Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

Surprised, a choked laugh escaped me, making a low, sexy rumble come from him as well.

"Adorable hell beasts is an interesting way to put it."

"You'd have to meet Hunt and Fee to understand it, I guess. Fee is a bit, ah, let's say strong and opinionated. That'd be a tame way of putting it. She owns the phone-sex business in town."

"Gotcha," I smiled, figuring that would definitely take a strong, opinionated, confident woman to do that job. "Any other nieces or nephews? With all those brothers, I mean..."

"Well some of us have been too busy with work and the others have been too busy chasing skirts to settle down. But my younger brother Shane just got himself shacked up with a woman named Lea and I expect them to start pumping them out sooner rather than later."

"Big family," I smiled, finding no small bit of longing inside.

I loved my uncle.

He was always my rock, my anchor, my safe place to land. His door was always open to me as a kid, no matter what time of night my mom showed up, no matter how much he had to rearrange his life to take care of me. He was, for a man who kept mostly to himself and therefore wasn't overly warm, the most giving, selfless person I had ever known. And while my childhood didn't involve warm hugs when my heart was broken or hair-braiding and romcom marathons, it did involve someone who always remembered my favorite foods and kept them stocked, who always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to, who never judged me for my shortcomings.

That being said, there were no crazy Thanksgiving dinners or huge unwrapping sessions on Christmas morning. There was no banter loud enough that you couldn't hear yourself think over it.

I had always wanted the kind of holidays I saw in movies.

Ryan had that.

I envied it.

Even if it meant they judged me on what I wore and drove and who I dated and how I spent my free time.

"Is your uncle coming to you for Christmas?" he asked when the silence stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.

Christmas was in just over a week.

"He usually does for a couple hours, yeah."

"You cook?"

"Mhmm," I said, shrugging a shoulder. "You kind of have to in my situation. Does your family do a big thing?"

"Christmas afternoon," he agreed, nodding. "Used to be morning until Fee had the girls. Now they have to have their Christmas morning at home so it got pushed later."

"Is it crazy?" I asked, hearing the neediness in my own voice.

"Fucking nuts," he supplied, willing to give me what it was clear I needed. "Everyone has to buy for everyone else so the gifts take up the entire living room. Unwrapping takes hours and then we have a huge dinner which, by then, everyone has had a drink or five so it's loud and over the top. It's..."

"Christmas," I supplied, smile a little sad.

"Yeah," he agreed, picking up on the melancholy because his smile went almost sympathetic. I watched then, almost in slow motion, as his hand started to raise, come toward me.

Only to fall when there was a loud rapping on the driver's side window that made us both jump.

"Fuck," he murmured, looking annoyed to be interrupted as he turned to find our super, Andrew, standing there. Ryan rolled down the window and let out an impatient, "What?"

"All is clear. You two can go back to your places now," he said, that little declaration shattering my small little fantasy world where I could sit in a car with a man and share stories and be normal for a while.

But I wasn't normal.

And I would likely never get the chance to have the little fantasy again.

As if sensing the same thing, Ryan's head turned to me, his mouth in a severe line, his eyes guarded. "Thanks, Andrew," he said, not sounding thankful at all. Then he rolled up the window and reached for the key, knowing as much as me that the moment was over and it was time to go back to our real lives.

Where he was a super sexy businessman with some kind of dark side and a wild, loving family.

And I was a neurotic, homebound freak with an uncle who loved her and a cat that scratched her and, well, nothing else going on for her.

I practically flew out of the car on that thought, going into the back to grab Rocky's carrier.

What was I even thinking entertaining a conversation with him, getting to know someone who I wanted to know more of, wanted to know all of, when I knew that wasn't something I could have?

Always setting myself up for disappointment.

The walk back up the stairs and down the hall was deafeningly silent.

"Thanks," I offered, giving him a small smile standing in my doorway that was still open because neither of us had bothered to close it.