Page 113 of Holiday Romance
“Because the first time I heard about you, you were six.”
“On the first flight?” she asks.
“That’s it.” I smile at her. “Andrew tells you about our flights?”
“He tells us everything about you. It’s a tradition by this stage. Of course, you didn’t come off in the best light the first two years,” she continues slyly. “But he was always a bit of a drama queen. Then it was all Molly’s doing this and Molly’s doing that. She’s got into law school, she’s graduated law school, she’s got a new boyfriend, she’s got a new apartment, she’s moved out of the apartment, she’s got a new job. For the first few years, Christian was convinced he made you up, but honestly, that’s why when you came, I was like, ‘Hi!’ It’s like I already knew you.”
“Well, I appreciate the warm welcome,” I laugh. “He tells me about you too.”
“Oh yeah?” she scoffs. “Like what? How annoying I am?”
“Like how impressed he is with you. Like he thinks you’re the smartest out of all of them and how you’re going to be famous one day.”
She looks at me skeptically. “You’re just trying to make him seem nice.”
“I’m not. He tells me all the time.”
She purses her lips, trying and failing to hide how pleased she is. “I guess he’s not theworstbrother,” she says eventually, and we glance over our shoulders to where he’s walking with the kids and Liam. Andrew frowns at the sudden attention, immediately suspicious, and Hannah collapses into giggles before giving me a friendly tug, quickening our steps up the lane.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I meet my final member of the family when we get back to the house. Andrew’s father, Sean, is a quiet, no-nonsense man who welcomes me with a warm calloused handshake before thanking me for helping his son get home, just like the others. You’d swear I paddled the guy over on a dinghy.
Colleen continues to ignore my repeated offers to help, and instead grabs Andrew to do the dishes while Hannah uses the opportunity to shut me in her room so she can show me the outfits she’s been working on. It wasn’t just brotherly bias when Andrew said how talented she was. The pieces are gorgeous, even half-finished, and I dutifully act as a model for an hour as she talks me through her process.
Afterward, at Andrew’s insistence, I sign my name on the various gifts he got for everyone. I still feel guilty, but relieved overall that he told me what his mother was planning or else I would have felt even more uncomfortable as I gathered around the enormous, picture-perfect tree with the rest of the family. As predicted, Colleen hands me a scented candle, beautifully wrapped with my name in neat calligraphy on the tag, but most of the attention is on Padraig and Elsie, who unwrap their mound of toys and thank each person dutifully.
It’s an odd sensation, joining in on these little rituals, the same ones I spent my entire adulthood avoiding, as if to prove to myself that I didn’t care. And while it will always be awkward joining a group of people who know each other inside out, it’s hard not to get caught up in the jokes and the teasing and the sheer unfiltered joy of it all. I don’t think Andrew ever stops smiling. Not once.
But the highlight of the day is, of course, Christmas dinner. We’re called to eat a little after seven p.m. to a small dining room that you can tell is used only on special occasions. I’m surprised at the amount of food, even though Liam’s wife, Mairead, and the kids have joined us, but it makes sense when Andrew explains how his motherslightlyfreaked out about me coming and made double of everything, just in case. I know that half the fun of big holidays like this is the leftovers though, so I don’t feel too bad about it.
We all manage to squeeze around their table, even though we’re so close that I’m touching shoulders with Andrew on my left and Hannah on my right. But the kids eat quickly and grow bored, and it gets easier when they’re excused and get up to run around the living room with theStar Warslightsabers they’d got from Christian.
Despite the welcome I’d received, I’m low-key nervous at being the lone outsider at the table. As bizarre as it sounds, I’m worried they’d try to include me. Ask me polite questions about my life that I would politely answer but that no one cared about. Instead, to my relief they practically ignore me. Bickering and talking over each other, including me only when someone tries to get me as an ally on their side. Usually, Hannah. All the while Andrew is a constant presence beside me, explaining quietly when new names are mentioned and which household item Christian broke at any given time.
I’m so distracted trying to keep up with it all, that I almost forget to be worried about the moment I’ve been secretly dreading.
No one batted an eyelid when Andrew declined a drink at the start of the meal, but as the hour goes on and more bottles are opened, it begins to get more noticeable.
Hannah’s allowed a second glass of Prosecco even though Christian has been sneaking her sips of his beer throughout the afternoon. He’s on the red wine now. They all are, except me, and while Colleen seems to accept easily that I’m not drinking tonight (“I’m leaving early to get back to my sister”), I can tell she’s starting to take it as a personal slight that Andrew refuses every bottle she offers him.
“I still have that headache,” he says, his voice straining when she gets up for the third time to go hunting for something she thinks he might like. “Probably the jet lag.”
I squeeze his knee under the table and his hand immediately covers mine, keeping me there.
“If that one is too heavy for you, we have a merlot in the—”
“Stop fussing,” Christian says, spearing a carrot with his fork. “You’d swear he joined a cult.”
“He traveled a long way to be here and I’m just making sure—”
“All you’re making sure of is that your food is going cold and you’re the one who spent all day cooking it.” He grabs the glass she just placed in front of Andrew and tips it into his own. “There, problem solved.”
Colleen throws her hands in the air in a fine-I-give-up movement and ignores Hannah’s casual suggestion that she wouldn’t mind trying some wine.
The brothers’ eyes meet over the table, a silent discussion occurring that seems to relax Andrew as some of the tension in his shoulders loosens. The squeeze he gives my hand is the only warning I get.
“I actually wanted to talk to you guys about something,” he says, and everyone’s eyes swing our way. He hesitates at the attention and I’m not surprised considering he told me he hadn’t planned on telling them, but before he can continue Hannah lets out a small noise, her mouth dropping open as she stares at us.
