Page 51 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

I felt my face heat up immediately. Of course. I could practically hear Roman’s laugh in my head, teasing and cocky, as I tried not to choke on my own breath. Of course, that was exactly the moment Michael looked my way, peering the tiniest bit over my shoulder. “Hey, who’s that? Was that Roman?”

I quickly tilted the phone screen away from him, praying he hadn’t seen the emojis. “Uh, yeah! It’s just, um, work-related,” I stammered, feeling a blush creep up my neck. “Checking in on his holiday plans so I can keep him on the straight and narrow. Nothing exciting.”

Michael made a face like he didn’t quite believe me, but thankfully, he didn’t ask any more questions, partly because Dad piped up just in time, looking away from the tree limb where he was hanging ornaments with far too much concentration. “Rach, you should stay off your phone anyway. You work too much! You’re supposed to be resting, spending time with us, not worrying about hockey or emails or whatever it is you’re doing over there.”

A dismissive hand gesture punctuated it, and he scrambled as he almost flung the ornament he’d been holding across the carpet. I shoved my phone into the cushion next to me, out ofsight, hoping I wouldn’t get another notification anytime soon. Dad was right, anyway. I had been spending so much time at work—well, mostly with the guys, buttheythought it was all work—that I hadn’t really been with my family much since I’d come back home. There was a time when I wouldn’t have missed a night like this, tangled in holiday decorations and laughter with the Henning clan (plus Bria, an honorary Henning).

I sighed and offered a small, apologetic smile. “You’re right, Dad. I’ve been busy. I guess I haven’t been around as much as I should’ve.”

Bria, sitting in the armchair across from me, gave me a knowing smile. “You’re here now, that’s what counts. And after Thanksgiving, we’re going Christmas shopping, missy. Just you and me. No work, no boys, just us girls.”

I laughed, chasing away the guilt. “That sounds like fun.”

Bria winked, and my mom smiled over at me too, her eyes twinkling. “I’ll allow shopping without your mother, but only because I’m sure you’ll be shopping for me.”

“Naturally,” I laughed.

“Duh,” Bria agreed. She added, “I’ll make sure Steve coughs up the good credit card so we can get you somethingreallynice, Paula.”

Dad chuckled but didn’t protest, knowing Bria was independently well-off enough that that wasn’t necessary. I hadn’t gone shopping with her in ages, and it was one thing we’d bonded over the moment my brain had switched into teen-girl, mall-rat mode. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait for that, or the rest of the Henning family holiday traditions that always felt so much more distant when I was still hung up on college finals and painfully short school breaks. Even amidst the hockey player drama I’d fallen into, my family was a beautifully simple constant, and I couldn’t let myself forget how important they were. ‘Twas (almost) the season, after all.

27

SAWYER

“Come on, ref! Get your head out of your ass!” my dad, Roger Finnegan, yelled at the football game on the TV.

“Watch your mouth!” my mom snapped from the doorway, holding a turkey baster like a weapon. “You know we’re not swearing in front of the grandkids!”

“I’ve heard ‘ass’ before,” my niece Jaz said, rolling her dark brown eyes. “We go to public school, Memaw.”

“Jasmine Joy Finnegan, you know better,” my very pregnant sister-in-law, Laney, scolded in a much lower, deadlier tone than Matriarch Fiona Finnegan had used. Since my oldest brother, Cameron, was out on a holiday-themed charity run, and because he was much more the fun kind of dad anyway, Laney had to be the disciplinarian. It worked for them. Jaz looked appropriately cowed by just the one sentence, and she turned back to the game of Scrabble she was playing with her older brother, Rudy.

“I wish these fuc—frickin’refs would realize it’s Thanksgiving,” Dad grumbled as a commercial break aired. “They should know we all want a better game. It’s the holidays, for Christ’s sake.”

Mom must have been too occupied with basting the turkey to hear him take the Lord’s name in vain, or else she would have been shrieking at him again.

“Not sure that’s how it works, Pop,” my slightly younger Irish twin, Shane, piped up with a smirk that was similar to my own. He was the only one of my siblings who also had our mom’s red hair, though his was more the fiery shade versus my brown-tinged deeper one, and he had a heavy smattering of freckles to go along with it. His fiancé, Julio, snickered quietly next to him on the sectional.

“When’s dinner, Mom?” Patrick called from the far end of the living room. The impatience was typical, since he was the baby—home for his college Thanksgiving break. “I think Deepti is hungry.”

“I’m happy to wait as long as it takes, Mrs. Finnegan,” Deepti hurried to say. She seemed like a sweet girl, and despite Mom’s reservations about Patrick bringing her home so soon, she was fitting in well. My niece and nephew already liked her and had roped her into their board game.

Soon enough, dinner was finally ready, and we all gathered around the long dining table, a spread of Thanksgiving dishes laid out before us. Mom had insisted on saying grace, which meant the kids had to sit still for about thirty seconds—something Jaz wasn’t very good at. I couldn’t help but chuckle watching her attempt the sign of the cross, and then my smile turned to one of tenderness as her brother showed her how to do it properly.

The clatter of plates and forks filled the air as we dug into the meal, the familiar hum of family conversation floating around the table. Mom asked Deepti a hundred questions about her studies, Dad complained loudly about how his favorite sports teams were doing this season regardless of each team’s actual record, and Shane and Julio bickered good-naturedlyover which Christmas tree farm they were going to visit next weekend. For the most part, I kept quiet, though I made sure to do my requisite spiel about the upcoming Christmas classic game the Skatin’ Santas would be playing. It was the kind of holiday dinner we’d had a hundred times before, and yet, as I looked around at my brothers with their partners—Laney glowing beside Cameron, Patrick squeezing Deepti’s hand under the table—it hit me.

For the first time in years, I felt like something was missing. And that something wasn’t just about having a partner. It was about Rachel.

I shook off the thought, focusing on the conversation around me, when Laney piped up, “Cameron and I are thinking about taking a baby moon before the little one arrives. Somewhere warm. Maybe Fiji.”

Without thinking, I found myself saying, “Alicia went to Fiji for her honeymoon with her new husband. It looked nice in the photos.”

The room went quiet. The clatter of silverware, the chatter, even Jaz’s constant questions—everything stopped.

I didn’t look up right away, just kept my eyes on my plate like mentioning my ex-wife’s name was no big deal. But in context, it was a big deal. Massive. I hadn’t talked about Alicia in front of my family since the divorce, had barely been able to stand someone else mentioning her name in passing. And now, here I was, casually bringing her up like she was just some distant memory.

Which, I realized, she was.Fucking finally.

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