A Toast to the Good Times

Chapter 10



“Hi. Um, so you were here after all. Your mom said you’d probably be here—”

“You talked to my mom?” I watch the look of horror break over her face.

“Wow. Yes. I mean, I know...what this must sound like. Look like. Like some twisted version of Single White Female. Or Fatal Attraction. Maybe Swim Fan. Or something stalkery and...not good.”

She pushes her dark bangs off of her forehead with her hand and shakes her mittened hands, then bites her lips. “It’s just, um, I watched a lot of romantic comedies on Netflix after you left. Which makes no sense, because once Firefly was done, I totally expected to watch Dr. Who for umpteen hours, but I accidentally pressed the down arrow on the controller, and, before I knew it, it was just all these adorable women finding men over radio shows or meeting up because their book stores closed or bumping into guys who weren’t Greek even though they are and, bam, fireworks...and the message seemed to be to just go and see the guy you lo— care about. The guy you care about. And that message is probably one of those ‘only in the movies’ things. Am I right?”

I have no idea how to respond to this word tirade. She looks tired. She looks sad and embarrassed.

And she looks hot.

I thought it was just the damn red dress, but that isn’t it, apparently, because she looks so good right now in her big coat and furry boots and one of those ridiculous French hats that girls love to wear but are so weird and look kind of like little cupcakes on their heads.

“So you came to see me?”

I smile at her, because she’s goddamn adorable and, in a town of people who pity, hate, or are disappointed in me, she’s that one sole person who honestly looks happy and eager to be around my sad sack ass.

“I did. I did, and I know it’s weird, so say the word and I’m outta here. Gone with the wind. Totally gone. Yep.”

Her cheeks are way too red for wind-chap; she’s blushing like crazy. Over me.

“No way.” I feel like a douche-hole for not knowing all of the things to say right now to make this less awkward, and I think of Toni and how I was too late to make things right with her and how I had to watch her feel all that pent-up anger from her time with me and there was nothing I could do.

But she gave me advice.

She told me what kind of girl to look for.

And I have a feeling I might be looking right at her.

I clear my throat and make my move.

“Hey, listen. I know it’s not high society Boston partying stuff, but my family will be watching A Christmas Story and arguing and getting into popcorn fights. It’s so lame. Seriously, my brother and sister may be the two most irritating people in the world. And you’d have to swear not to tell them about us watching it in the apartment, because it’s like this sacred Murphy tradition to only watch that movie on this holiest of all holy nights and all that. But if you wanna come by—”

“Yes!” She shuts her eyes and screws her mouth up. “That was probably super way too eager, right? I’m a dork? You can say it. You really can.”

“You are. You really are.” I put one hand under her chin and move my thumb along her jaw, remembering everything about the other night and wanting it all over again. And so much more. “But I can’t stop thinking about you.”

She licks her lips and swallows, her eyes round and so perfectly green, they look like a cat’s eyes in some Halloween decoration.

“I, um, can’t stop thinking about you, either.” She slides her mittened hands up my coat, and I have the feeling things are about to get hotter fast when the screech of tires makes us both look into the street.

“Landry!” Henry leans across the seat of his old Volvo wagon and grins wide and loopy at Mila out the open passenger window.

I notice that she smiles shyly back. My hands fist, and I consider smacking one upside Henry’s thick skull.

“What do you want?” I demand.

“Mom asked me to go find you. She says we need to all be home, pronto and no excuses.” He turns his attention back to Mila. “So, are you a friend of Landry’s? My meathead brother doesn’t have very good manners, so let me introduce myself. I’m Henry Murphy and you are...?”

“Mila. Mila Eby.” She walks over to the car and pulls off one mitten that has a little puppet face with googly eyes glued on, so she can shake Henry’s hand.

He holds onto her way longer than he needs to for a damn handshake.

“Alright, Henry! Stop being a creeper and let her go,” I snap, putting an arm around Mila’s waist possessively.

She looks back over her shoulder at me and frowns. “We were just saying hello.”

“My brother never knows when to back down,” I growl. I yell to Henry, “Tell Mom I’m coming right home.”

“She’ll go apeshit if you don’t invite Mila,” Henry says, horning in on the invitation I just extended her. I’m starting to feel pretty Cain and Abel with this kid. “Mila, you gotta come back with us. Our mom makes this crazy cocoa with cinnamon and just a tiny bit of peppermint. It’s freaking amazing. You gotta have some.”

