How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

And she had me, this trailer, and my dad—the stray dog.

“I love you, Sam. I am so proud of you. There isn’t a mother on this planet more proud of you.”

“Am I getting buttered up for something?” I looked at her through one narrowed eye.

“Let that girl go. All the way. Or love her the way she deserves. Otherwise…you’re damning her to half a life.”

“Half a life?” I said like I didn’t understand. But I did. This was my mother sitting here looking back with regret at the choices she’d made.

“I loved your father knowing he’d never love me the same way. The way I deserved. But he was so weak and I was even weaker—”

“Mom. Nothing about you is weak.”

“That girl loves you, and she’ll take anything you give her just so she can stay there. And if you let that happen, you’re cruel. Your father is a weak man and he doesn’t understand that. But you do.”

A few days ago, before the party, I would have pretended not to understand. I would have told her our relationship wasn’t like that. But the party had happened. This week had happened. And I’d tried to push her away with both hands. But Sophie…Sophie drove out here to sit by my mother’s side. To help. And she’d do that every day if I wanted. And oh my God, did I want that.

“I love her,’ I whispered.

“I know.”

“I mean. Like…love her.”

Mom laughed and then stood up and put her hand on my face. “I know. And she loves you. It’s all right to let it happen.”

“How?” I asked, because that seemed to be the hard part.

“Stop fighting,” she said. “Just stop fighting.”

Sophie

I was NOT waiting up. I mean. It was after midnight but I was…you know, cleaning my crisper. Which is a thing a person should do every once in a while. Just as a rule. But even with the crisper clean and my floors swept and my laundry folded and actually put away, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

He wasn’t coming.

And, I mean, I couldn’t blame him. His mom had been traumatized and his father was out there like some kind of ghost. A booty call had to be about the last thing on his mind.

So I brushed my teeth, washed my face. Turned off my light. And then, like I’d conjured him, there was a knock on the door.

While I had a whole history of playing it cool around him, my heart still skipped a beat.

I opened the door and there he was. Black hat. Frown. Hands braced on the sides of the doorway like he was holding himself back.

“Sam—”

“You shouldn’t just…open the door. It’s past midnight.”

“I knew it was you.”

“How?”

“Because I always know when it’s you.”

He came through that door like a freight train, kicking shut the door with his foot. Pulling me into my arms like he’d been lost without me.

His kiss was overwhelming. Everything I’d ever wanted. But I’d been here before and if I wasn’t smart I’d be here again, exactly like this. Not knowing what he was thinking. Not knowing how he felt. And tonight I’d spent twenty minutes next to a woman who loved a man who didn’t have enough respect or love for her to let her go.

I loved Sam’s mom, but I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t.

“Stop,” I breathed against his mouth.

“Okay,” he breathed against mine.

“You ignored me.”

“I pretended to ignore you. Trust me…I can’t ignore you. I can’t look away from you.”

“Are you being sweet because you want to get fucked—”

He kissed me again. Harder this time. He kissed me until I couldn’t think. Until I was putty.

“Keep them off,” he said as I reached for the lights. It was the two of us. And the dark. And what he’d said to my mom, and how I’d put my arm around his mom and let her cry into my neck.

But there was also the last week of his ignoring me and telling me to date Joe. And I wasn’t going to go back in time. I wasn’t going to just be grateful for his touch on my body. For his attention. For his kiss. Yeah, my gratitude had made me stupid. And I wasn’t stupid.

“No,” I said.

I turned on the lights and we blinked at each other like owls.

“I’m not doing this with the lights out. And I’m not doing it without looking at each other. If you’re pretending I’m someone else—”

He stepped forward, hands around my face, his fingers caught in my hair, making my scalp sting. “Never.” He swallowed and then again. “The last few years any girl I touched, any girl who touched me, whose hand accidentally touched mine when she handed me a drink and I thought…I wished it was you.”

All those locks I’d put on my heart after the last time he split me open started to ease.