Page 21 of It's Mother-Pucking Christmas!

I swallowed, trying to find my breath. “In honor of sincerity”—I clinked my glass against his bottle—“you have the most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen.”

A slow smile spread across his face, sending him from attractive to smoking fucking hot.

“Thanks.” He looked down briefly then back up, pinning me in the intense cerulean. “The only nice thing my father ever did was give me these.”

Cocky bastard.

His blue eyes widened slightly. Suddenly I was drowning in his gaze. I sat frozen across from him, glass clutched in my hand, halfway to my mouth.

Then he shook his head, breaking the spell. “Sorry, that line works better when Utah does it. Er, when Rick does it.” He looked up at me from under the unfairly long dark lashes—Fucking wasted on a man—though I wanted to feel them flutter against my skin when he kissed me.

“I actually don’t really know what color eyes my father had,” Ryder admitted, drawing shapes in the condensation on his beer bottle.

“Oh, did he pass away?”

Ryder laughed sadly then ran a hand through his hair, making it a little messy over his forehead.

I had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching over and smoothing it down.

“I was adopted.” The words tumbled out from him in a rush. “And my parents didn’t leave any documentation, or maybe they did, but the social workers didn’t give it to my adoptive parents.”

“Uh, what?”

“My adoptive parents thought they couldn’t have children, but then they could,” he said rapidly, “and they had a little girl and two little boys—triplets. They were so tiny.” His face softened. “I loved watching them sleep. The mom didn’t like it though. She freaked out because I was a big kid. The mom was afraid I was going to hurt her miracle babies and told the dad to get rid of me.”

“You can’t just abandon a child,” I fumed, suddenly furious.

“You can if you don’t do it through the state. You just sign over guardianship to some other adult.” Ryder gave me a wan smile.

“The dad picked me up from school one day, drove me out to the country, said we were going pumpkin picking as a surprise for the mom. Then he left me with these smelly people in an old farmhouse. There were a bunch of other kids there. And cats. So many cats. They collected them, I guess. The kids not the cats. They didn’t seem to like the cats much. They just bred. There were kittens everywhere. Anyway, one of the girls had had enough.”

“Holy shit.”

“A month after I got there, she up and started walking down the country road. Got picked up by a state trooper, and they came and took us all away. Then I bounced around foster care. I think I couldn’t get adopted while I was young and cute because they were trying to get my legal parents to take me back. But my adoptive parents refused to see me. They didn’t even give me my things back. Said they’d thrown them out. I had this stuffed rabbit named Funny.”

He had a lost look in his eyes.

“Sometimes I go in thrift stores just to see if I happen on him one day… Anyway, then my ex-parents finally terminated their rights. At that point I was too big. ‘Weird and awkward’ was how one foster dad described me. Then I turned eighteen, and myfoster mom told me to get out, that she wasn’t getting any more money from me and I had to leave.”

I stared at him, not knowing what to say. What do you even say to that? Probably something that’s not “You’re coming home with me so I can force-feed you homemade pasta then round up all my aunts and cousins so we can beat the shit out of your so-called parents.” I might give my family shit, but none of us were going to dump so much as a goldfish out in the country with some creepy kid hoarders.

“What the literal fuck.”

The big man winced. “You didn’t need to hear that,” he said sadly. “That’s not first-date material. I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

God, he was a fucking cinnamon roll. Like a warm, gooey cinnamon roll. I wanted to wrap him in blankets and make him a mug of spiced tea. Shower him with stuffed animals ’til I got one of his brilliant smiles. Fuck me, right?

“So you trauma dump and girls ghost you, huh?” I knocked back the rest of my syrupy red drink.

“Yeah. I’m not supposed to.” Ryder looked down, unhappy.

I reached out. “Don’t be.” I rested my fingers lightly on the back of his hand. “I come from a long line of oversharers.”

He gave me a slight smile.

“When you come to one of my family parties, you’ll see. The litter box you spent your formative years in is nothing compared to the graphically violent stories of childbirth my aunts will regale you with.”

His smile grew a little more hopeful. It was tugging right on my heartstrings like a sad kicked puppy.

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