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Chapter Forty-Six

E verything felt strangely like home.

With Dave’s family, I always felt distinctly other. As if they knew at any second, he might get rid of me and treated me as such. Hey, maybe they had known all along. They even kept me out of the family photos, even though I would’ve sworn up and down that we were going to be together forever.

Well, I guess they made the right call.

But here?

I didn’t feel as out of place as I feared I would. No one treated me like I was this weird intruder crashing the family party.

And I was sandwiched between Liam and Maggie, who were the two people I loved most in the world.

Cared about. I mentally chastised myself before realizing there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with loving your friends. That could still be a platonic emotion.

But my feelings for Liam were anything but. I realized that now, which is why I couldn’t go throwing the “L” word around so casually, even in my head. Otherwise, I’d have another slip-up like earlier in the day and ruin everything.

I didn’t get to dwell on my feelings for long because Liam’s family had a way of drawing me into the conversations and engaging me completely, so the only thing I focused on was what they were discussing.

This was what normal families were like. This was how it should feel. I wanted it someday. For myself.

Would I ever have that? Sometimes, it seemed like the most unlikely thing in the world, and the thought of never getting it broke my heart more than anything else.

Absentmindedly, I reached for a pot in the middle of the table while listening to one of Liam and Maggie’s cousins tell a story from when they were all kids together. I didn’t notice how hot it was until my fingers burned at the contact. I winced, pulling my hand off of it and shaking my fingers.

“Careful, baby.” Liam reached out, guiding my hand back before taking the pot himself to bring it closer to me.

I blinked up at him, frozen by the word he’d let slip so casually from his mouth. But he avoided eye contact, instead making a sound of clearing his throat before jumping into a conversation with someone across the table.

“So, Maggie. I hear you’ve been in contact with your old man again,” one of the many uncles in attendance said. “How’s that going?”

Instantly, I was aware of Liam stiffening beside me while Maggie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat.

Weird. I thought.

“It’s fine,” Maggie said, trying to shut it down.

Even weirder.

Last I saw her, she’d been over the moon over her recent coffee dates with her dad. I’d never prodded Liam about it, but he was decidedly less than pleased by Maggie’s recent contact with their father.

“How’s he doing? I’m sure you two had a lot to catch up on.” One of the aunts smiled encouragingly.

“Yeah, like twenty years’ worth.”

Liam’s mom had downcast eyes, very focused on the food she was moving around on her plate.

Liam was rigid beside me.

Under the table, I reached out a hand and settled it on his knee. Giving it a squeeze of encouragement.

He relaxed slightly until a moment later when his hand came atop mine and held it in place.

”He’s good. It’s going good,” Maggie said in a flat tone.

Apparently, Liam and Maggie’s family were able to pick up on the shift that was taking place in all the Brynn’s in the room, and suddenly, the conversation shifted to safer topics.

Liam relaxed fully, but his hand stayed on top of mine. Maggie’s eyes were glazed over with some emotion I hadn’t seen from her in a long time.

And I wondered if maybe Liam had been right not to reconnect with their father after all.

“Someone needs to take your license away,” I shrieked. “Because you are an absolute menace!”

Maggie cackled while her Bowser sent a shell flying directly into the path of my Princess Peach.

We were on the third lap of Mario Kart, and we were neck and neck, but Maggie apparently had the same supersonic athletic ability that Liam was blessed with because she leaned forward and took the lead in the last possible minute.

“I won!” she said, flipping her hair behind her.

“You’re a maniac.” I shook my head with a laugh. “And I’m done playing.”

“Sore loser.” She pouted.

“I’m not a sore loser. I played six rounds with you!”

“Well, don’t you want a chance to win at least once? I’ll go easy on you,” she offered in a singsong voice, dangling the Wii remote in front of me.

“Fine, I’ll play one more game.” I gave, in partially because Maggie was impossible to say no to, but also because I wanted to get a chance to talk to her while the rest of her family was occupied elsewhere.

“So,” I started while she set us up for another game. “Not that it’s my business, but you seemed a little off when everyone brought up your dad earlier. I thought things were going good?”

She exhaled. “It had been. It is, I guess. I don’t know. It might be all in my head, but I feel like…”

“Like what, Mags?”

“I feel like he’s only using me to get to Liam. It’s, like, all of a sudden, the only thing he ever wants to talk about. How Liam’s doing, and if Liam’s asked about him, and if he can have tickets to come see Liam play.”

“ What?” I asked. “Does he know that Liam wants nothing to do with him?”

