gangly, spotty boys was Stephen, albeit several inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. The two photos couldn’t have been taken more than a year apart, and while Libby looked identical in both, Cass looked like she’d had one hell of a summer.
She stood with the hunched posture of a girl convinced rounded shoulders would hide her unwelcome new body, making her look even shorter than she was. The boy with his hands respectfully resting on her waist looked stunned, like he had been hit by the same Mack truck that had hit Cass.
“Robbie Johnston,” Cass said, appearing at his other side, and his heart thudded against his sternum. The Cass of today stood, if not tall, at least with her back straight. She stepped closer to him, and her sweet scent caressed him, an antidote to the air thic k with the promise of dinner. The silky green blouse she wore draped around her shoulders with a complicated twist he couldn’t unravel in his mind, falling in a layer of clouds that displayed her collar bones.
He huffed a jet of air through his nostrils to clear his head and forced as much attention as he could muster back to the photos. “I didn’t hear you knock.”
“That’s because I don’t knock here.”
“When did you ever knock, Cassie?” Libby’s father asked and kissed her cheek. “I’m going to see if the girls have put Stephen to work yet.”
When the footsteps scuffed down the stairs, Josh leaned over to click the door quietly into place behind him. He swept his eyes up from her shoulders before stalling at her lips. That fiery red. Definitely on theme. “Where’s your ugly Christmas sweater?” he demanded.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she scoffed, eyeing the black jeans, sans-holes, and the only knit pullover he owned without graphics on it. She toyed with the fine lamb’s wool at his throat and flipped the collar to examine the seams. She hummed in approval, her breath smoothing over his skin, the tips of her fingers drawing out a patter of goosebumps that awakened his skin. “Besides, I don’t wear acrylic.”
I like wearing beautiful things she’d told him the night they met. Whatever her shirt was made of whisked quietly against his chest. Desire flared under his skin like an errant firework. He wondered what beautiful underthings she was wearing tonight. He wanted to drag his fingers under the neckline to find out.
He caught a ripple of the luscious fabric to let it rustle between his fingertips. If he had it his way, he would see that she only wore silk and velvet for the rest of her life.
“But this isn’t festive.”
“I’m dressed plenty festive enough.”
She turned her gaze back to the photo, gesturing to her date with a chagrined tilt of her head.
“That night was the first time I ever kissed a boy. He tried to feel me up when we were slow dancing that night. I mostly remember how sweaty his hands were, and he wore too much cologne.”
You smell so good she’d murmured drunkenly against him. She was sober now, and by the way she swayed into him, her opinion hadn’t changed. After months of not touching her, being close to her, his blood raged through his veins. His hands still stroked the silky skin at her collarbone, and she didn’t pull away.
He forced his voice to rasp past the constriction in his chest. “That better have been the only time he had the chance to put his hands on you.”
“He started dating one of the girls in my dance squad the following week. You could say it set my pattern,” she said. “The Cassidy St. Claire Story: one bad date that goes nowhere.”
“I’d say our date was pretty good.”
“And what date would that be?” Her eyebrows raised, half question, half challenge.
“Back in Vancouver. I seem to remember you chatting me up outside a film.”
“I chatted you up, hmm?” Her eyes grew heavier with each pass of his fingertips.
“Mm-hmm, and then taking me to several movies.” And then back to his place. The front of his jeans tightened, and he longed to press her up against the shelf behind him and knock every single one of those trophies to the floor.
No one could see them. No Melanie, no Bernie. No Brynne or Dawson or any fucking paps. It was written all over her, in her gaze that dropped to his mouth and the pulse that beat at her neck. She was his.
He grabbed her jaw to force her eyes up and felt her throat work against his palm as she swallowed. Her eyes darkened, the hazel irises a thin golden band that threatened to suck him in.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Getting just about fucking done keeping his hands to himself. Enough acting like a fucking cuck and sending her out to spend her time with other men. Of holding back and pretending to be indifferent to her effect on him.
She’d imprinted herself everywhere. The way her scent hijacked his senses and crowded everything else out of his mind. A thousand different ways that made him want to rip the world apart and put it back together for her.
He was close enough he could feel her ragged breath on his lips. “I’m sick of watching other men try to give you what you need, and not have a fucking clue what that is.”
“And you know what that is?”
He crowded her against the door, tugging the hair at the nape of her neck to tilt her head back. The strain of Christmas carols floating from downstairs did little to muffle the door rattling in its frame. Her breath hushed against his cheek, eyes widening, as he wedged his knee between hers and dipped his mouth to her ear.
“Are you really going to stand there with those fuck-me eyes and your nipples cutting into my chest like diamonds, and tell me I don’t know what you need?”
“What do I need?”
The dam of everything he’d held back for months broke, and he crashed his mouth to hers. Her hand wrapped around his bicep, her other under his sweater on the small of his back, and her lips parted like water.
