Ryan glances at his big sister, still wide-eyed. Sasha frowns, uncertain.
“You have?” she asks.
“Yup,” I say. “I heard you know all the words to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And I heard you,” I look at Ryan, “are an expert at baking gingerbread cookies.”
“I put the noses on,” he says, authoritatively.
Sasha’s still frowning. Finally, she takes my hand and shakes it once.
“Did you bring Rudolph?” she asks.
“He couldn’t come tonight,” I tell her, then look around conspiratorially. “Can you keep a secret?”
Both kids nod, and I pull the beard off.
“It’s just me, Grady,” I whisper.
Finally, Sasha smiles.
“We made cookies,” she tells me.
The kids descend on the kitchen, and I make my way back to Adeline, who’s politely chatting with my mom.
“Grady!” my mom says, and gives me a big, giant hug. “There, it’s finally my turn.”
“Merry Christmas,” I tell her. “Ho ho ho!”
“Bless you for the costume,” she says. “I think you made their entire year. And you brought a guest!”
Growing up, my house was always the house where anyone and everyone was welcome, no matter what, so I didn’t think twice about bringing Adeline over.
“I did,” I say. “Adeline, this is my mom.”
“Patty,” she says, holding out a hand. “Welcome to Christmas Eve!”
“Thanks,” says Adeline.
“Mom, this is Adeline,” I say. “She’s…”
Then, on the spur of the moment, I do a completely insane thing.
“…my girlfriend,” I finish.
Chapter Five
ADELINE
Patty puts both her hands to her mouth and gasps.
Somehow, I don’t.
“What a wonderful surprise!” she exclaims. “How absolutely lovely!”
I’m instantly engulfed in a hug, and clearly I have no choice but to hug Patty back.
“It is!” I say, and give Grady a look over her shoulder.
It’s an eyes-wide, nose-scrunched, full-on what the fuck look.
“I’ve heard all about you!” she says, pulling back but leaving her hands on my shoulders. “Darling, I didn’t know you were bringing her!”
“Surprise!” I say, and smile.
“Mont!” Patty yells. “Grady brought his girlfriend!”
“What?” comes a voice from the kitchen. And then, at a lower volume: “One more, all right? They’ll still be here after dinner, I promise. We’ll put them where you can see them.”
“Grady!” she calls. “Brought his girlfriend! Grady, take her to your father. Goodness, I need to go get you a sweater!”
With that, Patty bustles off and leaves Grady and I sort of alone.
“The hell?” I whisper.
For some reason, Grady also looks alarmed as his eyes follow his mom until she disappears.
Then he looks back at me.
“I don’t know,” he whispers.
“What do you mean —”
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” he goes on, still whispering through that stupid beard. “I didn’t mean to, I could just tell that’s what she thought and she was so excited that I kinda just went with it.”
“Who have you been telling them about?” I whisper. “Not me! She’s going to be pissed.”
Grady makes a face and scratches under the fake beard.
“I kinda made someone up so they’d get off my back,” he says. “My mom really worries sometimes, so —”
“You’re in luck!” Patty calls, coming back. “I nearly gave some of these sweaters away to Goodwill this year, but instead I said to myself, no, Patty, you just never know who’ll come by at the last minute and it always pays to be prepared! Ta-da.”
Patty is on the short side, gray hair brushing her shoulders, her own Christmas sweater showing elves at Santa’s workshop with all the machinery blinking.
Right now, she’s holding up a blue sweater with a huge green Christmas tree on it, various elves decorating the tree, a model train underneath it.
Every single part of it blinks.
“That’s amazing,” I say, and I mean it. Patty grins, and I realize that Grady got her smile: charming and infectious, the kind of smile that makes it impossible to do anything but smile back.
“Here’s the kicker,” she says, then holds it against herself and finds a button along the hem.
The shirt starts playing at very tinny version of O, Christmas Tree, and I laugh. I can’t help it.
“And,” she says, holding up one finger and silencing the song. “This.”
There’s another button, on the other side of the sweater, and this one plays Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
“Patty, I’ve never seen anything like this,” I tell her, and I’m not lying. She hands it to me, and I pull it over my head.
“Dinner’s in an hour,” Patty tells us. “But if you’d like to decorate some cookies, I think the kids have left a few for you.”
“That sounds great!” I say, completely sincere, and she beams.
As Patty leads us into the kitchen, Grady pulls me back for a moment, lowers his voice.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “Look, I’m sorry about the girlfriend thing, but —”
I push the Santa Claus is Coming to Town button, and it shuts him up.
“I’m already wearing this sweater and I think your mom and I are best friends now,” I tell him. “We’ll go decorate cookies, I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend, and then you’ll take me home later. Everyone wins.”
Grady smiles that charming, infectious smile, then offers me his arm.
“Everyone wins,” he says.
Thirty minutes later, I escape.
Escape isn’t quite the right word. I’m actually having a lovely time decorating sugar cookies with Bryce and Ryan, which mostly involves trying to get them not to squeeze the icing directly into their mouths.
There’s also Mitch, Grady’s lovely dad who’s mashing potatoes, monitoring kids, and telling me all about his woodworking projects, not to mention Sasha, who’s taken to sneaking up on me and pushing my O, Christmas Tree button.
It’s chaos, is what I’m saying. Fun chaos, but chaos, so I finally ask where the bathroom is and make a break for it.
On the way back, instead of returning directly to the kitchen, I detour by the living room just as Grady’s coming through the front door, an enormous wrapped box in his arms. The top of the Santa Costume is wrapped around his waist, so all he’s got on is red velvet pants and a white v-neck undershirt.
I watch him take it into the living room. Technically, I believe what I do is called ogling, but that makes me feel like a desperate pervert, so let’s go with watch.
His forearms are flexed, biceps bulging, triceps dimpling on the backs of his arms. When he turns to go through the door to the living, I can see all the muscles in his shoulders and back bunched and flexed too, the way his shoulder blades move against the thin shirt as he puts the box down.