“Are you racking your brain for a quote from Elf or what?” Kai slants me a smile.
“As a matter of fact, I was sitting here planning out our whole day,” I deadpan. “First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, and then we’ll go ice skating, and then we’ll eat a whole roll of Toll House cookie dough as fast as we can.”
“And then we’ll snuggle?” Kai finishes the movie quote, a husky laugh parting her lips, showing me the sweet, pink tongue hiding behind her teeth.
“Hey, you said it, but I’m down if you are.”
She rolls her eyes, but keeps smiling.
“So, Kai,” Mr. McClausky calls from the other end of the table. “How long you been dating a rock star?”
Wow. So that’s how you get this rowdy crowd completely silent. They all stare down the table at us, a menagerie of Christmas sweaters and overalls.
“Um, we aren’t.” Kai turns wide, panicked eyes my way. “I mean, he’s not. That is to say, I’m not and we don’t . . .”
Her eyes beg for help and I have mercy.
“We’re just friends,” I say, even though every fiber in my body resists admitting that when she’s mine. But I don’t want to fight on Christmas in front of all her friends and family who have been so nice and accepting and all around cool.
“Could have fooled me,” Aunt Ruthie mutters into the silence that follows my statement. She and I share a grin because she knows all the plans I have for Kai. Well, some of them. The ones involving nudity I’ll keep to myself.
“I remember when your Pops saw your Grams for the first time, Kai.” Mr. McClausky nicely segues us out of awkward and into sentimental. “She wanted nothing to do with him. Said she wasn’t marrying no preacher.”
“Grams was kind of wild growing up,” Kai tells me, grinning.
“To say the least.” Mr. McClausky chuckles, shaking his head. “It took him a long time to convince her, but once he did, they had the kind of love most people only dream about.”
“He used to keep mistletoe in the house year round,” Kai says, her voice soft with the memory. “Said he’d use any excuse he could to kiss her all the time.”
“I wish I could have met them.” I say it so low probably only Kai hears me, but that’s okay since everyone else has moved on to old stories about other people.
“They would have loved you.” Kai’s eyes are a little shy, barely meeting mine before falling back to the napkin in her lap
“You sure about that?” I make a bold move, stealing her hand from her lap and linking our fingers on my knee. “Wild, bad boy musician corrupting their sweet granddaughter?”
“You’re not that bad.” She squeezes my hand and flirts with me through her eyelashes. “And I’m not that sweet.”
Oh, she’s sweet all right, and soon I’ll taste for myself.
THE LAST TIME I STOOD ON this porch, considering this inky sky dotted with dying stars, my mama lay inside and up those stairs drawing her final breaths. My heart was so heavy I could barely drag it up the steps to say good-bye. That night and the months that followed, I often thought my heart would never be light again.
And yet not even a year after Mama’s passing, the first Christmas without her, I laughed all through dinner and couldn’t stop smiling. I could lie to myself and say it was being back home, eating good food, surrounded by Aunt Ruthie, Mr. McClausky, and all the people who helped raise me, but I won’t.
It’s Rhyson. Not just today, but all the days that have come before. All the days he’s made me smile and pulled my heart out of the dark. I hate that things went so badly with his parents, but I’m glad he’s here. It feels right.
“Cold?”
The deep rumble of Rhyson’s voice behind me dents the quiet of Christmas night.
“Li’l bit.” I don’t turn to see him, but I’m already smiling. “Got a coat?”
“Nope.” He walks farther onto the porch bringing a smile with him. “Got an arm though.”
“I’ll take it.”
I shift on the step to make room for his wide shoulders beside me, and notice for the first time the step doesn’t move under my bottom. I wiggle again, frowning when the step doesn’t wobble.
“Something going on with your hips?” Rhyson laughs and settles beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
“This step has wobbled for years, but—”
“I fixed it.”
“Why?” I can’t explain the fist tightening around my heart, but it’s squeezing until I’m sure blood will leak through my dress. “Who told you to do that?”
Rhyson pulls back to stare at me, his arm dropping from my shoulder.
“It was dangerous.” His words start out slow like he’s still figuring out my crazy. “It was loose, and we had a hundred people coming up these steps for Christmas breakfast.”
“Yeah, I mean . . .” I run a finger over the step like I have a million times sitting here, looking up that road, waiting for Daddy to appear. “I’m sorry. Thanks.”
“Did you want the step loose?”
“No, of course not. I just . . . it’s stupid.”
“All the more reason to tell me.” Rhyson bumps shoulders. “Your perfection is exhausting.”
God, he’s great.
He’s the most unexpected gift I’ve ever received, and he treats me better than any guy ever has. And I’m whining because he fixed a step I could have tripped and broken my neck on waiting for my daddy to come home and repair it?
“My mama would never fix that step because it was the last thing Daddy said to her. I had a dance recital. He said I’ll fix that step when we get home after the recital, but he never showed up.”
I palm my knees, squeezing them until I can finish.
“He never came home.” A one-sided smile cracks my face. “She wouldn’t touch that step for years, but would never say why. I knew though. And this is where I’d sit on birthdays and Christmas, wondering if he might show up.”
My fake laugh sounds harsh even to my ears.
“The first few years, when I was still young, I’d sit right here wearing my ballet shoes so I’d be ready when he came back. Somehow, I convinced myself that if he had just seen me dance, he would have stayed.”
It shouldn’t still hurt that he never came back, but especially at Christmas, especially this first Christmas without Mama, it does.
“I’m sorry,” Rhyson says. “Not that I fixed the step. That was a hazard. I’m sorry he never showed. Sorry he ever left and missed out on you and your mom. I can tell she was something special.”
Enough talk about my sorry excuse for a father. He doesn’t deserve any of a day that has been as close to perfect as it could be without Mama here.
“You know what was special?” I drop my head to his shoulder.
“Aunt Bea’s Rudolph sweater?”
I laugh until I snort.
“Admit it,” Rhyson continues. “If I went up to your closet right now, I’d find a dozen Christmas sweaters.”
“I was much younger and it was a long time ago.”
“Sure it was, Rudy.”
“Would you be serious for a minute?” I’m still laughing. Can’t help it.
“Okay.” He reaches down to caress my hair. “What was special?”
I want to lean into him until he absorbs me and I can’t tell where he ends and where I begin. But that’s what’s so dangerous about Rhyson. I need to begin somewhere. I need to be my own person with my own goals and my own dreams, not get lost in his breadth. Our dynamic could get really complicated, but tonight it’s simple. Just a boy and a girl who love being together.
“You coming here was special.” I laugh a little. “You serving pancakes was special. This whole day was special.”