Wrapped with a beau, p.29
Wrapped with a Beau, page 29
Anything else would fall woefully short of what he yearns for.
“I love that you want to try,” she says, sounding impossibly kind. As she always is. “And we can still be friends, obviously, but this has been my best Christmas in years, and it would break my heart if all these lovely memories were tarnished by a messy breakup. You mean too much to me.” Her eyes plead with him, made luminous in the reflection of the streetlamps. “Let’s just enjoy the next few days? I don’t want to ruin what we have. That’s why I think it’s best if we end things when you leave. Fantasies never live up to reality.”
But if you let fear stop you, then what we have will only ever be memories is what he wants to say.
“You’re probably right” is what he says instead, tabling his thoughts before they can leak out of him.
“We’ll always have Christmas,” Elisha says quietly.
Somehow, that makes Ves feel worse.
Because, in his heart, he is still a boy who believes in fantasies and getting the girl and happily ever after.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ves
Thorin wakes Ves up on Christmas morning with a swish of his tail. Ves sputters around a mouthful of fluffy black cat hair, shooting upright in bed to glower at him. Thorin primly licks a paw and jumps from the bed, landing nimbly on the floor next to Elisha’s clothes from last night.
“Merry Christmas,” she murmurs, throwing an arm around his waist and pulling him back down.
“Merry Christmas,” he says, dropping a kiss on her temple.
She smiles, sighing contentedly.
Ves stares down at her in bewildered astonishment. How can she look so at peace when his insides feel as shaken as a snow globe?
How does he just get up and deal with the fact that there’s a last time for everything? A last kiss. A last sleepy morning snuggled together in bed. A last time he’s going to be the person he is right now, with her, in this quiet moment before they go to her house to celebrate the day.
How is he supposed to be okay with any of this?
Elisha blearily cracks one eye open. “I can hear you thinking.”
He makes a noncommittal sound as he strokes her forearms, grazing his fingertips up and down. He knows how much she enjoys the languid touches, the way it takes him a long time to tire. She especially likes when he does it to her spine, shivering when he reaches her tailbone.
If they had time, he’d show her how much he likes that whimpering sound she makes when he lulls her pleasurably boneless, then picks up the pace until they’re both frenzied with want.
But they’re all out of time.
They shower together, taking turns under the hot water, slipping the loofah around each other’s bodies until they’re both slick and sudsy. No quickie this time, just a sensual re-anchoring to the present moment as they stare into each other’s eyes and exchange sloppy kisses.
When they head across the street armed with presents, he almost feels like he’s ready for it.
Jamie opens the door and takes Ves’s jacket. “Merry Christmas, you two!”
“Don’t you both look lovely,” says Anita, beaming. “New sweater?”
“Thank you, yes. I got it at this little shop on Main Street.” Ves glances down at his color-block sweater with pride. He usually sticks to solid, neutral colors, but he went a little wild with this one: beige, white, navy, and gray. Before meeting Elisha, he would have called it an ugly Christmas sweater.
“This is his idea of colorful,” says Elisha, looking up at him fondly.
Jamie eyes his daughter’s outfit. “At least someone dressed up for Christmas Day. You, young lady, are wearing the same thing as yesterday.”
Her face turns red. “I’ll go change!” she yelps.
Anita shakes her head, smiling. “Come on, Ves. Dave’s already here.”
In the kitchen, they find him scrambling eggs and turning perfectly golden-brown sausage in the pan. “Just in time!” he exclaims, twinkling at Ves.
This time, when the hug comes, Ves embraces it. Dave’s arms are strong and sturdy, the whisper of sweet peppermint tingling Ves’s nostrils as his chin meets the older man’s shoulder. He never knew his grandparents, but he imagines a hug from them would have felt like this.
Dave pulls away with a resigned smile. “When do you head back to New York?”