“I know I said I would, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. Um, isn’t this family time for all of you? I’d really be intruding, and it would just be rude, right?” she asks, looking back at me with her eyebrows low over her eyes.

“Nah,” I say at the same time Henry’s yelling, “Not at all!”

I glare at him and he glares right back, then says to Mila, “Trust me, when the Murphy’s are all together for too long, things get way too intense. We need some company around to keep us on our best behavior, you know what I mean?”

She giggles.

At my brother.

He makes her promise she’ll come by, offers her a ride, and pulls away only after she points out that her car is right there on the street and assures him she’ll be okay driving the couple of blocks back to our house.

And this conversation goes on between them as if I’m not standing in plain damn sight.

“Do you need a ride home, Landry?” Mila asks, opening the driver’s side door of her Civic and waving to Henry.

I half feel like I need to walk off some of my stabbing aggravation, but I don’t want to leave Mila’s side.

“Thanks.” I get into the car next to her and point her in the general direction of the crazy ass house where my family is waiting to show off like a pack of frenzied hyenas.

I can’t wait to join the fun.

“Your brother seems so nice,” Mila says, her eyes on the road, her voice a little hitched.

I feel a low growl vibrate deep in my throat. Henry is an alright-looking kid, I guess. He’s gotten more attractive to the ladies now that he’s put on some muscle mass and stopped dressing like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. I realize girls are checking him out, and that he might even be some competition for me. And he can have any other barfly looking for a good time or random pretty girl who wants to cozy up for a night or two. I couldn’t care less.

Mila is off limits.

“My brother is an ass. And he’s kind of a player. Don’t get too involved with him, okay? Left on this next street.”

I lean back in the passenger seat, wishing like all hell I’d been able to drive my car so I didn’t have to be a passenger every single time I wanted to go somewhere in this freezing cold, one-horse town.

“I can totally handle myself,” Mila says flatly, her mouth puckered down in this little frown that looks pretty alien on her usually smiley face.

“I didn’t say that. Although, now that you bring it up, you really can’t. It’s the third house on the right. The one with the freaky Santa in the upstairs window.” She pulls up, and I prepare to get out, but Mila is gripping the steering wheel with intent, liked she’s glued to the interior of the car.

“What is it?” I ask, reaching over to tug on her sparkly silver scarf.

She stops looking straight out the window and turns to look at me. “I’ve been handling myself for years, Landry. Without your help, thank you very much.”

She’s not usually pissy with me at all, and it throws me. “Sorry. It’s just that Henry can be a little bit of a jerkoff, and I don’t want to see you get hurt, okay?”

She lets out a short, hard laugh. “You don’t want to see me get hurt?”

“Why do you say that like it’s some crazy, unbelievable thing?”

The question rips out on a surprisingly defensive note, because I feel pretty defensive.

I’ve always looked after Mila. When she crushed on that a*shole with the girlfriend, I was the one who told the guy to back off when he made a dozen too many drunken calls to her cell one long night. I took drinks away from her at the bar before she could accept the probably-laced gift of some random douchebag date rapist. I watched lots of sci-fi with her when her high school boyfriend posted pictures of his shot-gun wedding to some idiot girl they had both hated back when they were dating.

“Landry, the one and only person who has any ability to hurt me is you.”

Suddenly her whole cramped-in-the-car tactic switches up, and she leaps out of the door and walks toward my house.

I throw my door open and run after her, slipping on a patch of black ice when I reach out to grab her shoulder. Mila turns around as my feet slide out from under me, and she rushes to grab me and keep me upright, but her panicked movements bring us both down in a heap. My shoulder takes the brunt of the fall, and Mila squashed on top of me, scrambles to face me, pressing my face between her hands and looking me over with insane worry.

“Are you okay? Are you alright?” She takes my shoulders in her tiny hands and shakes me hard, back and forth.

“I’m fine. Jesus, stop shaking me like that.” I move my head from side to side just to make sure my neck is okay, and I sit up on one elbow, Mila’s bony ass digging into my thigh. “The only thing that really got bruised is my ego, I guess.”

Her worried look melts away and she smiles a smile that grows wide just before it breaks into a series of self-satisfied snorts and laughs.

