“Did you forget that time you punched me in the face?” I smirk at him, cutting him off.
His shoulders move up and down as he laughs. “You won’t let me forget. And you know you deserved it at the time.”
I did deserve it and am not bothered by it anymore. I just like giving him a hard time about it.
“Anyway,” he says, raising his voice a little and with a smile on his face. We linger in conversation for a few more minutes,Ryland giving me some good advice, before we finally say goodbye.
I stay seated on the bed and say another prayer for God to help work on my heart. As soon as I’m finished, the bedroom door opens. Olivia enters the room with a joyful smile that vanishes the moment her eyes land on mine.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, rushing over to me, dropping whatever she was holding in her hands down onto the bed to take my hands into hers.
“Nothing is wrong,” I tell her with a reassuring smile.
She eyes me for a second before nodding her head and saying, “Okay. But if there was something wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
“Like how you told Raine we were fake dating?”
Her eyes widen, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “I did,” she answers.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you told her?” I ask as she looks down bashfully, hints of pink appearing on the tips of her cheekbones and over the curves of her ears.
“I didn’t want you to be upset,” she admits, shrugging her shoulders.
“Why would I have been upset?”
“I don’t know. I guess because she might tease us both about it when we get back home or something.” She shrugs her shoulders.
“I’m not upset. I don’t care that she knows,” I assure her, squeezing her hands, realizing that we’re alone, and it’s been over three seconds, and she’s still holding onto me. Small progress is still progress, and I’ll take anything I can get.
I look down at the bed to see what she brought with her.
“Please don’t tell me those areourugly sweaters.”
The way her face lights up like a Christmas tree, it’s hard to dread this horrid tradition. If it makes her this happy, I’ll put up with it but not without complaining a bit. She grabs one of the sweaters, holding it up, and I groan.
This one has a scene fromJurassic Parkbut with Santa sitting on the toilet and a T-rex hovering over him. “This is yours.”
“Of course it is.”
“And this one is mine.” She holds up the second sweater, which has three kittens on it, each wearing Santa hats under a large full moon. She giggles as she sees my expression. “This is the best Christmas ever.”
“I’m glad you think so,” I add, because I couldn’t agree more.
Everyone is gathered in front of the Christmas tree again as Nonni puts us all into our places, and I stiffen the moment she wheels my dad near Olivia and me. She places him right in front of us. He turns around, looking up at me, a small smile spreading on his face, making him look like a stranger.
“Hey, Luke.”
I grunt in response, nodding my head toward him in greeting, keeping my eyes on everyone except the man who helped create me. I turn to Olivia and catch her already watching me before wrapping her right arm around my waist, tugging me to her. She places her left hand onto my shoulder and lifts up onto her tippy toes to plant a kiss on my cheek.
Feeling her lips on my skin warms me from the inside out. Heat travels up my cheek, flows down my throat, and spreads to my icy heart.She’s thawing me.
She looks at my dad, places a hand onto his shoulder, and gives him a heartwarming smile. A smile that saysI’m glad you’re here. I can’t say that I feel the same, because a part of me wants to get out of this room. But there’s another part of methat’s keeping my feet planted, right where I know I’m supposed to be.
“I always knew you two would end up together,” he adds, his smile revealing yellow-stained teeth.
I glance at Olivia, who’s grinning at my dad. “Yeah, I think we both did too.”
I try not to read too much into what she said, even if it's causing hope to start to spread through me. I should’ve considered that it might be harder to pretend with her, to have her in all the ways that I’ve only dreamt of, only for everything from this weekend to possibly be fake.