Anita’s waiting for his answer, too, as she pulls cinnamon rolls from the oven, baby-blue snowman mitts padding her hands. The scent of rich browned butter and caramelized brown sugar is intoxicating.
“Tomorrow,” says Ves, unable to muster a smile in return.
“Did everything that you wanted?” Dave asks lightly as he carefully rotates the sausage.
“Yeah, explored the shops in town. Visited the Christmas Market. Did all the touristy things. I’m glad I stayed for the Winter Festival, got to meet you all.”
But they both know what Dave was really asking.
Elisha slips back into the room just as everything is being pulled out of the oven. She’s changed into a buffalo-check miniskirt, knee-high black socks, and a tucked-in black turtleneck. “Oh my god, Dad, Gramps, all this smells amazing!” She grabs a plate of maple-bacon scones and joins them at the table, sitting next to Ves.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
She grins. “So do you.” She cups his cheek, running the soft pad of her thumb over his cheekbone. “Christmas is a good look on you. You seem happy.”
He catches her hand, laces their fingers together. “It’s not Christmas that makes me happy,” he replies in a voice too low for anyone else to hear.
“Don’t stand on ceremony,” Anita says with a laugh, pouring out cups of steaming coffee. “Help yourselves, everyone!”
They all open presents as they eat, which is new to Ves. When he was growing up, presents were opened only after a formal breakfast, and with Arun’s family’s, first thing upon waking up. As a kid and teenager, he’d spent many winter breaks at their house, and Arun’s younger siblings would drag everyone out of bed without even a chance to brush their hair or teeth to gather around the tree.
Dave shovels a scone in his mouth and benevolently waves a hand. “Ves, Elisha, go on.”
Even in this, they’re total opposites. Elisha rips into the wrapping paper with abandon, while Ves carefully slides his finger under the tape to wiggle it loose.
“Writers’ Tears Irish whiskey?” Ves holds it up by the neck, grinning. “I can guess who this is from.”
Dave guffaws. “Will it help you write? Probably not. Will it make the writing more pleasurable? Almost undoubtedly.”
“It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“My turn,” announces Anita, handing a lumpy present to her husband, who tears into it.
Jamie holds up a brand-new NYU sweatshirt. “You shouldn’t have!”
“I’m going to throw out your old ratty one.”
“You really shouldn’t have,” he says with a long-suffering sigh that seems more playful than put out.
Jamie promptly dons both his new sweatshirt and a gorgeous plush robe before diving into the manual for his top-of-the-line air fryer.
Dave is delighted with the new tools and beverage refrigerator for his workshop, a beard grooming kit, and, from Ves, an engraved flask.
Anita tears up at the diamond solitaire necklace and matching bracelet, wine subscription, and, from Ves, a couples spa certificate.
Elisha gets gold huggie earrings and a black moto jacket from her parents, a Sephora gift card from her grandpa, upcoming concert tickets from Solana and Adam, and a red money-envelope adorned with gold foil embellishments from her grandparents in Goa.
Between bites of a perfectly roasted squash-and-bacon hash, Ves opens his gifts: he gets a cozy cream cardigan with beautiful tortoiseshell buttons from Anita and Jamie, along with an assortment of their homemade candy from the Chocolate Mouse and a few small, fluffy cat toys. Elisha surprises him with Solana’s present, a set of pencils with funny sayings on them and a faux leather journal. Waiting for him in the city are new AirPods from Arun and a temperature-controlled mug from Cade—Arun is truly hopeless at keeping secrets that aren’t work-related.
When his phone rings, he’s enjoying himself so much with the Rowes that he almost doesn’t hear it. “I have to take this. It’s my sister,” he explains. Everyone falls considerately silent as he answers.
“Merry Christmas, Ves!” she shrieks down the line. He hears both his father and stepmother repeat the greeting in the background, more perfunctory than cheery.
He’s bemused at his sister’s exuberance. “Merry Christmas, Hans. Did you have fun skiing?”
