A Toast to the Good Times (14 page)

Since I can’t do either without looking like a raging psychopath, I just follow the two of them into the house, and, for two seconds, I’m five years old again, just in from a late-night snowball fight with the neighborhood kids.

It smells exactly the same as I always remember. The entire interior has this particular Christmas aroma that’s unique to my house, and only for a few short days a year. It’s this mix of apples and cinnamon, ham and firewood, cigar smoke and the pungent, clean smell of evergreen.

And then there’s the tree. At least eight feet high, shining bright with lights, every branch overloaded with a bunch of ornaments, some new, some so old, they’re from when my parents’ parents were young.

“Wow.” Mila pulls her hat off her head, and the static electricity makes a dark halo offset by the glow of the dim, golden lights from that huge tree.

And
 
she’s like that last puzzle piece that clicks into place and makes Christmas burst to life for me, finally.

It’s like something got misplaced when I was bridging from being a little boy to an adult, and I never found it again till this moment, but now that I have it, things are taking shape again. Life is sharpening back into focus now that I have Mila by my side.

Except, technically, it’s Henry who has Mila by his side, and he doesn’t look like he has any plans to let her go.

The magic of Christmas is blotted out by my sudden, intense urge to deck my brother and throw Mila over my shoulder.

Instead I stomp to the living room with them and watch, seething, as Henry leads Mila to the loveseat and plops down next to her.

“Give her some room, Henry. Mila doesn’t want you sitting on her lap for the entire movie,” I snarl.

Mila looks up at me, her eyes hot and narrowed. She pulls off her boots, tucks her legs up next to her and snuggles a little closer to Henry. “No, it’s fine. I’m very comfortable right where I am.”

I would have jumped the coffee table and knocked some sense into my brother if my mother and Paisley hadn’t come in right then with trays of cookies and bowls of popcorn, ready to string.

“Mila, how nice to see you again.” My mother actually puts her trays down and walks right past me, her own flesh and blood son, so she can wrap her arms around Mila and squeeze her tight.

“Mrs. Murphy, I can’t even tell you how nice it was to talk to you before.” Mila laughs and everyone in the room smiles automatically, like she’s some smile-bearing elf. Well, everyone except for me. I’m in no mood for smiling right now. “I’m so glad you didn’t think I was some crazy lunatic just showing up on your doorstep on Christmas Eve.”

“Lunatic? More like a Christmas gift.” Mom smooshes Mila’s cheeks the way she’s only ever done the three of us. “And I’m so sorry to hear about your aunt. That makes for a hard holiday, love.” Mom pats one of Mila’s hands, and Paisley holds her other.

“Our entire congregation started a prayer chain for her.” Paisley’s face looks all shiny when she shares this news. “You would be shocked what the power of a group of people focusing their prayers can do.”

I don’t know if I’m more irritated by my sister’s Bible babble or the fact that I have no clue what’s going on.

“Why are we praying for your aunt?”

As soon as the question is out all four of them turn their faces, and I feel like a marathon runner crossing the finish line of my own shitty selfishness. Their faces are holding all the usual reactions people have to a Landry Murphy comment: confusion, shock, horror, disappointment.

“Mila’s aunt has been in a coma since October,” Henry says, putting an arm around her shrinking shoulders. “And her condition isn’t improving.”

How the hell did
Henry
know all about this? Seriously, if I find out my kid brother works for some covert spy agency, I won’t be remotely surprised.

“Oh, yeah. I knew about the aunt in the coma,” I blurt out before I can really analyze what an asshole comment it is.

My family looks at me with all the horrified embarrassment you reserve for elderly relatives in the viciously combative states of late onset dementia.

“It’s sad, I mean,” I blunder. “About the coma, because I know Mila likes her aunt a lot and all and
—
”

“Dude!” Henry breaks in. “Just stop digging. You’re gonna break that shovel.”

The girls all titter and Henry is just one smartass remark away from a black eye.

As soon as I think that, I feel like an ever bigger jerk. Wasn’t it just one short Christmas ago that my dad and I got into it?

I need to learn to bite down on my damn temper.

One good thing about the entire awkward ordeal is that, amid all the hugging and Landry despising, Paisley absently settled on the loveseat and started stringing popcorn. She put the bowl right in Henry’s lap, so Mila has no choice but to sit on the couch with me.

And my mom.

Mom hands us needles and we put the movie in.

Mila’s little fingers are nimble. Maybe she really is an elf. She strings pop
corn and smiles when my mom
starts laughing hysterically over Randy eating like a piggy.

Once in a
while we snag eyes, but she looks away more quickly than I want her to.
I thought this would be romantic.
I thought this would be me and her.

But it’s like
I have
to share her with everyone in my family.

It’s bizarre how she’s wormed her way into their hearts so quickly, but, I realize, that’s so Mila. She’s just a lover. People meet her and fall head over heels in love.

Well, smart people do.

Idiots live in the same apartment with her for months on end and never try to make a move until after they almost fuck everything up for good.

I want to be alone with her. I need to be. Now.

I want to talk to her and have her look at me the way Mila always does, like I’m smart and fun and worth being around. I want her, and I really don’t feel like sharing.

Which is ironic, because, in the last few months, I’ve had countless opportunities to be with her alone, and I blew every one of them every time. And when I finally got her as close as I wanted, I stopped things and ran away.

I left her. And now I want her all to myself.

I’m an asshole. On so many levels.

“What are you brood
ing about?” Mila whispers as Ra
lphie beats the piss out of Skut Farkus.

“I’m not brooding,” I mutter.

