Page 34 of Love Letters to Christmas

A letter a day keeps Brian fed.

Brian

“ Yes! ” I cackle, devious, and run—because there’s no way Amelia lets me keep this long enough to read it if I do not.

She’s already on her feet, chasing me from the box of letters in her room, to the kitchen, around the island, toward the couch. “ Brian, no! ” she shrieks. “You give that one back right now .”

“ Expressive mischief in your eyes, clear as day when your brows rise ,” I read, smile wide. “ The secret to the thoughts within, those two curved clues upon your skin. ” I look up, and dart left, keeping Amelia on the other side of the couch. “You spelt expressive wrong. Also mischief .”

“I was ten!” she cries, and lunges.

I catch her before she goes careening off the back of the couch.

Bracing her, I hold my letter out of reach and continue, “ Here, my meager attempt at an ode to your fair brows and their strange code. For though they say eyes are the windows to the soul, in my opinion eyebrows take that sacred role .”

As I finish, Amelia sniffles and says, “I am going to kill myself.”

I tutt. “Hailey would be so disappointed to hear you talk like that. I’m framing this.”

She buries her face against a cushion, free strands of her hair floating down her back, so pretty. I have no idea why she started wearing it down. Maybe because she noticed I’m a little obsessed with it.

Pitiful, she says, “I think you shouldn’t get a letter tomorrow, or for the rest of this week.”

“Now, A-mail-ia,” I chide. “You know that would kill me. After a month of daily letters, I can’t stop cold turkey. It’s against doctor recommendation. They are a drug that you take once daily forever, and that’s just the way it is.”

She liquifies, melting off the couch and onto the floor. Face down in the carpet, she mumbles, “This was a terrible idea.”

This was the best idea ever.

Swinging myself over the backrest, I settle into the corner nook of the couch. “I quite enjoy my daily hit.”

“You’d have been so uncomfortable if I’d given you that atrocity.”

“I’d have been hypnotised by the pretty seal and asked you to marry me, using naught else but Eyebrow-ese.”

Amelia tilts her face, looking feebly up at me. “ Eyebrow-ese ?”

“The language of my face caterpillars.” I waggle them, certainly saying I love you in Eyebrow-ese.

“Caterpillars are adorable.” She pouts. “Yet that’s still an insult to the majestic nature of your regal countenance.” Her phone alarm goes off in the pocket of her dress, and she winces.

I grin. “Are you going to tell Hailey about my eyebrows today?”

“No,” she protests, pulling herself off the floor, but I do have my doubts.

She rambles about me to her therapist whenever she needs to distract herself from some heavy topic.

I once overheard her explaining that her favorite color is technically blue, but only after the exact green of my eyes, but since you can’t just get the exact green of my eyes outside my eyes, whenever someone asks her what her favorite color is, she either says a very specific green or blue .

Into specific things, my Mail-ia.

Dusting off her dress, she glances at me.

I watch her, listening to her alarm for her virtual therapy session with Hailey sing “Invisible” by Zara Larsson from the movie Klaus .

I let my smile warm.

She lets herself smile. “Well,” she says, “I should go set up my laptop.”

“Yeah, probably. You shouldn’t be late. It would be a shame if Hailey can’t hear as much as possible about my eyebrows.”

Amelia rolls her eyes, then she leans down and grazes my lips. “I love you.”

I catch her waist and deepen the kiss. “I love you, too.”

And that’s when she steals my letter.

Or tries.

I catch her forearm and reel her—laughing—in on top of me. “How dare you.” I work my fingers up her arm to her hand and my stolen letter as she giggles. “ This is mine.” I kiss her wrist, planting the seal of my lips against her pulse. “Please be careful with my precious things.”

“I’m trying to,” she whispers against my throat, before she kisses. “I’m getting better each day.”

Her alarm stops, which means she really needs to get ready for her appointment. I sigh, squeeze her once more, and let her go.

She presses my letter to my lips, kisses, then abandons it with me. Walking backward to her room, she points at me. “I’m making dinner after my session.”

I settle in, getting comfy. “Keep believing that.”

“I mean it.” She tucks into the hall. “I will leave all my healing behind if I hear a single pot clatter.”

“Make dinner quietly, got it.”

Her lip juts. “You’re impossible.”

“I am not the one who woke up at three this morning to make breakfast before my adoring lover could.” I link my hands behind my head. “I think the only true solution is if we start sharing a bed. Then neither of us can sneak away. We’ll have to make breakfast together, like newlyweds.”

Amelia gasps, peeking at me around the corner. “Scandalous.”

“Hey, Mail-ia?”

Her lashes flutter. “Yes?”

“I’m ordering a pizza. What toppings do you want?”

Wicked, she says, “Raisins,” then she scurries off to get all healed up from whatever trauma compelled her to make me think of such an abomination.

Afterward, we eat our pizza and watch Klaus while I write wedding invitations and she seals them in white. We’ve yet to decide on a date, but we have decided on a day.

It might be next year, might be the year after.

But whatever year it is, it’ll be Christmas.

In July.

This concludes Love Letters to Christmas .

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