Page 66 of Snowed In
“You do?” She’s too surprised to hide it.
“Christian and I met him on the way down.”
“Oh. Okay then.” She straightens a place setting on the island, lining the corners up just so.
My smile is grim. “Thought I was going to freak out?”
“I never know what you’re going to do,” she says, not meeting my eye. “Not anymore.” And with that, she leaves.
* * *
Later that evening, after a very long, very hot shower, a detailed skin-care routine, and a frozen pizza that I only partially burned, I sit on my bed with a show on my laptop, determined to get a good chunk of Andrew’s sweater finished. It’s the only plan I have for the rest of the night, and I’m just about to start a snowflake pattern along the front when my door swings open, and Aidan strolls inside.
“Watcha doing?” he asks, flicking the end of a scarf hanging nearby.
“Knitting.”
“It’s a Saturday night.”
“I’m aware,” I say, trying to concentrate. It’s kind of hard with him in my room. Especially when he settles back against the dresser, staring at me.
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Hiding under the bed.” My laptop buffers, and I huff, pausing it so it doesn’t skip ahead. “You can leave now,” I say when he doesn’t move.
“Let’s go out.”
“No.”
“Come on.” He jerks his head toward the door. “We’ll go to the pub.”
“Aidan, I’m tired. I was socializing all afternoon trying to make a good impression on Christian’s family, and I don’t have the energy to smile for a bunch of your friends.”
“My friends aren’t there. Or they might be, I don’t know.”
“Then why do you want to—”
“I thought we could catch up,” he says, and I frown. He sounds sincere, and he looks sincere, but Aidan and I were never the kind of siblings who hung out when we were kids, and we literally live on separate continents as adults, so…
“We can watch a movie?” I suggest.
“There’s no point in you making a big thing about coming back for Christmas if you’re just going to hide in your room the whole time.”
“I’m not hiding! I’m knitting.” I gesture at the laptop in front of me. “And I’m nearly finished with season three.”
“Of a show that finished fifteen years ago.” He’s scowling at me now. “I’m not going to ditch you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I pretend to count my stitches, embarrassed that he can see right through me. That’s exactly what I’m worried about. The last thing I want to do is put myself in a situation where I’ll bump into people I don’t want to bump into, but I also haven’t seen my only brother in a year, and yeah, I wouldn’t mind spending some time with him.
“Saturday night,” he reminds me. “You can be an introvert on a Sunday, Meg, but this is getting sad even for you. It’s Christmas.”
“It’s not Christmas, it’s mid-December.”
“Come to the pub for a drink,” he says slowly. “Stop hiding in your bedroom.”
I stare at him for a moment before my eyes drift back to the laptop, to the beautiful doctor and her ruggedly handsome patient with the incredibly rare, incurable disease. The one I know that in about nineteen minutes, he’ll die from because I have seen this episode twice already.
“I’m not going to leave until you say yes,” he continues. “I’m just going to stand here and look at you.”
