“Well let’s see how it looks on you,” he told me, and took the box out of my hands, took out the necklace and did up the clasp at the back of my neck. I moved over to a mirror hanging on the wall and smiled. It looked amazing.
If someone had told me just three months ago that I’d get the best Christmas present ever from my brother, that he would have bought me something like this, I would have never believed them. It seemed so impossible. And yet here we were. Maybe Kiegan really wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe he had grown up after all.
We spent the rest of the day enjoying Christmas in bed, before finally getting up and going out to dinner to an amazing seafood restaurant, then headed back to Kiegan’s place.
As we walked along the beach in Waikiki heading back to his car after dinner, hand in hand, in silence, I thought about what I felt for my brother. I had always been attracted to him, physically. There was no denying that. But could I possibly be feeling more than that for him?
Either way, as I felt the little grains of sand wrapping themselves around my feet like perfectly fitting socks, with my brother’s hand in mine, I knew that there was nothing that could ruin what we had right now. Absolutely nothing.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day we woke up to Kiegan’s phone ringing at six in the morning.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he sleepily grabbed the phone off the nightstand and looked at the number.
I glimpsed a look and as soon as I saw the 617 area code, I knew. I knew it was his dad calling.
“Whatever, if he wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas he would have called yesterday,” Kiegan muttered, pressing ignore and putting the phone down. I had just snuggled back into his chest, feeling the warm heat of his sleepy body against mine when the phone began to ring again.
“Seriously, what the hell,” Kiegan muttered, pressed ignore again, and then shut the phone off completely.
When we got up Kiegan turned his phone back on.
“Weird, I have ten missed calls from my dad. I better actually call him back,” he told me. I nodded, and went to the kitchen to get breakfast.
While I managed to cook bacon and eggs a lot more successfully than Kiegan’s attempt at pancakes the day before I turned on the TV. It was set to the news, and I watched as there was a story showing people going insane over boxing day sales out east, some heartwarming Christmas stories, then entertainment.
“And now, to entertainment.” I was half listening to the obviously gay man they cut to who would read out the entertainment news for the day.
“Now, here is something juicier than last night’s turkey dinner,” the guy drawled. “You know the Hunt family? Of course you do, everyone knows the Hunt family. Well, if yesterday was any indication, they are definitely keeping it in the family this Christmas.”
I dropped the spatula on the floor as I turned over to give the TV my full attention. The screen cut to photos taken of Kiegan and I at Duke’s yesterday morning. We were deep in conversation, and to my chagrin, I hadn’t noticed that my hand was resting on his.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“Now, does that look like just a brother and sister getting breakfast in Hawaii on Christmas?” the guy asked. “I mean, I know, I know, they’re not really blood relatives. Tina Hunt’s mother married new super celebrity Kiegan Hunt’s father Elton when they were teenagers, but still. I think this photo speaks for itself, especially since attempts to reach the apparent happy couple have gone unanswered.”
Just then Kiegan walked into the room.
“So. You know what my father wanted to talk about then.”
“That would have been a fun conversation.”
Kiegan shrugged.
“Well, it wasn’t a long one, at any rate.”
“What happened?”
“I got pissed and hung up on him.”
I would have laughed if it wasn’t so god dam insane. Hearing the bacon crackling behind me, I turned off the stove.
“Well, we’re going to deal with breakfast first, before anything else.”
“Works for me.”
Kiegan and I ate in silence, both of us caught up in our own thoughts. How had this happened? I hadn’t realized that my hand was on his when we were having breakfast. Was this really happening? What other news sites were reporting that Kiegan and I were in a taboo relationship? Oh God, I knew the answer to that. I knew it was all of them. They would all be reporting on it, they would all be wanting the scoop. I’d left my phone upstairs when I went to make breakfast, but I could only imagine it had a ton of messages waiting for me.
I knew going into this that there was a risk. I knew that it was possible Kiegan and I would be found out, and I knew that if it happened, there was a very real chance that I would be on the front page of gossip mags and websites as well. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast.
“Are you ok with this?” Kiegan finally asked, his voice soft as he put his fork and knife down on his plate.