Page 100 of Before We Fell

“In my defense, a couple of those are for outside.”

That didn’t help ease him at all. “And also, Christmas is my favorite.” I patted his cheek walking past him. “Hey, do you think Riley is old enough forElf? We could watch that instead of listening to music.”

“I loveElf!” she shouted, rushing into the house between us. “Let’s watch it! Buddy’s the best!”

I closed the door behind me, locking it, and grinned at Noah. “You know, she’s been quite the chatterbox lately. Was she always like this?”

Noah smiled. It was such a pure look, so happy, so at ease, like he was finally shedding all his stress and worry with each pleasant outburst from Riley. “Louder,” he said, shaking his head. He tossed my keys into a basket on the table by the door and I dropped my purse there, only fishing my phone out of my purse.

At some point, I’d give the obligatory call to my parents. I hadn’t spoken to my mom in weeks when I let them know I wouldn’t be coming home for Thanksgiving. She’d all but hung up on me, after mumbling something about how selfish I was not to consider my family.

It was unfortunate I couldn’t have a decent relationship with my parents, but I was long over being manipulated by them as well. If they wanted a relationship with their daughter, it had to come with understanding my boundaries that I wasn’t going to be around Travis.

And I definitely wasn’t going to bring Riley around him, ever.

“All right,” I called out to Riley. She was in my living room, opening every red and green bin, peeking into them before dashing to another. “Should we do the tree first?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “I can help do that!”

Next to me, Noah muttered, “Something tells me we could go spend a few hours alone in your room, and not only would she not know we were gone, but she’d have everything taken care of by the time we got back.”

“Yeah, but what fun would that be?”

“Oh.” He grinned that salacious grin of his that turned my knees to jelly. “I can think of a few fun things we could try.”

“Later.” I bumped my hip into his and went to the living room. Bending down, I flung the lids off the bins, yanking the ones for outside closer to the front door. I’d do those in the morning, when it was lighter out. Possibly, I’d wait until it warmed up a little bit. “All right, Miss Riley. While I start getting the tree put together, why don’t you lay out the decorations on the kitchen table. That way you can see everything before deciding where stuff goes.”

She gave me a strange look.

Noah chortled.

Okay, so my obsessive cleaning tendencies spilled over to Christmas decorating as well.

I ignored them both and opened the box for the tree. It was the first year since I’d moved to Carlton I wasn’t spending this tradition alone. I’d take their teasing because it didn’t come with silence and a feeling of loneliness.

While I got the tree ready, Noah went to the television. He pulled upElf, clicked the button to rent it, and soon, my living room was filled with excited, Christmas chaos.

Tires squealed outside.Loud enough it could be heard near the back of my house where Riley danced around the Christmas tree. She took her time with every single ornament, handling them reverently. Cupping them, asking about ones that seemed to have meaning and those she took extra care in finding a special place for. She was the Christmas Drill Sergeant. A girl after my own heart. When she wanted the ornaments hung where she couldn’t reach, she didn’t hesitate to demand Noah hang them for her. And then she pointed and commanded him to hang them exactly where she wanted.

At the rate she was going, it’d be New Years before the ornaments were all up.

The sound of screeching tires yanked me out of my task at the kitchen table, where I was unfolding garland and strings of fake holly. I usually draped some over the fireplace mantle and the rest went to the top of my kitchen cupboards. I loved the soft lighting from them during the winter months.

“What the heck?” I dropped the garland I’d been fixing and peeked out the narrow window next to my front door. Lights from a car, shone brightly straight into my house making the car pretty much invisible from the glare, but it was obvious the car had somehow pulled into my yard.

“What is it?” Noah asked, hurrying to me.

“Get your cell phone,” I said. “We might need to call the cops. A drunk driver maybe? I can’t tell.”

A shadowed figure walked in front of the lights, lighting him up enough for a chill to spear straight to my heart.

“Shit,” I cursed. My hands went to the door. Noah covered it.

“What is it?”

“I think it’s my brother,” I muttered. “Seriously, Noah, get your phone. If he’s drunk, I’m totally having his ass arrested.”

“Don’t open it—”

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