Maggie groaned. “I sort of hinted that Liam wasn’t ready yet, but I sort of made it sound like he’d be open to it in the future? I was just so scared of doing something wrong that would send him running again, so I didn’t want to be the one to tell him his son never wanted to see him again for the rest of time.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. It sucks that you’re in the middle.”

“It’s whatever,” Maggie said.

“I mean, that’s crazy, though, that he thinks you’d get him tickets to see Liam play. That’s kind of nervy of him, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said after a minute’s hesitation, but her eyes stayed fixed on the screen. “Maybe it is.”

Liam

I don’t know what my sister did to , but when I came inside from a game of touch football with my cousins, she was slumped against the couch like she didn’t have the willpower to even lift her head for a second longer.

“Post-dinner slump?” I asked, sliding down beside her.

“That combined with the stress of your sister’s driving.” She groaned.

“What?” I laughed.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just need to close my eyes for a second.”

“Go for it,” I told her, watching the football game flickering across the flat screen in front of us. “We’re not getting kicked out any time soon.”

The den was empty save for the two of us, the rest of my family no doubt congregating in the more eclectic areas of the house. I watched the game with passing interest for the sake of the holiday. I’d never been much of a football guy, clearly.

I didn’t notice how quickly had fallen asleep until I felt her head fall down against my shoulder. I didn’t really realize either that my fingers had been trailing absentmindedly through the strands of her hair, twirling the curls at the end before starting again from the top.

At some point, she shifted, nuzzling closer as she let out a sleepy sigh. My chest vibrated with quiet laughter at the way her face scrunched up in sleep, and before I even thought about it, I leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Shit, did I just do that?

I froze, waiting for her eyes to open and ask me what the hell I was doing. When she didn’t, I relaxed.

Thank God she was sleeping because I’d have no words of explanation to offer her. I did it without thinking, like my body was acting of its own accord.

“Look at you guys.” Maggie snorted, prancing into the room with knowing eyes. “Practically married.”

I stared at her as she sat in the chair across from us.

“You could thank me, you know.” She flicked her hair behind her shoulder.

“Maggie,” I warned.

“Remember how hard you tried to fight it when I asked if she could stay with you?”

“Would you—”

“And now, look,” she interjected, “I found my brother’s wife for him.”

I couldn’t deny anything. I was grateful as hell.

“Soooo,” she drawled, “What do you have to say?”

I exhaled, blowing out a breath. I looked down at at my side for a moment before meeting Maggie’s smug gaze once more.

“Thank you, Maggie,” I said gruffly.

“Hey, I guess I did have a say in picking out my sister-in-law after all.” She laughed and then turned to face the TV.

“Ugh, football.” She stuck her tongue out. “Let’s watch the Gossip Girl Thanksgiving episode instead.”

I didn’t get a word in before she reached for the remote, taking control of the television.

But honestly, I was too content with my situation to even care.

The sky was an explosion of orange outside the windows of Mrs. Brynn’s house, and I wondered if I’d ever grieved a holiday ending as much as this one.

Who knew if I’d ever have another one that gave me the same warm, Hallmark feeling that this day had.

I could lie to myself and chalk it up to the simple lack of tension or argument that had been so commonplace in my family’s homes growing up, but I knew better.

It wasn’t just that. It also had everything to do with the man sitting beside me, looking more like a goofy boy eating his pumpkin pie than the NHL star I knew he was.

“So, you guys,” Maggie started around a bite of her apple pie. “What’s the move?”

“The what?” Liam asked.

“The plan for tonight. Brody wants to see me after and I thought it would be fun if we all went together.”

I stifled a groan. I was exhausted and didn’t really have any desire to go to some loud bar or club in the city after the perfectly quaint day we’d just had. Especially not when the idea of going back to the place I was living was now such an appealing concept.

But, still. If Liam wanted to go out with his friend and his sister, I would suck it up and handle it. I looked to him as if he could understand with just a look that I was going to follow his lead.

And what surprised me most was that he was looking at me in the same way. As if searching for confirmation of what I wanted to do. I gave him the slightest shrug and a smile, trying to prove that it was up to him.

He turned to Maggie, and when he opened his mouth in what I thought was going to be confirmation of the plan, he shocked me by saying, “I think we’re just going to go home.”

Home. I thought, sagging in relief, dumbfounded that somehow Liam could read me like a book in a way no one ever had before.

“Ugh, boring,” Maggie said. “You guys really are like an old married couple.”

But the way she said it didn’t make it sound like a bad thing at all.