The bathroom door opened.
Erin was immediately halfway across the room. Cassie looked like she was going to complain before she seemed to remember. Parker.
“Don’t stay up too late,” Erin said exactly like a weird, uncool mom. “Santa doesn’t visit unless you’re asleep.”
“God, Mom,” Parker said from the hall, “I haven’t heard that one since I was like eleven.”
Parker was in the doorway then, right there, and Erin smiled at her daughter. It felt like she was watching the scene from above, like this was so fucked up her mind had tried to escape.
“I guess I better get to bed,” Cassie said. Her voice was perfectly steady, while Erin was fucking dissociating. “Wouldn’t want Santa to skip the house.”
Parker laughed. “Night, babe.”
“Night.”
Erin followed her daughter out of the room, closing the door behind her without looking at Cassie.
“Good night, Mom,” Parker said. “Almost Christmas.”
“Almost Christmas,” Erin said.
Nine
CASSIE
Cassie had never gotten particularly excited for Christmas as a kid. She might have gotten a toy if she was lucky, but mostly it was her mom hauling her to every soup kitchen she could find, like maybe if she fed Cassie three Christmas dinners she wouldn’t have to feed her again for a while. When Cassie got older she’d marched into her favorite kitchen and offered to volunteer. They knew her there—she’d been coming for years—but they’d given her a ladle and let her eat in the back when she took a break, away from everyone else.
She didn’t hold a grudge, had nothing against the holiday now. But she wasn’t the type to bounce out of bed or anything like that. Especially not after last night.
Instead, she lay flat on her back and stared at the popcorn ceiling.
Erin had kissed her.
Erin had kissed her. With Parker down the hall.
She still had to wrap Erin’s present. She’d planned to wrap it last night, but there was no chance of that once Erin had kissed her. Cassie wasn’t good at wrapping gifts to begin with; trying to do it when she couldn’t stop thinking about Erin’s lips? It probably would’ve looked like it’d been wrapped by someone without opposable thumbs.
Not that Cassie wasn’t thinking of Erin’s lips this morning. But at least she had some distance from the fact that Erin had kissed her with Parker down the hall.
Right. Yeah. It was fine. Cassie could totally focus on wrapping Erin’s present.
She’d bought it only last night, after the Christmas Eve party. She hadn’t thought about getting Erin a gift before then—half because Erin had been such a bitch to her over the phone, and half because Cassie wasn’t too good at guest etiquette. Obviously. Pretty sure good guests didn’t secretly kiss the hostess.
Regardless, she had the gift now: fancy hot chocolate mix in three different flavors. Parker had balked at the number of boxes Cassie had bought, but it wasn’t too much. In fact, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the guest bedroom on Christmas morning, Cassie thought maybe it wasn’t enough. What was an appropriate gift for your friend’s mom who you’d slept with before knowing the whole “friend’s mom” thing, but now that you did know, you still wanted to bang?
She’d also impulse bought several chocolate hearts at the register, little fifty-cent candies. Cassie had eaten three yesterday. The last heart, covered in red foil, lay on her bedside table. Parker had made a face when Cassie chose the white chocolate hot cocoa flavor, so that was the box Cassie opened now, dropping the chocolate heart inside before closing it again. She taped it shut before she could change her mind.
Cassie wanted to kiss Erin again. She didn’t know what the fuck Erin was thinking last night, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need the why. The reasons didn’t matter so much as the feeling of Erin’s lips against hers, Erin’s tongue brushing soft against her lower lip, Erin’s hands on her hips and her leg between Cassie’s, giving her something to grind against. It was dumb, to have done it with Parker down the hall, but Cassie could admit that was half the fun—there was something about the potential of getting caught. Or maybe that wasn’t what made it thrilling—maybe it was more that Erin wanted to kiss her enough to do it while her daughter was nearby. Like Cassie was irresistible.
It wasn’t a competition—it was unhinged to think of it as a competition, but—Parker was perfect. Smart and talented and rich enough to go to private school, but from a place where the public schools were good enough she didn’t have to. Her parents were divorced, sure, but she had them both, loving her, supporting her, paying for her to go to college. Cassie could barely afford community college, much less Keckley, which she could attend only because she’d gotten a full ride. Parker’s great-great-whatever uncle had signed the Declaration of Independence. Cassie’s mom had told her so little about her dad that Cassie suspected she didn’t know who had fathered her. Parker had a solid hometown friend group, and easily fit into friend groups in college. Cassie had Acacia. Cassie had had a boyfriend of three years who hadn’t hesitated to try to get in Parker’s pants. She had friends who left along with him. The only person who had always been there for Cassie was Acacia, and even she had fallen under Parker’s thrall. Which wasn’t even bad—Parker was great, and Cassie loved her, too. It was just a lot.