Page 25 of Love Letters to Christmas

Help.

Amelia

This is torture. Absolute torture.

Worse, I think Brian’s enjoying it.

Heart panicking, I cut my attention off Brian’s bright smile and toward my desk, just to make sure I put the letter I wrote for him last night away. Thankfully, I did.

But air doesn’t return to me as I find myself still in bed, still in my jammies, still looking at a tray of food.

Whimpering beneath the covers, I tug my blanket up to my nose. “What…is this?”

“Breakfast in bed!” Brian cheers, disregarding the fact he has waltzed into a female’s bedroom and woken said female from a deep slumber.

Does he not think of me as a woman?

Wasn’t it literally last night that I was thinking how he’d not been in my room since he helped me bring my boxes in?

Talk about dreadful foreshadowing.

Every muscle in my body knots as I look at what exactly breakfast consists of. Scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and…a blueberry muffin.

He knows.

He knows .

My life is over.

Unless…unless this means he might be interested in me ? If he’s replying and knows and doesn’t think I’m messing with him, doesn’t this mean I have a chance? Is that too good to be true?

I whisper, “Blueberry?”

“A classic.” He sets the tray down beside me.

“Tomorrow, I think I’ll try coffee crumble, chocolate, or banana nut.

” He fixes a stray lock of my hair, practically combing his fingers through the loose strands lovingly before pulling away.

“Let me know which you want most. I’m gonna clean up the kitchen while you enjoy your breakfast.”

As my bedroom door shuts behind him, I know I will be doing no such thing. This cannot be what he meant when he said he’d take care of me between now and the masquerade ball.

I won’t survive two days of being woken up to breakfast in bed.

Guilt is already petitioning a riot inside me, and I want nothing more than to go clean up the kitchen myself.

The urge to apologize for being trouble is so compelling I’m practically forgetting that he is the one who walked into my room while I was asleep.

That’s surely a red flag. Even though it’s Brian . And Brian is the greenest flag in the history of the world.

Isn’t he…?

Scrambling, I reach for my phone and text Ceres.

Amelia : Is it normal for someone to walk into your bedroom without permission??

Ceres : Yes.

I…don’t know why I thought she’d say anything else. What if Brian—my perfect, precious Brian—is taking notes from Mars ? Mars makes Ceres meals all the time, and he clearly doesn’t understand invasion of privacy.

Which means this is not a red flag. This is Brian taking advice from a bad influence . In an effort to…to woo me.

Heat explodes in my face, and I dare to look at my tray of food.

I don’t want it to go cold, not after he’s worked so hard on it.

I’ll find a way later to make it up to him. Maybe I’ll wash his car or move the couches and vacuum under them.

Right as I’m taking my first bite of egg, a vacuum turns on in the other room, and I feel myself slip toward insanity. There is no way. There is simply no way he is vacuuming under the couches right now.

Setting my food aside, I sneak to the door, peek down the hallway toward the living room, and gasp before tucking back into my room.

He. Is.

He is literally vacuuming underneath the couches.

When the vacuum turns off, I hear the dishwasher cycling. So. That means the kitchen is clean, too.

“Oh, hey, A-mail-ia,” Brian says, casually and suddenly at my doorway.

I squeak and launch myself back. Heart heavy, I clutch my footboard for dear life.

His gaze slips down across my nightgown, then back up to my eyes.

He smiles and angles himself beneath the doorjamb so I can see a hamper propped against his hip.

“I’m starting a load. Do you have anything you want me to throw in?

” Sunshine has never looked quite this evil before.

His attention flicks to my mostly-untouched tray of food. “I hope you’re enjoying breakfast.”

I am not enjoying this horror story, actually, and you, sir, know it.

“You can’t do this,” I whisper. “I-I’ll have to contribute at work.

” I’m going to wash his car tonight while he’s distracted with dinner.

I’ll find a way to help. He can’t bar me from everything for two solid weeks. He just can’t .

A funny look creases his brows. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean?”

“Have you been talking to Mars?”

“Not regularly. He sometimes sends me weird questions; I answer them; he doesn’t reply.

I wish he’d mail more, but, well, to my knowledge he usually only sends ransom notes, and I already have you, so what else could he possibly put a ransom on that would affect me?

My sister, Brianna? He can keep her.” Brian’s gaze falls on my laundry basket in the corner. He points. “May I?”

I shake my head. “I’ll do it. There’s…unmentionables. A lady’s unmentionables in there.” Because I’m a woman, remember? A woman . “We need to establish a line.”

He hums. “The line is that you’re not allowed to do anything for me for two weeks. You are allowed to work. You are allowed to clean up after yourself. But nothing, at all, for my benefit at home.”

I shrink. “I very deeply hate that line.”

He lifts a shoulder. “I know. Which is why I’m removing temptations. I need a few more things to make a full load and thus bar your ability to do my laundry.”

I cover my mouth with a shaking hand. “I would never . Those are your unmentionables. It wouldn’t be decent for me to do them unless I was y-your wife or something!”

Eyes sparkling, he laughs. Laughs . Laughs at the very idea of me being his wife. Cutting his fingers through his hair, he shakes his head at me and says, “I’m afraid we both don’t know what you’ll do when you’re desperate.”

“Absolutely, completely, assuredly not your laundry,” I provide.

“So, if I were to start a load and leave it in the washer, it wouldn’t wind up mysteriously dried, folded, and ready for me on my bed?”

Voice reedy, I ask, “Are you…going to do that? It’ll go sour if you leave it in the washer.”

He turns on his heel. “I might , later this week, as a test of endurance. This is a learning period , my Mail-ia. The difficulty needs to scale in order to strengthen your education.”

“Brian, please…”

He casts a look over his shoulder at me, then faces me again, with an endearing sigh. “You will know what it feels like to be taken care of, completely, and loved through it.”

I die. I completely and utterly die . Brian’s not only planning to take care of me but also planning to love me through it. I… I do not know how to handle that. At all. Not even a little bit. I think my body goes into shock. My nerves spark. My organs shut down.

I find myself slipping to my knees at the foot of my bed. Holding my soft kitty-cat nightgown down over my thighs, I whisper, “Please, Brian, I won’t survive.”

“True enough, Mail-ia. You will do more than survive. That is, after all, the goal.” Smile tenderly obscuring all his devious plots, he says, “May I please have some mentionables to complete my load?”

“You…won’t have a full load to leave in the washer later this week if you do one now.”

He hums. “That’s a fair point…”

“And if you put my clothes in it, I might convince myself it’s only right if I take care of my own laundry, but then I wouldn’t be able to just leave yours, so I’d be forced to-to touch unmentionables .”

“Do I need to ban you from taking care of your own things, too?”

I gulp and adamantly shake my head. “N-no.”

“Then don’t be hopeless. This is healing .” He dips his chin once, very affirmatively.

“I don’t think a licensed therapist would approve of these methods…”

“Well, in my defense, you did not choose therapy, now did you? No. No, you did not. You chose to suffer, so suffer you shall.” He tips his head against the doorjamb, peering down at me.

“I don’t mind if you change your mind. But I hope you won’t mind if I oblige your wishes until the point that you do.

” Lifting his chin toward my bed, he says, “Finish your breakfast now, dear princess, and know that it is an honor to serve you.”

I do not estimate that I will last more than one singular…hour.