How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

I was now former Marine. And once I’d come to grips with that, the next thing I’d thought was, Thank God I don’t have to run anymore.

Which didn’t explain even a little bit why I was standing outside the Kane Co. building in a sweatshirt and a hat getting ready to go running.

With Sophie.

She came out the front door wearing black running tights, a sweatshirt, and gloves. Her curls were in a ponytail.

“Hey!” she said, unable to hide how delighted she was to see me. She beamed in my direction, and if there’d been anyone else there they’d have seen it on her face.

How much she loved me.

Don’t, I wanted to say to her. Don’t look at me.

Don’t love me.

I looked into the gray skies and stomped my feet against the cold.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“There is no everyone,” I said. “Just me.”

“You want to scrap running and go get some pancakes?” she asked. Now her face was all love and hope for pancakes.

“No,” I said. “But you go ahead if you want pancakes. I’m going to run.”

“Then I’ll run with you,” she said, still bright and cheerful. And I hated the idea of being cruel to her, but she had to stop looking at me like that. I had to stop her from looking at me like that.

I took off running, a steady trot away from the building, down through LoDo toward the river.

“How was your first day?” she asked, catching up with me.

“Fine.”

“Denise—?”

“She’s nice,” I said, turning left to catch a green light so we didn’t have to stop at a corner.

“The rest of the guys?”

“Fine.” We caught the next red and I stopped running and she jogged lightly.

“Great,” she said brightly. “How is your mom?”

I smiled at the change of subject. “Fine. Good.” I shook my head because that was a lie.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing…new.”

“Your dad?”

I nodded and she stumbled.

“He’s around?”

“He just called, but you know how that goes.”

“Is he in town?”

“Apparently. His last girlfriend kicked him out.”

“Have you seen him?”

I shot her a look. “He knows better.”

“What can I do?” she asked.

“I got it,” I told her, unhappy with myself that I’d told her. But man, it was hard living without friends when your asshole dad showed back up to make your mother cry. “But there is something else you can do for me.”

“Name it.”

“Go out with that Joe kid,” I said, and the light changed and I started running and she was caught flat-footed.

“Joe?” she said when she caught up.

“Yeah. He’s into you. Seems like a good enough guy.”

This time when she stopped it was the center of the street with the walking timer clicking down. She pursed her lips at me, hands on hips. “Good enough was a nice touch,” she said. I stood on the curb and held my arms at my sides.

“He seems into you.”

“Oh, he’s really into me. You’re going to pretend like you don’t care?”

She was standing in the middle of the road when the light changed. There were cars coming down the road right at her and she stood there, pissed off and trying to piss me off.

I ran into the middle of the road and grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to the side. “I don’t care,” I told her pink cheeks and fiery eyes.

“What bullshit,” she said.

“I’m not lying.”

I was thankful, so thankful. And deeply amazed at how lucky I was to have Wes and Sophie as friends, but…there was a limit. There had to be one. Otherwise I was just some object of pity and need who didn’t have a job and couldn’t sleep and wanted to kiss my best friend’s little sister until this hunger I had for her was gone.

But it would never be gone. So I couldn’t even start because, in the end, I was just an object of pity and need who didn’t have a job and couldn’t sleep.

And I didn’t want to be that guy, that sad sack. But Sophie deserved better than a guy who sometimes didn’t feel good when he was touched. Whose dad was showing up out of the murk where he lived.

I got down into her face, close enough to feel her warm breath on my cold cheek. I could smell the coffee she drank and the mouthwash she used beneath that. If we’d been different people…no, I had to be honest in this moment. Every moment. I couldn’t afford to be otherwise. If I were different…if I were different we might have had a chance.

But that was a daydream I couldn’t afford.

“Go out with Joe,” I said.

And then I turned and ran away, leaving her behind.

Sophie

I avoided him. It was easy. The warehouse was big and he was avoiding me, too. I saw him every once in a while, answering his cell phone and then hanging up. And I wondered if it was his father. And then told myself it wasn’t any of my business.