“Yeah! Did you get good presents?” she wants to know.
“The best,” he confirms.
“Nuh-uh. Not the best. You haven’t opened mine yet. I’ll give it to you the next time I see you, that way I know you’ll come.”
He half frowns. “You know if you want to see me, you just have to ask, right?”
Uncertainty trickles down the line. “I guess, but Dad always says I shouldn’t bother you because you’re busy and you’re an adult, so . . .”
“You never bother me, Hanna,” he says firmly. “Ignore Dad. I’m always here for you.”
She drops her voice, a little scandalized, impressed, and apologetic all at once. “I forgot to tell you that you’re on speaker. He heard you say that.”
He laughs under his breath. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Dad wants to talk to you. I’ll text you after.”
A second later, Karl says, “Please do not tell your sister to ignore me, Ves. That undermines me as a parent.”
“Yeah, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But what am I supposed to say when she tells me— You know what, never mind. Just . . . stop making her feel like she’s a nuisance.”
“Fine,” comes Karl’s clipped reply. “I’m always the bad guy.”
Ves really doesn’t have the energy for this conversation. And especially not with the Rowes right there, all of them eating uncomfortably, not making a peep. Even though they can only hear one side of the conversation, he knows they’ve picked up on his change of tone. “I’m having breakfast with the Rowes. Why don’t I call you back later?”
“You take calls in front of other people?”
“I’m not you, Dad.” What he really means is I have nothing to hide.
“No need to call me back. I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.” The call ends, which Ves was expecting, knowing how curt Karl can be, but it still stings.
“I didn’t know you had a sister, Ves,” Anita says lightly when Ves puts the phone down. “It’s nice that you’re so close.”
“We weren’t always,” he admits. “We have to work at it. She’s much younger than I am.”
“You have a big family?” asks Dave.
Ves glances at Elisha, then away. “No, but maybe someday.”
Dave grins. “Then younger siblings are good practice.”
Jamie coughs. “Dad, you do realize your children—my older siblings—tormented me all through childhood, right?”
Dave stabs a sausage. “You were the baby. That’s different.”
“Well, I guess hiding in the kitchen with Mom taught me everything I know about baking,” says Jamie.
“Grandma Lou would have liked you, Ves,” Elisha says decisively. “Right, Grandpa?”
Dave gives a sage nod. “Oh, undoubtedly.”
Tears prick at Ves’s eyes. “This fruit salad is amazing,” he says, digging through the festive medley. A mint syrup is drizzled over cut strawberries, honeydew melon, red and green grapes, and kiwis, everything sprinkled with jeweled pomegranate seeds. “Anita, Jamie . . . I’m going to miss your cooking as much as I’ll miss all of you.”
“No talking about sad things today,” Anita says brusquely.
Jamie reaches out to clap Ves on the shoulder. “We’ll miss you too, son.”
The lump in Ves’s throat grows impossibly bigger. If anyone finds it odd that he hides his expression by studiously staring at the fruit he’s eating, they’re too polite to say so.
“You haven’t opened mine yet!” Elisha cries, sliding a rectangular package to him.
It’s wrapped in glossy red plaid paper, scattered with sprigs of holly. He gives it a light shake. There’s a good weight to it. “A book?”
“Close.” She glances at her family, unable to restrain her full-blown grin. Whatever secret they share is seconds away from coming out, and all of them look on with anticipation. Still, no one hustles him as he neatly removes the wrapping.
It’s a photo album. He opens it, coming face to face with dozens of pages filled with pictures of himself. In the earliest, he’s a baby swamped in a lacy white frock, professionally posed even though he can barely hold up his own head. In later ones, he’s a well-dressed toddler sitting in his mother’s lap, his father standing stiffly behind them. He doesn’t remember ever seeing these at home.
But what truly knocks the air out of Ves’s lungs is the overexposed photo of a seven-year-old him in what is clearly the Chocolate Mouse, face screwed up because of the younger girl next to him grinning into the camera, dangling a milk-chocolate mouse by the tail in front of him. Elisha. A rascal even then.