“What’s so damn funny?” I sigh.

“The idea of your ego bruised.” She puts her hands up over her mouth and giggles. “Can you imagine the amount of pressure that must have been exerted to bruise your ego of iron?”

“Are you saying I’m full of myself? Because I’m not.” I feel an instant prickle of douchebaggery once the words are out of my mouth.

And I realize, with a healthy dose of irony, how full of myself it is to even think that way. Which makes me smile. And then laugh.

And then think of Toni and what she told me about finding a girl who can laugh with me. And at me.

We laugh like two lunatics on the driveway until my mother sticks her head out the door and yells, “Quit fooling around out there before you two turn into popsicles! Get your tushes in here!”

I jump to my feet and help Mila up, fix her crooked hat even though it looks equally weird whether it’s on right or all off kilter, and run my fingers over her cheek.

She looks at me with wide, happy eyes, but the light slowly dims because her pupils get big and dark.

She wants me.

And the feeling is mutual.

I’m leaning in because I know exactly how good her lips feel when the door opens again. This time it’s Henry, and he’s out for blood.

“What are you two doing?” He jogs over, and I notice he put on a new shirt, something a little dressed up and tight, like he’s trying to show off his puny muscles.

I’d feel bad for how pathetic he is, except for the fact that Mila seems to be eyeing him appreciatively. He holds an arm out for her, and the cologne he must have taken a bath in practically knocks me back onto the ice.

He gives me a narrow-eyed look and says, “Mila, I apologize for my brother’s rude as hell behavior. Please, come in and get warm.”

I fully expect Mila to smile sweetly and come back to me, but she takes his arm and lets him lead her to the stairs without a backward glance in my direction.

I grit my teeth and try to remember that this is supposed to be about family and loyalty and forgiving and all that. But it’s hard to resist the urge to chop Henry in the back of the knees or put him in a nice, firm chokehold.

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 a*shole 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 popcorn 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 f*ck 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 a*shole. On so many levels.

“What are you brooding about?” Mila whispers as Ralphie 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 Ralphie’s wailing.

“Stop snuggling up to my a*shole 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 lower, my lips brushing over her hips, 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 open 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 * 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.

“Whoa. Wait a minute. Things have changed between us, and I’m definitely happy about those changes. And what exactly do you think the truth is?” I try to brush a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, but she bats my hand away.

“The truth is...I had a huge crush on you. From the first day in the bar when you were drinking those disgusting pickle juice drinks. And, I guess, I figured if we were friends first that would be okay, because if you were just my friend first you might stop seeing me as some nerd-”

“You aren’t some nerd,” I argue.

“I am.” She smiles, a slow, lush upturn of her lips. “I am, Landry, and proud of it, okay? I have a feminist poetry tattoo, and my dream vacation would be to go to Comic Con and spend a few extra days reading my newly autographed graphic novels in a hotel room—”

“Really? Not, like, Maui or Paris or something?” I’m half-kidding. It’s surprising, but in a good way.

She blinks hard and frowns. “Really. And I knew you and I wouldn’t necessarily see eye to eye on things, and I knew it was so stupid to think you’d just wake up in love with me or at least wake up and see me as a girl who may actually have some sex appeal instead of a dork you happen to room with.”

“I never saw you that way,” I lie.

I always saw her that way until the infamous red dress the other night, and I’m embarrassed as all hell by how blind I’d been.

“You know what’s so funny?” She asks the question in a way that lets me know I’m probably never going to laugh at what she has to say.

“What’s that?” I take her hand, and, even though I get the feeling she wants to tug it back, she lets me hold it.

“All the times I tried so hard to get you to notice me, nothing ever happened until the minute I didn’t look or feel at all like me anymore. That should have been my first warning sign.”

“Mila...” But I don’t know what to say. Because part of what she’s saying is true, but there’s another part entirely that she’s missing. She’s so completely missing it, and it’s killing me not to be able to explain it how I want to.

“It’s okay.” She grins at me. “I mean, we’re humans. We’re shallow. We notice the outside before the inside. I liked you first because, well, obviously...” She gestures to my face and blushes.

“Um? What?”

