“Really, now?” I grumble, looking over the cards she puts down on the bed before her.
She doesn’t have one single match.
“Uh huh,” she grins.
“Damn it, that’s four times in a row. How are you so good at this?”
She beams up at me as though I just handed her Christmas day on a silver platter, though, now that I think about it, she’s probably never celebrated Christmas in a true merry way before. We’ll have to remember to put a little extra effort this year.
We’ve started giving up on the whole big Christmas thing since I’ve gotten older, neither of us needs that extra effort, but now with Aria, we can bring back my childhood. Though this time, we won’t have a mom sitting around, ignoring us the whole time. It’ll be great.
Shit, Dad’s going lose his mind when I suggest decorating the house. I can’t exactly picture him willingly climbing up on the roof to hang a ten foot Santa Claus and his sleigh, but I’ll twist Noah’s finger until he agrees to do it instead. I might even add some lights and a nativity scene that has music playing.
Damn, this is going to be an expensive Christmas.
“Hey,” dad’s rumbly voice says from my bedroom doorway. We both look up to see him leaning against my open door frame, looking in on us as though we’re the sole reason for his being. “Time to get ready for school, Squirt.”
“Nooooo,” Aria whines, drawing it out. “That’s not fair. Henley doesn’t have to go to school. Can’t I stay at home too?”
“Henley was in an accident,” Dad fires back.
I poke my tongue out at my sister, teasing her before deciding to give dad a little help. “Don’t think I’m staying home on purpose. It’s boring spending all day in bed. Trust me, you’ll hate it, and besides, I thought you loved going to school?”
“I do,” she tells me with big puppy dog eyes.
“Then what’s the problem?” dad questions.
“I want to stay with Henley,” she pouts. “If she’s not allowed to go to her school, can she come to school with me? I promise, my teacher will be nice.”
She turns those big puppy dog eyes on dad and for a moment I actually worry that I’m about to be sent to Kindergarten to get a refresher course of my ‘ABC’s’. “Geez,” I tell her. “I wish I had those big blue eyes like you do, I would have gotten away with murder as a kid.”
“You did get away with murder,” he murmurs before letting out a sigh and rounding up Aria. “Come on, kid. Go get ready. You can play with Henley after school.” He tells her. “I might even let her pick you up.”
I roll my eyes as Aria sucks in an excited breath. Dad and I both know that’s a little white lie to get her moving. There’s no way he’s letting me out of here. I’ll probably be stuck in this bed until I’m thirty, especially if you take into count that he only just stopped checking over my scars from when I got jumped. I can’t wait to see how he’s going to handle the next few months.
Aria climbs off my bed, knocking all the cards to the ground and running off, leaving me to clean them up, which I probably won’t do. I expect dad to go after her, to help get her breakfast sorted, but when he hovers in my doorway, I find myself glancing up at him and silently watching him.
Dad lets out a sigh and walks forward into my room, pulling up my desk chair and spinning it to face me. “How are you feeling, Squish?” he questions, looking nervous as shit.
“Fine. I’m good to get out of here though.”
“Bullshit,” he grumbles. “You look like you volunteered to climb under my truck and let me roll over you a few times.”
“It’s not that bad,” I tell him, scoffing at his exaggeration. “It’s just a little bruising.”
“It’s more than that and you know it,” he says, being one of the only people on this planet who refuses to take my shit. Noah being another.
“What’s going on, dad?” I question, getting down to the nitty-gritty. I mean. He’s not sitting in my room like this because he wants to braid my hair. “Why do you look like you’re about to hurl?”
He cringes. “That obvious, huh?”
“Dad,” I prompt.
He lets out a loud breath before raising his eyes to meet mine. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” he starts as my brows pull down. “I’ve been battling with myself over this decision for the past few years, but now with Aria here and considering you’re not far off eighteen, I think it’s the right time to tell you and I wanted to say something before you start putting the pieces of the puzzle together for yourself.”