And after that are a few more pages of him as a child at the Christmas House; excitedly holding the reins of a stationary sleigh; reading some enormous medical tome with a look of intense concentration . . .
Finally, he raises wet eyes to the Rowes. “How did you get all these?”
“I went through all the old albums,” says Elisha. “Maeve and Grandma Lou took a lot of pictures when I was growing up. I figured that Maeve would have some of you, too, over the years.”
Ves turns to the last page. There’s him and Maeve. She’s just given him the red scarf and he remembers pulling out his phone for a quick snap. She’d waved him off, pulling out an old disposable camera, insisting a real picture was better. She was right. If he’d taken a picture with his phone that day, it would be uploaded and forgotten in cloud storage. He probably wouldn’t have looked at it again.
He closes the book with reverence. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely.
When they get ready to go back to his house a couple of hours later, Grandpa Dave takes them aside for a second. “Are you planning to meet up in the city for New Year’s Eve?” he asks. “I have to head up that way to pick up some reclaimed barnwood. We could coordinate.”
“Oh, Grandpa.” Elisha glances at Ves before answering. “He always spends New Year’s with his best friend’s family. We’re actually not going to do the whole long-distance thing. It’s too complicated.”
For the thousandth time that day, Ves is second-guessing her decision and his earlier agreement. But he doesn’t want to disagree with her publicly, so he shuffles silently into his shoes.
Dave shakes his head. “There’s nothing complicated about love, Elisha. It’s you kids who are making it complicated. Everything is possible with a little gumption.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Elisha
The day after Christmas, Ves leaves at an ungodly hour of the morning. The whole street turns out to wave him goodbye, even Marcy in her terry bathrobe and hair curlers piled high on top of her head. Elisha joins them, but she and Ves already said their private goodbyes last night, between feverish kisses and gentle thrusts.
It’s harder than she thought to see his luggage disappear into the trunk of his Uber, Thor and Thorin in the back seat, plaintively mewling. Long after everyone else goes back inside, she stays on the porch, staring down the road even though his Uber has already disappeared.
And for the first time, she feels cold.
“Pancakes or Belgian waffles?” her dad asks when she groggily makes her way back into the kitchen, blinking back tears. Her eyes sting from the wind, from not enough sleep, from possibly making the biggest mistake of her life.
“Pancakes, please.” She clambers up on a barstool and groans, holding her head in her hands.
“How are you, sweetie?” Jamie asks, looking sympathetic. “I hope the cats don’t give him too much grief on the journey . . . they’re not used to the carriers. You can call and check up on all three of them. Should only be a couple of hours as long as his Uber doesn’t get stuck in holiday traffic.”
“No, we decided not to—” She stops herself. She doesn’t want to talk about Ves right now, not when it’s still so raw. It’s the last thing she wants to put into words. But in her haste to change the subject, she instead blurts out the very thing she had been trying all week to keep from her parents. “Do you remember Veronica Fox? My old boss in the Georgia Film Office?”
She immediately wants to take it back. The pan sizzles with the first pat of cold butter Jamie tosses in, quickly melting enough that he can coat every inch. “Sure,” he says.
Elisha takes a deep breath. She started this, she might as well see it through.
“I met up with her while I was in New York.” Elisha watches as the batter hits the pan, immediately sizzling. “She offered me a job. And I . . . have to decide if that’s something I want.”
“You’d have to live in the city?” Jamie flips the pancake. It’s a little thicker and browner than usual, the way first pancakes often are. “But that’s great, right, honey? You’d be closer to Ves.”
Which is exactly why she can’t let that be a factor in her decision. She can’t base her career decisions around a guy who she’s only casual with. What if she accepts Veronica’s offer, thinking he’ll be stoked to have her closer, only to find out down the line that he’s not into it?
