Velvet

“Why don’t we open presents now?” I suggested.

Adrian looked at me. “You brought presents?”

I shrugged as I stood up and went to my messenger bag. “Nothing much.” I sat back down and handed the first package to Lucian. His eyes got wide behind his aviator goggles. “Open it.”

He reverently untaped the paper and slid it off. When he saw what was inside, his mouth formed a round O of surprise.

“What’d you get there, Lucian?” Adrian asked.

“The Adventures of Frankie the Boy,” he replied in an awed voice.

Adrian looked at me and I shrugged shyly. “I got the idea from when you said he liked stories. So I made him that.”

I wasn’t exactly an illustrator, but I drew fashion designs all the time—it hadn’t been a huge stretch to try and capture Lucian’s quirky mannerisms in some simple sketches. As far as the dialog was concerned, I’d mostly taken that from actual conversations we’d had.

“Adrian, look!” Lucian demanded, crawling onto Adrian’s lap and turning the hand-cut pages slowly. “That’s me! I’m in the library hanging upside down like I’m not supposed to, and there I am jumping out of your truck, and that’s me on your shoulders, and there’s me and the lady, and there’s me dreaming!”

Adrian looked attentively down over Lucian’s shoulder at the colored pages, making appropriate “mm-hmm” sounds when necessary. I thought maybe he didn’t like it until I realized his eyes were a bit shinier than usual. Not vampire glowing, but kind of glassy. As Lucian babbled on, Adrian leaned his forehead against his little brother’s hair. I looked down at the carpet, not wanting to intrude.

A moment later, I heard Adrian say, “Tell Caitlin thank you for the book.”

I felt a small pair of arms latch around my neck at the same time I heard Lucian exclaim, “Thank you!”

I hugged him back, tightly. “You’re very welcome. I’m glad you like it.”

I peeked over Lucian’s shoulder at Adrian. He mouthed the words thank you. I shook my head in an it-was-nothing sort of way and smiled.

“Do you want to see what I got your brother, Lucian?”

He instantly let go of me and sat on the floor to look at Adrian. I picked up the other package and handed it over.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. “This is from me and my family.”

He took the package and opened it just as meticulously as Lucian had, then frowned curiously when he saw the box inside.

“I know it says Folgers, but it’s not that,” I assured him.

He smiled at me, opened the box, and pulled out a pair of lamb’s wool slippers.

“My uncle makes them every year for everybody, and since you’re kind of family now, he wanted to make you a pair, too.” I shoved a second package at him before he could say anything. “This is from me.”

He took the second, smaller package and unwrapped it. Then he stared.

“Interview with a Vampire?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was amused or disgusted.

“It seemed funny at the time,” I said, feeling completely and utterly lame. It had been half off on Amazon, so I’d bought it. I heard an odd noise, and looked up to see that Adrian was laughing so hard he had to lean against the couch for support.

“Are you okay?” Lucian asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m all right; Caitlin’s just a very odd girl.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and let the laughter trickle off into chuckles.

Before I could respond, Lucian hopped up and said, “Caitlin, will you read to me?”

“Lucian, I don’t think—” Adrian began, but I cut him off.

“No, it’s okay. I’d love to read to you; come up here on the couch.”

He scrambled immediately onto the sofa and crawled onto my lap, holding his prize book in his hand.

“‘The Adventures of Frankie the Boy,’” I began reading. “‘By Caitlin Holte. Once upon a time, there was a boy named Frankie, who loved to do strange things…’”

He made me read it three times, and by the middle of the third reading, he’d completely zonked out, and I wasn’t far behind. The repetition of the story, the warmth of the fire, Lucian, and the blanket, and my constant exhaustion combined to throw both of us into a mid-afternoon nap. Lucian was hanging limp in my arms.

“You want me to take him?” Adrian asked quietly from his place on the floor.

I yawned. “No, I don’t want to wake him up. He can stay with me; I don’t mind.” I propped the two throw pillows against the arm of the couch and slowly tilted so that we were both lying down, facing the fire. He stirred and snuggled closer to me. In minutes, I was deeply asleep, and for once, I didn’t dream.

*

“Shh, we don’t want to wake her up.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s very tired. We should let her sleep.”

“Oh. Okay.”

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