Page 41 of Blame It On the Lattes

Twenty

Avery

“Isn’t it too late tomake a list for Santa?” Kennedy questioned with a frown on her face. “Christmas is in one week.”

“It’s never too late, sweetie,” I assured her, hoping she didn’t hear the crack in my voice. I didn’t know if she was able to remember when we usually did our letters to Santa, but I hoped that she was young enough for it to be super vague in her memories.

“I don’t even know what I want.”

I could feel my blood pressure start to rise, worried this was a terrible idea after all. Sam rested his hand on my shoulder reassuringly, and it instantly calmed my nerves.

He pulled out the chair on the other side of Kennedy and sat down.

“I always had a hard time writing my list to Santa when I was little,” he said, pulling Kennedy’s attention to him.

“You did?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to ask for anything too big because I was worried it would never fit in the sleigh. And then I would worry that if I picked a gift that was too big, then there wouldn’t be room in his sack for gifts for other kids. So then I would try to think of small gifts but would worry that if they were too small, they’d get lost, and he wouldn’t know he had a gift for me.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” Kennedy said with wide eyes.

“Well, the thing is that I used to overthink everything. Then, one day, my mom and dad sat down with me to write my letter, and they reminded me of the most important thing about gifts from Santa.”

“What’s that?”

“That they always have magic.”

Her eyes widened as a smile ghosted her lips.

“Magic?”

He grinned and nodded again.

“Magic was the key to getting what I wanted for Christmas because then I didn’t have to worry if it was too big or too small. Santa would use his magic to make sure the gift made its way under the tree.”

“Wow. That’s so cool. What was your favorite gift you got from Santa?”

He leaned back in his chair and scratched at the stubble of his five o’clock shadow.

“Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I think my favorite gift from Santa was my chemistry set. I was obsessed with knowing how and why things worked, so it was a lot of fun for me to do different experiments and see what happened.”

“Did things explode?!”

“Sometimes,” he admitted with a laugh. “But nothing serious or dangerous. My dad helped me with a lot of it, which is why I think it’s one of my favorite gifts. It brought me a lot of happy memories with my dad.”

“I don’t have happy memories with mine,” Kennedy said, lowering her head.

My heart exploded in my chest as a wave of emotions rushed over me. This was the first time Kennedy had ever said that out loud. Grant wasn’t around much when she got older and didn’t really bother to try to bond with her when she was a baby. He wasn’t abusive to her, other than withholding affection and not giving her any attention. But to hear her say that she didn’t have any happy memories with him broke my heart. It wasn’t that I wanted Grant to step up and be the best dad for her; it was that I wanted her to have someone whowantedto be a good dad to her.

“I’m sorry. That has to be hard,” Sam said empathetically. “I had a friend growing up that his parents got divorced when he was little, and it was really hard on him.”

“What did he do?”

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