Chapter 18
Rory
Garrett doesn’t come back immediately. I hate how much I want to follow him into the back room. I’m going to resist that instinct, though.
I can’t run away from him and then chase after him. I need to slow down and just be more…careful.
“What should we do first?” Jules asks. “Make boozy eggnog? Decorate cookies?”
“Eggnog,” Mara says.
“Cookies,” the twins scream. One of them right in my ear.
Wincing, I set him down. “Definitely eggnog.”
The kids climb onto the kitchen chairs, making them my mom’s problem as Cassie catches our aunts up on her separation, without giving any details. Jules and I escape to the liquor cabinet.
“Do you think they fought about kids?” Jules asks under her breath.
“They who?”
“Cassie and Nate.”
I do a double take. “What? Why do you think that?”
“Dunno. Just a vibe.” She pulls out a bottle of brandy. “This?”
“And maybe rum, too.”
“How about you guys? Do you and Garrett ever fight about kids?”
I think about what he said in the truck on the drive here. “We used to. Not that I realized it at the time.”
“What does that mean?” Jules finds a bottle of spiced rum.
I grab the shaker.
Arms full, we cross to the counter closest to the fridge.
“We need cinnamon and nutmeg,” I tell her.
She finds the spices, then grabs the shaker from me and immediately adds ice.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
She ignores me and starts free pouring booze.
I roll my eyes and cover the eggs as she reaches for them. “Baby, you don’t shake the eggs with ice.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Literally by reading the recipe?”
“I skimmed it.”
“Get the hand mixer. We might as well make a big batch, anyway, because I bet Dad will drink a few.”
I start separating egg yolks from the whites, and by the time she’s found the mixer, I have the yolks in a bowl with cream, milk, and sugar, and the whites in a separate bowl.
Holding out my hand, I use my bossiest big sister energy to demand the appliance. She lets me take that part over, but my punishment is more questions about having babies.
“Garrett wants kids and you don’t,” she says under the loud whir of the motor, as if that’s a statement of fact. It’s not.
“I wanted to wait more than he did. And so the default is waiting.”
“He was watching you when you had one of the twins on your hip.”
I ignore the flash of heat that zaps through me, burning like I’ve just done a shot of the spiced rum. “He was probably wondering how such a small person could make so much noise.”
“You or the child?”
I test the egg whites. “Shut up.”
“So are you still waiting?”
I know it’s an innocent question—as innocent as nosy Jules can ever be. She thinks Garrett and I are still together, and I just said that we both wanted kids…at some point.
“It’s complicated,” I manage to say around a lump in my throat. “This is pretty good. Let’s switch bowls.”
She lets me focus on making the nog. Once the yolk mixture is creamy, I fold everything together. “Now let’s add the booze.”
Jules goes to dump in the shaker, ice and all.
“No! Strain it off—” Suddenly frustrated, I grab the shaker and do it myself.
Jules stares at me, brow furrowed.
“We need four more shots of each,” I snap.
“Ooo-kay.”
She measures them out, and she’s just dumped in the last one when Garrett returns.
Ignoring the way my heart leaps, I give him what I hope is an easy smile and casual eye contact that doesn’t betray how hard it is to play it cool.
But I need to put on a chill front, or my sister is going to ask even more awkward questions.
“Eggnog’s almost ready,” I tell him out loud. And I also try to silently, subtly convey that my sister is being nosy.
He smoothes his hand up and down my spine. “Looks good.”
“Rory was very bossy about how to make it,” Jules mutters.
“I’ve missed this,” I say brightly. “Me being right, all this festive magic, etcetera etcetera.”
“Definitely missed all this,” Garrett says, looking at me as he says it, and my heart twists. But then he smirks. “Etcetera. What can I do to help?”
All my instinctive answers to that question are indecent. And inappropriate. “Do you know where my dad is?”
“Last I saw, he was helping Allan bring in bags from the car. I’ll go find them and let them know that eggnog is ready.” He pats my shoulder as he leaves again. “And you should drink some water.”
Jules watches him go, then narrows her eyes at me. “What’s going on with you guys?”
I wince as Mara immediately shifts her gaze to us.
Without the cover of the hand mixer, it feels like Jules yelled that to the entire room, and now Mom and her sisters and Cassie are all staring at me.
“Eggnog’s ready,” I say brightly.
Mom frowns. “Oh no, Rory, you aren’t—” She glances at the twins and mouths something I don’t understand, “—too, are you?”
“What?”
“Mom, no.” Jules grimaces, apparently more fluent in Mom lipreading. “That’s not how you use that.”
“Use what?” Tabitha looks back and forth between them.
“Dickmatized,” my Mom says dramatically.
Silence falls over the kitchen.
Then we all burst out laughing, and it builds as the word bounces around in my head, rent-free. Dickmatized.
“No?” She looks so confused.
That only makes us laugh harder.
“My sides hurt,” I gasp.
Cassie wipes her eyes. “Mom, what do you think that means?”
“You’re traumatized by dick.” Mom’s forehead crinkles.
“Oh,” Cassie says, and that single syllable sends us all howling again.
“No?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s hypnotized by dick. Like it’s that good. So literally the opposite.”
“Oh.” Mom laughs at herself. “Well, I shouldn’t have said that, then.”
Jules cackles. “No.”
“It’s good that you weren’t so dickmatized by Nate that you couldn’t leave him.”
“Mom!” Cassie waves her hands.
“What? Still no?”
“Very much no,” Jules says. “Nobody wants to think about Nate’s penis.”
“I do,” Mara says. She shrugs when we all stare at her. “What? If he wasn’t good enough to Cassie, then we should talk about that. You girls need to stand up for your own pleasure.”
Cassie buries her face in her hands. “Make it stop.”
Tabitha gestures at my mom. “Cookie decorating, Carmie?”
“Yes, of course. Rory, hurry up with the drinks.”
“I was trying to when you took this in a weird direction!”
Just then, the guys all come back, and that sends everyone into another wave of hysterical laughter that nobody is willing to explain.
Garrett’s gaze immediately finds me, and the wild giggle dies on my tongue. His eyebrows lift in a silent question. Having fun?
Yes. The answer is immediate and unreservedly true. I smile and nod.
The corners of his mouth curve up, and all the breath rushes out of me. I stare at him, the noise of the kitchen fading away.
I don’t know why a simple smile has tilted my world on its axis, but here we are.
It’s like I’m seeing Garrett through fresh eyes.
Jules nudges me, and I drag my attention to the glasses she’s set out. I manage to pour a round of drinks, and then we all raise our glasses to sister in-jokes.
My heart is pounding as I take a sip of my nog. It’s delicious. The wild warmth spreading through my limbs isn’t from the rum, though. That’s all Garrett.