Fuck, she still tasted like cinnamon, sweet and spicy, and her hands snaked up under his arms to close over his shoulder blades. She closed her lips around his tongue and sucked gently, and he wanted to rut into her like an animal. Each urgent whimper she made into his mouth sounded like yours . Or maybe it was more . He’d take them both.
He slid his hand up the front of her shirt, over the silky skin of her belly, and thrust his thigh against the apex of her legs. Her breath caught, pulling at the air in his lungs, like only enough oxygen exist ed for one of them. The last of his exhale escaped in a hiss as his hand moved around her ribs and over the swell of her breasts.
Fresh heat washed over him, tight and frantic. There they were, those glorious tips firming under his fingers as he traced their peaks, her back arching to chase his touch. He didn’t know what she was wearing under her beautiful clothes, but he wanted his mouth on it before the night was over.
“Fuck, baby, you feel so good,” he groaned into her hair. “Take off your shirt.”
She shuddered, hips rolling against his thigh. “There are people downstairs.”
“And we’re up here.” He pressed her more firmly against the door, pinching her nipple, swallowing every moan she released against his mouth. “You want this as much as I do. Say it.”
“Josh.” Her words were feathers brushing over his skin. “Stop.”
There was that word he knew she didn’t mean, and hard to take seriously when she was grinding her hips against his thigh. “You haven’t had enough yet, have you, baby?”
She shook her head, and he smirked against her mouth. That’s what he thought.
He peeled the edge of her shirt up, far enough to glimpse the ivory cups covering her tits, the dusky rose of her nipples peeking through the sheer fabric, and he thought his dick would punch through his jeans.
Fucking spectacular.
Running his thumb under the band at her sternum and down her stomach, he dipped his hand below the waistband of her pants. He was so fucking sure whatever she was wearing matched the ivory bra, silky and gorgeous and wet for him already, and he wasn’t waiting another second to find out.
“We’re not leaving this room until you come.”
“Somebody could come in!”
“Then I’ll make my filthy little slut come fast. ”
“But—”
“We’re not leaving this room until you come.” He drove her against the door with a dull thump and kissed her, breaking away to brush his lips over her ear. “Say it.”
Her throat worked, eyes wide and dark, and she whispered, “We’re not leaving this room until I come.”
“That’s my girl.” He slid his fingers over her silky skin and into her heat, and licked the hollow of her neck. “Now, can my good girl be quiet?”
Her fist curled into his sweater, eyelids fluttering closed as he circled her clit. She was warm and wet and listened so well, swallowing whimpers and biting down on her lip when he added a second finger to work her G-spot.
“You wish it was my cock inside you, don’t you?”
She jerked her head, silent, and dug her nails into his shoulder as he ground the heel of his palm against her. He’d give it to her. Everything she wanted. All her soft parts pressed to all his hard parts, her arms curled around his neck and her bucking hips fuelling the rush that someone could walk in on them at any second.
Just his luck. The first time he’d touched her in months, and he had to rush her orgasm. Next time would be different.
Too soon, her pussy clenched around his fingers. He covered her mouth with his to smother the scream forming in her throat, teasing out her climax until her fluttering muscles stilled and the last choked sounds faded.
He had wrecked her. Hair mussed, lips bruised, and her clothes dishevelled. She wavered on her feet. Her soft panting gasps warmed his cheek as she clung to his shoulders. Gorgeous.
A groan escaped his own throat, stopping himself before he nipped her. Sending her downstairs with bruises down her neck would make for awkward dinner conversation. He sated himself by kissing her instead, withdrawing his hand out from her underwear and sucking on his fingers one by one.
God-fucking-damn, tasting her was worth the wait .
“Mmm,” he growled. “That’s my girl.”
She sagged against the door, and her eyes met his as her head lolled back. “I’m not your girl,” she murmured.
“Hard to take that seriously right now, baby.” He couldn’t help but smirk, feeling his dimples pool as he dragged his nose along her neck. “Why do you feel so good?”
Her lips parted, and she tipped her head back against the door. “Because you know how to make me feel good.”
“Only me.” His cock asserted its displeasure at still being sheathed, and he pressed his erection against her belly. “Let me make you feel even better. Take off your pants.”
For a half second, he thought she was going to do it, but she looked around with a dawning realization of exactly where she was. “Here?” she asked incredulously.
“No, in the hallway. Yes, here.”
“I’m not having sex with you in Libby’s bedroom!”
“What the hell did we just do?”
“But … naked sex? Not here!”
If location was a problem, he could fix that. “Your bedroom it is. Get your jacket.”
Guilt creased her features, and she pinched her eyes shut, palms flat to his chest. “No, I love these people. I’m not leaving dinner for a booty call.”
A booty call? His chest twisted. Fuck, he deserved that. Because that was exactly what he was treating her like. And she deserved better.
Besides, next time—and there would be a next time—she was making the first move.
“Okay, beautiful, have it your way.” He ignored the insistent throb in his jeans as he dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s go downstairs and eat Christmas Eve dinner like I didn’t just make you come in front of a poster of the Jonas Brothers.”