She moves on the couch so she’s just a little closer to me. I can smell her shampoo. How is it that I spent months using her shampoo and never thought about getting her naked in the shower? Because that’s pretty much the one thought running through my head right now.

“You are brooding. Stop.” Her voice is so quiet I almost can
’t hear it over the sound of Ra
lphie’s wailing.

“Stop snuggling up to my asshole brother,” I snap back, low and close to her ear.

She turns beet red and presses her lips together before she stands up. Everyone looks at her, blinking in the dim light of the living room.

“Excuse me. I need to, um, use the bathroom,” she says.

“It’s right down the ha
—
”

I cut Paisley off with an over-eager, “I’ll show her.”

I leap up and lead her down the stairs, past the guest bathroom that’s hidden from my nosey family’s view and into the room that’s been converted a million times and is currently my mother’s craft room. The only light is from the hallway, and I have to move knitting needles and rolls of yarn out of the way so I can push Mila back into the dark and wrap her in my arms.

She smells amazing. I bury my face in that perfect place at the crook of her neck, the lavender in her hair and the soft vanilla of her skin giving me an unbelievable hard on. I suck softly on that skin, along her shoulder, nosing her shirt to the side and reaching up the length of her long back under her shirt to unsnap her bra.

“Landry, no, we can’t
—
ooh, mmm
.” She tilts her head back like she’s asking me to lick along the line of her neck. I squeeze her hip with one hand and enjoy the taste of her on my tongue.

“It’s okay. My family can’t hear us.” I manage to get the clasp of her bra undone and follow the loose line of the fabric, dipping my hands under the cups of her bra to the soft swell of her tits. I rub my thumb over her nipple and love the way she bites down hard on her bottom lip.

She rocks her hips and I slide my hand down, pressing between her thighs, ready to flip the button on her jeans and pull the zipper down. The thought of her, naked, or at least half-naked, makes all logical thoughts blur and warp in my brain.

“Landry, it isn’t your family. I mean, I don’t want them to hear us, but it’s...oh, oh yeah. Do that. More of that.” She has her hand fisted in my hair and is dragging my head down, past the bunched-up fabric of her shirt to those incredibly soft, sweet tits. I pull one nipple, then the other into my mouth and grab her hard against my dick when she groans and bucks her hips.

She’s grinding against me, pressing my head lower and lo
wer, my lips brushing over her h
ips, down her stomach, to the waistband of her jeans, and I want her. I want everything about her, and I don’t want to wait another minute.

I flick the button on her pants ope
n and ease the
zipper down, smiling when the metallic hum makes her whimper a little. I slide my fingers past the cotton waistband of her underwear and dip into her slick, ready heat. My fingers slide over her and she balls her hands in my shirt, pulling me closer.

“Landry, make me come. I want to come on you,” she gasps, and I’m so turned on, I can’t get a handle on it. I never imagined sweet little Mila being this wild, this demanding, and I like it. I love it.

I move my arm behind her ass, tilt her back,
and move
my fingers up and down, back and forth.

“You like that?” I ask, my mouth close to her ear.

“Ye-yeah,” she stutters.

“Cause a minute ago, you were telling me we had to stop,” I tease as I rub my fingers over her clit and flick with quick, gentle pressure.

I’ve never been so turned on watching a girl before. There’s something so open and free with Mila, like she’s just thrown herself completely into what we’re doing, with her entire body, not worried about anything, not thinking about anything but me and her and what we’re doing together right now.

It’s a hardcore turn on, and I lose momentum because I’m so distracted watching her, her lips slightly parted, green eyes heavy-lidded, dark hair hanging down her back as she tilts her head and fits herself against me.

She bears down hard on my hand and arches her back, and I’m seized with this crazy, unbelievably persistent need to get this right for her, to be what she wants and who she wants, to be so much better than anyone she’s been with before that she only wants me from now on.

“Right there. Oh god, yeah, that’s...Landry. Mmm, Landry.” Her voice is low and husky, and the sound of my name from her lips is the best kind of torture.

I pull her closer and kiss her, her sweet, hot mouth so ready, her tongue wild over mine, the warm, wet suck of her mouth on mine making her slicker and more frenzied until she finally goes rigid, digs her fingernails into my shoulders, buries her face in my neck, and shakes hard, over and over against my fingers.

We’re both breathing in short, rough gasps, our hair is mussed, and I’m so ready to get her into my bed and never get the hell back out, it isn’t even funny.

But I get a strong reminder that, yes, we’re still in my parents’ house when I hear cautious footsteps on the stairs.

“Landry? You okay?” Paisley calls.

I have a raging hard-on, I just had what was probably simultaneously the most erotic and frustrating sexual experience of my life, and I want to just stop everything for a minute and tell Mila exactly what I think and why, and what I’m sure we could have together if we give this all a try.

But she’s already jumped off the table I sat her on, is snapping her bra back in place, smoothing her hair down, and when she looks up at me watching her, she shoos me away with her lashes shadowing her eyes.

“Go back upstairs. Tell your sister I, uh, was having girl problems. Or something, anything, I don’t know.” She combs her fingers through her dark hair as she’s talking, and all I want to do is muss it up again.

“Paisley will be fine.” I move closer to her, stopping her hands as they pull up on her zipper. “I can’t get enough of you.”

I expect her to echo the sentiment back to me, but she only flips me a tight smile and half rolls her eyes.

“Listen, this was...wow. This was really nice. And I loved it. I loved every second. But I’m not blind or dumb, Landry. I know you had no interest in me before, and now? I can pretend that everything magically changed between us, or I can face the truth. Much as it sucks,” she tacks on in a mutter.

She stands up and tries to walk out, but I ring my arms around her waist and hold her tight to me for a second.