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“And I’m a thirty-two-year-old man. I don’t want to stay alone at my parents’ house. It’s weird.”

“Well, thirty-two-year-old man, why don’t you drive back to your house then?”

Dalton shook the beer can he was holding. “Can’t.”

Brenda clapped her hands together. “I would love it if all of you kids stayed at the house. I bought matching pajamas again. Brinley, my mother told me you were around the same size as Annalise. I hope that’s right.”

“Mom, we’re n—”

Brinley put her hand up to stop Annalise. “We would love to.” This woman bought her fucking pajamas. How could she say no?

***

“Merry Christmas, beautiful,” Annalise said, waking Brinley with a kiss on the cheek.

Brinley’s heart lit up. I’m pretty sure life doesn’t get better than this . Shit. Shit. Shit. Brinley looked around Annalise’s childhood bedroom. Between the Santa PJs Brenda had proudly handed her and the way she and Annalise made out for hours, not willing to go further with her parents down the hall, she was too distracted to take a good look at it the night before.

Posters covered the walls, the perfect mix of both male and female celebrities represented. “Quite the setup you have here,” Brinley joked.

Annalise laughed and motioned around the room. “Welcome to the life of a closeted bisexual.”

The whole world seemed to stop from Annalise’s words. A soft humming sounded in Brinley’s ears almost as if she was underwater, keeping her from hearing what was going on around her. Bisexual? Did Annalise just come out to me? Does this mean…? She took a deep breath. Chill the fuck out, Brinley. You can’t let anything get in the way of this exam, especially not a broken heart from rejection.

“Oh, shit. I didn’t tell you, did I?” Annalise laughed nervously. “Surprise.”

Brinley opened her mouth to congratulate Annalise and get more details on what had finally made her come to this revelation, but she was interrupted by Kirk’s voice shouting from downstairs. “Guess who came!”

Annalise rolled her eyes. “Definitely not me since we slept here last night.”

Brinley burst into laughter. She was so proud of the woman Annalise had grown into these past few months. “You sound like me. I must be rubbing off on you.”

“I wish you would rub off on me.”

“Two for two.” Unable to resist, Brinley leaned over and gave Annalise a kiss on the cheek. “Later. I promise.”

“What are you going to do to me later?”

So many ideas popped into Brinley’s head. She wanted to do them all… forever. Before she could think of something witty to say back, Kirk shouted again. “Santa Claus!”

“I guess we better get down there, huh?” Brinley would have been happy to stay in bed with Annalise all day, but she wanted to make a good impression on Annalise’s parents and staying in bed didn’t seem like the way to do that.

“Do we really have to?”

“Obviously, babe. Santa came.”

Annalise’s eyes went wide and she stared at Brinley for what felt like hours, unmoving except for her throat as she swallowed hard. “You just called me babe. I think that’s the first time you’ve done that when you weren’t trying to get me into bed or already had me there. ”

Shit . Brinley was letting herself get carried away now. Just because Annalise admitted that she likes women, doesn’t mean she likes Brinley that way. Brinley looked down and ran a hand over the sheet, desperate to do anything to take some of the heaviness out of this moment. “Technically, I do have you in bed right now.”

Annalise playfully shoved Brinley, a smile blossoming across her face once again. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Annalise quickly grabbed a hold of Brinley’s hand and squeezed it. “No, don’t apologize. I liked it. I really liked it.”

The sincerity in Annalise’s voice was too much for Brinley to handle. She needed to either tell her how she felt or rip her clothes off. Since she couldn’t actually do either of those things, she jumped out of the bed instead. She held a hand out toward Annalise. “Should we go see what Santa brought?”

***