I feel the burn in my ears, surprised at how disappointed I am that the first thing Mila was attracted to about me is exactly what every girl I’ve ever met has been attracted to since I was in middle school. And I’m stupidly let down that it feels like my looks are the only thing girls really notice about me sometimes, that I’ve never had to prove myself in any other way because no one really asked it of me.

I so badly want Mila to be different.

“You’re impossibly good looking, Landry.” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Like so damn good looking, it’s not really fair to all the other mortal men. At first I thought you were too good looking, you know? Like you’d be a jerk or a player. But you’re...not. You’re such a good person, and you’re so driven and smart and kind of funny when you loosen up. It’s almost like your looks can keep people from seeing all the really, truly good parts of you.”

So, maybe I had proved myself, after all.

Her smile is regretful, like she’s already given up on us, before we ever got a chance to be.

I interrupt frantically. “Okay. Hold that thought. Hold all your thoughts. Alright, I was an ass, that’s a given. I was stupid. Another given. But coming back home changed the way I see things. And, I know you’re not going to believe this, but I was thinking about you the second before we crashed into each other outside my father’s bar. I’ve been thinking about you pretty much nonstop since the minute I walked out the door of our apartment. I was missing you and wanting to get back to you.”

Her eyes light up for a single instant, but they tamper back down almost immediately.

“Yeah. That makes sense. I’m comfortable. Dependable. Good old Mila. But the only times you’ve ever seen me as anything else were when you were so drunk it was just crazy and when your brother showed some interest.”

I shake my head, filled with frustration and the need to come up with the right words, fast, before I blow it for good.

“No, not true. Not true, Mila. This isn’t some stupid competition or some one-night stand kind of thing. I like you. I really like you. Everything about you. All the time.”

She presses her hands to her temples.

“How can this be exactly what I wanted to hear the most and everything I was afraid of at the same time?” When she glances back at me, her eyes are teary. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but I don’t think you know what you want. I think you like me because I’m convenient, and it makes no sense that I’m babbling about this because I’m the one who came to see you. I came to see you. But that’s just it, isn’t it?”

I press close to her, but she wiggles back. “What? What’s just it, Mila?”

“You’re opportunistic with girls, Landry,” she says, her eyes shifting back and forth like she’s confessing on a witness stand. “You like whoever’s in front of you at the moment. If one of your old girlfriends had shown up a minute before me, you probably would have asked her out, right?”

My ears burn and I grit my teeth. Mila’s features goes slack like she knows, like she can decode it all based on the look on my face. I feel guilt about Toni tangled with a need to explain before this gets more out of control.

“I did meet up with someone, but it wasn’t exactly like that—”

“It’s okay!” she yelps, backing away from me. “It’s so okay. This is my fault, Landry, not yours. It’s weird what six hours of back-to-back Hollywood romance can do to a sane person’s brain. I’m so, so sorry for crashing your holiday and making everything a huge mess. I feel like such a crazy, stupid idiot. I really do. I’ll leave tonight.”

“Don’t be insane. You’re not going anywhere.” I put my arms around her, softly, gently, so I don’t spook her, and that’s how Paisley finds us.

“Um, sorry.” My sister half backs up the stairs. “Sorry, guys, to, um, interrupt.” Mila’s already jumped out of my arms and is pressing her hands on the sides of her bright pink cheeks. “Dad called, Landry. The bar is getting slammed. Like, super slammed. He could use your help if it wouldn’t kill you.”

Part of me hates thinking about stepping back in that bar and working under my dad. But a huge part of me knows I owe him, owe myself to bridge this gap and grow the hell up. It’s time to finally face what I’ve spent so many months running from, but I’m not prepared to do it on my own.

Or maybe that’s the wrong way to put it.

I could face it on my own if I had to. But if I had a choice, I’d want Mila by my side.

“Come with me,” I beg Mila, because I’m not above making an ass of myself to try to keep her around. “Please. Come with me? Free drinks all night, on the house.”

“The bar is open on Christmas Eve?” A tiny smile quirks on her lips. “At least I know where you get your crazy holiday hour ideas from.”

“It’s a huge night for college kids, back home and looking for a drink to help them deal with being under their parents’ roofs again,” I tell her. “Will you come?”

For a few seconds I have no idea what her answer will be, but when she nods, relief flashes through me, hot and quick.

“You guys better head out. Dad was a little frantic when he called,” Paisley calls as she runs back up the stairs.