“Look, I have to go. I don’t want to. Promise me we’ll talk soon?” The longing in Holli’s voice might have had a little to do with just plain old homesickness, but I flattered myself by thinking it was all for me, anyway.
God, I missed her. It had only been a few days, and I missed her the way a kid misses her parents at camp. “Absolutely. Go get your runway on.”
When we hung up, I only cried a little bit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Christmas morning dawned with beautiful flurries over the ornamental gardens at the back of the house. The heaping snow helped disguise the protective black plastic, covering the shrubs and fountain. It looked a little like the Beast’s castle in Beauty and The Beast, in the scene where Belle taught him how to feed birds out of his hands.
This observation was somewhat lost on Neil.
“I rarely watched cartoons with Emma when she was growing up,” he said apologetically, taking a sip from his coffee mug. He stood in front of the window in the bedroom, wrapped in a navy dressing gown. “I couldn’t stomach them. All the happy songs, the anthropomorphized woodland friends...” He shivered. “The very notion of speaking to a chipper squirrel who can process abstract concepts would keep me awake at night.”
“You might want to see a counselor about all that.” I lazed on the bed, painting my toenails. “Your way of doing Christmas makes so much more sense. Sleep in, bum around all day, party all night.”
He turned to face me with a smirk. “Remember, ‘bumming around’ means something extremely different here.”
“Oh, right. Anal.” I wiggled my toes at him then carefully lowered my foot so as not to get polish on the duvet. “Whatever, I like doing Christmas this way.”
“I’m glad.” He set his mug on the small table near the end of the bed as he came back to join me. “Although I do miss Emma bursting in here at four in the morning, demanding to open just one present before everyone arrived.”
It wasn’t four in the morning, but there was a polite knock.
“If that isn’t Emma, I’ll give the person on the other side of that door a hundred pounds,” Neil called. “Come in, Emma.”
I carefully arranged the blankets around my lower half. I was wearing a tank top and a pair of Neil’s boxers, and they covered everything that needed covering, but I didn’t necessarily want his daughter to see me wearing her dad’s underwear.
“Happy Christmas you two,” she warbled, and I had a feeling her uncharacteristically bright mood had more to do with Michael staying here than anything about Santa Claus or cookies.
Though I would never say so to Neil, I liked Michael, and I could see why Emma liked him. The son of powerful attorneys who worked for the U.N., Michael was well-educated, well-spoken, as handsome and toothy as a Kennedy, with waves of brown hair and the most drop-dead gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’d played football at Stanford, and he’d maintained his athlete’s build. He towered over tiny Emma like a fairytale prince rescuing a damsel. The guy was totally swoon-worthy, Emma adored him, and he treated her like a princess.
Neil hated him.
Emma stood in front of her father, dressed in pajama pants and a well-worn Stanford t-shirt that hung nearly to her knees. Holding out her cupped hands, she said primly, “You know why I’m here.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Neil went through the secret door— which lead to a dressing room— and returned with a neatly gift-wrapped box. He handed it to Emma, and she hurried over the nook in the wall to open it.
My stomach clenched with dread. “Oh no.”
They both looked over at me with perplexed expressions.
“I was so busy getting ready to come over that I didn’t get anyone any presents.” How embarrassing was that going to be? Hello, family, this is my girlfriend Sophie, she’s rude at Christmas time.
“It’s okay,” Emma said with a happy shrug. “I didn’t get you anything, either. Out of spite. I’m still not okay with all this.”
“None taken,” I said dryly. “Neil, I didn’t get you anything.”
“You’re here. That’s really all I need.” The smile he gave me was so warm and earnest, I was able to momentarily forget that I’d come bearing no gifts, like some kind of shitty reverse Santa Claus.
“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to buy this man presents, anyway?” Emma huffed. “He’s like a toddler. If he wants something, he gets it. By the time the holidays roll around, he’s already got every book, DVD, and gadget that came out during the year.”
“So, you have to work extra hard to impress me. That builds character.” He sipped his coffee as Emma pulled the lid off the box.
“Ooh, very nice,” she cooed as she lifted out a distinctive Stella McCartney tote of dark blue faux leather. “Thank you.”