We were crossing the driveway when Rhodes carefully said, “This storm is going to be big, sweetheart. Don’t be too disappointed if your flight gets rescheduled, all right?”
“I won’t,” I assured him. Because I really wouldn’t be.
*
“Are you sad?” Amos asked the next night as we sat around the table. Rhodes had pulled out a set of dominos an hour earlier, and I’d played one game against him before Am had wandered out of his bedroom and apparently decided he was bored enough to join in too.
“Me?” I asked as I stretched my arms over my head.
“Yeah,” he asked before taking a quick sip of his strawberry soda. “Because your flight got canceled.”
The notification had come in the middle of the night. The beep of the app had woken me up, and I’d rolled over—in Rhodes’s bed, where he’d slept on his side and I’d slept on the other because he’d reminded me about the mice and the possibility of bats again—to find that my flight had been rescheduled from six in the morning to noon. By nine in the morning, it had been rescheduled to three, and by ten thirty, it had been totally canceled.
If I had felt even a little bit disappointed, the way that Rhodes had massaged my nape when I’d given him the news would have made up for all of it.
That and how he’d stripped down to his boxers in front of me before crawling into bed mere inches away, his fingertips brushing mine more than once before we’d fallen asleep.
I wasn’t sure how much longer we were going to be able to sleep in the same bed together—even though it had only happened twice—but I was ready for something. And from the look in his eye, I could tell he was ready for something too. Something deeper than a three-letter word that hung between us even though we had barely kissed each other.
But that was something to ponder over later when Am wasn’t sitting across from us at the table.
“No, it’s okay. As long as you don’t mind me hanging out with you guys…” I trailed off.
He made a face behind his can. “No.”
“Are you sure? Because my feelings won’t be hurt if you just want to hang out with your dad and your mom’s family.”
“No,” he insisted. “It’s fine.”
“It’s fine” from him was pretty much a blessing that I wouldn’t close my eyes to. “Are you two sad your dad had to cancel coming because of the snow?” I asked Rhodes.
Father and son looked at each other.
I hadn’t heard much about Randall Rhodes, but I did know that he had been invited to come over and spend Christmas Eve with them, since he definitely wasn’t invited to the get-together on Amos’s other side of the family, which might also be canceled now depending on road conditions. Personally, I thought it was a small step that the man had called and apologized for not being able to make it. But I was pretty sure I was the only one impressed by it.
He was trying. I thought.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered. “Maybe we can find a scary movie to watch after this?”
That perked Am up, and I didn’t miss the slight snort out of Rhodes’s nose at the idea of watching something scary on Christmas Eve. I glanced at him and smiled. His sock-covered foot nudged mine beneath the table. I swore that was better than most kisses I’d gotten over my life.
“Yeah, I guess,” Amos said, also in a way that was pretty much a “hell yeah” from him.
“Do you care?” I asked Rhodes with a hopeful look on my face, fluttering my eyes at him.
The older man side-eyed me. “Quit being cute. What do you think?”
I thought he wouldn’t, and I was right to think so. We all sat around the television and watched Brightburn, and they ignored me when I closed my eyes or pretended to have something really interesting to look at beneath my fingernails. By the time the movie finished though, it was midnight, and I couldn’t wait until morning any longer. We had always celebrated Christmas at midnight—with my mom, at least. That tradition had seemed to be the only one she’d kept from her Venezuelan family.
On the couch, besides Rhodes where I’d watched the whole movie, I scooted forward and asked, “Can I give you two your presents now?”
Am said, “Okay,” at the same time Rhodes asked, “You got us something?”
I eyed Rhodes again. “You saw how much garland I had up in the garage apartment. This can’t surprise you.”
He shrugged, and I believed him. He’d looked genuinely surprised when boxes from his brothers had arrived with Christmas presents for him and Amos. The only box that he hadn’t been too surprised by was the one that had made it from Amos’s parents.