How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

“What?”

“Love. Marriage.”

“I imagine it’s the love that makes it good. And our parents never had that.”

“Your dad still sniffing around?”

“A little. He’ll get bored and leave soon enough.”

“Your mom?”

“Rattled, but resolute. I keep telling her to get a restraining order.”

“Oh, man,” Wes said. “I’m sorry.”

I raised my scotch in a mock salute. “Dads. What are you gonna do?”

“Well, mine’s going to jail and it’s not half bad,” Wes said, and suddenly we were laughing like we used to and it all felt pretty good.

“That’s a sound I haven’t heard for a long time,” Sophie said, coming into the office like a whirlwind. “You two laughing.”

I gave myself a second to take her in, to soak her in and hold her for just a second, and then I buried my face in my scotch glass.

“Wes is very funny,” I said.

“No, he’s not,” Sophie said with a big wide smile.

“I’m sitting right here. Scotch?” Wes asked his sister.

“Gross. Is there any of that bourbon from last time?”

“You drank the last bottle.”

“Rats. How about that red wine?”

“I took it home to Penny. She likes red.”

Oh, Sophie was so quietly hurt. So carefully trying not to show her brother that she was. “She should come to these Thursday nights.”

“She had some work to do. But…we were hoping you’d come spend New Year’s with us. Both of you.” Wes pointed his finger at me. “And don’t say you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll be lying and you shouldn’t do that to your only friends.”

Sophie laughed. “I’ll be there,” she said. “But I expect you to feed me. Something good. Expensive. Like the kind of food I’d be served at a wedding.”

“I will,” Wes said. “And I’m sorry. It just happened. We went to City Hall, and—well, I’ll tell you the whole story if you get me drunk enough. We’re talking about doing a thing in the summer.”

“A thing with dancing? Speeches?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

“You will have your moment to publicly embarrass me. Both of you.”

“I get to tell the story of him falling asleep on the BART in San Francisco,” Sophie said, smiling at me.

“That’s fine. I have the one of him getting nailed in the junk by Annabeth—”

“All right. I can already tell this is a huge mistake. So?” he said, looking between us. “New Year’s Eve. Steaks. Booze. Cheesecake. Some auld lang syne.”

I was trying not to get myself any more tangled up with Sophie, but there was no way to say no. “Of course, man.”

There was another knock on the door and suddenly W.B. was standing there. I’d met him a few times. Good guy. I’d had a sergeant like him on my first tour; he thought he could control the world with meetings and plans and discipline. But the world loved to turn that kind of guy on his head. There were rumors that W.B. had been turned on his head by the beautiful glass artist who’d been hired to create new ornaments.

“W.B.,” Wes said. “Come on in and have a drink.”

“Well,” he said, eyeing the drinks and the chairs as if he was running a cost–benefit analysis on all of it. “I suppose one won’t hurt.”

“What’s your poison?” Wes asked. “There’s a rare vodka in the back that my dad got from someone he was laundering money for. There’s a plum schnapps from who knows where and this scotch that probably cost—”

“Three hundred dollars a bottle,” W.B. supplied.

“Yeah.” Wes shrugged. “We both know Dad liked to spend money he didn’t have. My plan is to drink every drop. It might take a while, but I’m committed.”

“Do you have a beer?” W.B. asked.

“Sure,” Wes said, pulling open the mini fridge and handing WB a bottle of beer.

“I want one of those too,” Sophie said, putting down her glass of very expensive scotch.

Wes handed her one and looked at me. I waved him off. I would drink the expensive scotch because that was what I’d been given.

“So,” W.B. said. “I wanted to hand you the final reports for the year and talk about projections for next year.”

“Well, on Thursday I drink with my sister. You can leave the reports and we can schedule a meeting for the New Year.”

“Sophie should be at that meeting,” I said and took a sip of my scotch, letting it burn down my throat even as Sophie’s pissed-off gaze burned the left side of my face.

“She is,” W.B. said.

“I am.” Sophie nodded.

“You are?” Wes asked clearly this was all news to him.

“She’s got an idea. A plan,” I said and gestured to the papers in her hand.

“It’s…” She sighed. “It’s about the packaging.”

“Well!” a new voice said from the open doorway, and in front of my eyes Sophie wilted as her mother came into the room. “I can’t get either one of you to return my calls or come to my house for a holiday, but here you are.”