“What would you do to me?” he teases.
A million thoughts are racing through my head, but before I have a chance to tease back—or maybe just push him back onto the floor and kiss him, sweat be damned—we’re interrupted. Aside from when Cooper accidentally walked in on us hooking up, and the time Laura almost burst in on us taking a shower together, we’ve had pretty good luck with privacy. Less than twenty-four hours at James’ house and his little sister has interrupted twice.
“I’m putting on The Family Stone,” she declares, flicking James on the cheek as she walks by.
“Please, no,” James groans. “I’ll do anything, Iz. Anything to avoid sitting through that pain.”
“Rachel McAdam’s incapable of making a bad movie.” She glances back at me. “Right, Bex?”
I look between my boyfriend and his sister. If I agree, I’ll win some points with Izzy, but James will pout.
Eh, he can take it. It’s not a sack delivered by a freight train of a linebacker, to use Sandra’s phrasing.
“You know what, Izzy? You’re totally right.”
James opens the taped-together Monopoly box with the same reverence afforded to historical artifacts. The board looks like I remember from the couple of times I’ve played this, as do the cards, but the little silver game pieces? Instead of those, he sets out a strange assortment of objects. A button, a toy soldier, a locket with a broken hinge, what looks like a shoe for a Barbie, a sparkly pom-pom, and a dented bottle cap.
“Bex is the guest, she should pick first,” Sebastian says from across the coffee table. We’re all on the floor by the Christmas tree, mugs of spiked hot chocolate （except for Izzy） in hand. I thought I’d have some girlfriend privileges here, maybe be able to be on a team with James, but that went out into the chilly December night the moment I saw the gleam in his eyes. I might be snuggled into his side now, but once the cards are drawn, he’s The Enemy.
Fine. I may need to admit defeat whenever we go to the arcade to play hoops, but I can beat him in a board game for sure.
Cooper looks at me with intensity in his deep blue eyes. “If you take that button from me, I will lose my shit.”
“The button?” I glance down at it. “I figured that would be the one no one wants.”
“The button is luckiest,” James says. “Then the shoe.”
Izzy cracks her knuckles. “I’m getting that shoe. You ruined me last year, James.”
“Which is the unluckiest?” I ask.
“The toy soldier.”
I shake my head. “Three guys and no one wants the toy soldier?”
“He’s the soldier of death,” Richard says dryly from his spot on the couch. Sandra is tucked into his side; they’re the only ones paying attention to the movie playing. It’s a Wonderful Life.
I swallow back a sudden swell of emotion as the memory of watching that movie on the diner television with my mom hits me. When I was little, she loved it, the way she liked other classic things—music and art and fashion. After my father left, the movie made her too sad, and I’ve never pushed us to watch it. I haven’t seen it in years.
“The only fair thing is to dump them all in the middle,” Sandra says. “Everyone makes a grab for it.”
“Do you really want Seb to get Coop into a headlock again?” says James.
She raises her eyebrows at her son. “All’s fair in love and games.”
“Well said, darling,” says Richard, punctuating that with a kiss.
James wrinkles his nose, but I smile. The bittersweet ache in my chest won’t go away tonight. We had breakfast for dinner—apparently a Callahan family tradition on Christmas Eve—and that reminded me of the diner. A big, cozy family event like this? I never had that; even when I had both of my parents in my life, it was just the three of us. No older siblings to tease or younger siblings to torture.
“Okay,” James says, shoving all the pieces into the center of the board. “On three. Three, tw—Cooper!”
34
JAMES
After midnight hits, I carry Bex to bed.
She’s a little tipsy, her breath smelling like Irish cream, cheeks flushed, mouth slack. I am too; the longer we played the game, the more Bailey’s we added to our hot chocolates. Cooper pulled out a completely improbable win after the back-to-back bankruptcies of Seb and Bex, and that came hours after my parents bid us goodnight.
She fits right in with my family, just like I thought she would. My mom loves her. And the more time Dad spends with her, the more he’ll love her too. I’m totally biased, sure, but she’s impossible to resist.
I set her down on the bed gently, pulling off her sweater so she won’t get hot in her sleep. She whines, reaching for me when I move away to fold it and set it on my desk. Her fuzzy socks have little Santa hat-wearing penguins on them. Almost as adorable as the light-up Christmas tree earrings she wore earlier today.
“Let’s go to sleep,” I murmur, stroking my hand through her tangled hair. “Otherwise, Santa won’t come.”
She cups my jaw. “One day you’ll tell our kids that.”
“Bex,” I say helplessly. Fuck, she’s so pretty it makes my chest ache. Those beautiful brown eyes look at me in my dreams, and every day I wake up grateful I get to see them for real.
“I love you,” she whispers, so quietly I think for a moment I imagined it.
But she keeps looking up at me with confidence shining in her eyes, and I know she really said it.
“Fuck, I love you.” I gather her up into a hug, fisting my hand in her hair. She digs her nails into my back. We stay like that for a long moment, breathing each other in. When I pull away, she has a tear tracking down her cheek. I brush it aside tenderly and kiss her.
“Show me how much,” she says. “Please, James. Show me.”
She peels her shirt off and flings it aside, shivering immediately. I pull her up the bed, settling us underneath the covers. I can’t stop kissing her; every time my lips brush her skin, she whispers encouragement.
I love you. The words are on a loop in my mind and on my lips as we move against each other. I love you. I love you. I say it so many times I get breathless. She’s laughing against my neck, smiling as she kisses me, moving with me in the cool quiet of my bedroom. I’m distantly aware that we’re not the only two people around; that even though it feels like it, we’re not alone in the world. But in this moment, it absolutely does. I’m in the house I grew up in, surrounded by the family I would protect with my life, but never has it felt so real and perfect and like home. Not until now. Not until Beckett.
If I could only pick one person to be around, one person to know, one person to love, for the rest of my life—I’d choose her.
We’re still pressed tightly together when I hear her breathing begin to even out. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, I slip out of her. She turns into my chest, yawning, nestling her head against me.
No, we’re not alone in the world, but right now, underneath the covers—it does feel like we’re in a world of our own.
“One day I will tell our kids that,” I whisper. My heartbeat quickens at the thought. “Because I’m yours, forever.”