Page 52 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

I shrugged, finally glancing up to see my family staring at me. Even Dad, who normally couldn’t be bothered with anything that wasn’t sports or food, looked surprised.

“I’m just saying I think you’d have a nice time,” I explained, shoveling another forkful of stuffing into my mouth as if to punctuate the sentence.

The moment hung in the air for a beat longer than it should have, but no one said anything. Not about Alicia, at least. Mom cleared her throat, and just like that, the conversation picked up again, everyone shifting back to safe, familiar topics.

But I wasn’t really listening. Not to them, anyway. I was too busy processing what I’d just said—and more importantly, how I felt about it.

The truth was, it didn’t hurt to talk about Alicia anymore. There was no sting, no lingering bitterness. Just a passing, almost indifferent thought about her new life, her new husband, and their perfect tropical honeymoon. The same trip we’d once talked about taking together, back when we were married.

Nothing. Even that thought, once a painful punch in the gut, was just a neutral statement to me now.

I glanced down the table at my family—at Laney and Cameron whispering to each other about baby names, at Shane and Julio laughing about some inside joke, at Patrick grinning as Deepti shyly offered to help clear the dishes—and then, unbidden, I pictured Rachel sitting next to me. Not just as some casual fling, not as someone I’d be walking away from at the end of the season, but as part of this.

Part of my family.

It was more than just wanting her there. I could see it—the future I hadn’t allowed myself to think about since my marriage ended. I could picture her at this table, fitting in with the chaos, tossing back snarky comments at my brothers, laughing with Julio about how ridiculous it all was. Hell, I could even imagine her pregnant, her sharp edges softened just a little, glowing like Laney was now.

And for the first time in years, that image didn’t scare me. I didn’t meet it with the internal rebuke,You’ll never have that.

I looked down at my plate, feeling the weight of that realization settle over me. The truth was, Rachel had changed something in me, something I hadn’t even realized was broken. I’d spent so long keeping people at arm’s length, afraid to let anyone in after Alicia, afraid of getting hurt again. But with Rachel, it was different. She wasn’t a rebound or a distraction. She was…something more.

I didn’t know when it had happened. Maybe it was that first kiss at the rink, or maybe it was the way she challenged me, made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t in years. Whatever it was, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

I wasn’t just over Alicia. I was ready for something new. Something real.

With none other than Rachel Henning. And hell, the other two goobers I called friends too.

The conversation around me drifted on, but I barely heard it. I was too busy thinking about her. Living, at least in my head, in the future I was finally ready to build.

28

ROMAN

Thanksgiving wasn’t the same when experienced through a screen. But in the case of my family—or, well, my parents and the extended network of uncles, aunts, and cousins—this distance was better. So while all of them were gathered for dinner at my shitty grandpa’s house, I was in Mistletoe, holed up in my apartment. I had Chinese takeout spread out before me, and my baby sister’s face filled up the screen on my laptop, grinning like crazy.

“Look what Mom got me for my birthday last month, Roman,” Ava said, holding up a gaming console in a bright pink color that I knew was her favorite. “Do you have one? We could play together!”

“I’ll get one,” I assured her with a smile. “Tell me about your game.”

Ava chattered happily, and I tried my best to listen as I shoveled down some fried rice, even as the knowledge that our mom, who had always been overly critical and withholding when I was little, was now showing affection to the younger kids through extravagant gifts. To be fair, she’d never really wanted me; I was a reminder of her teen pregnancy, the mistake sheclaimed as the biggest one of her life. But now that she had my stepdad and a brand new last name—Barclay,which was so much fancier than my bio dad’s more abruptJett—she was the picture of a perfect wife and mother.

At least, that was how she appeared if you looked in from the outside. My brother Max, who was still close to a decade younger than me though he was the second-oldest of our whole brood, often called me when he needed a safe place to cry about Mom’s constant rejections. Things weren’t as perfect as they appeared.

As seven-year-old Ava passed the phone to Ryder, whose ninth birthday I had to miss because of the hockey playoffs last season, I made sure to keep my charm cranked to eleven. My five younger siblings—Max, Kendra, Ryder, Ava, and baby Elena, who we called Ellie because it was easier for a toddler to say—were the only tether I really felt to the Barclay family. I’d practically raised them, since Harry—my stepdad, their bio dad—was always working and Mom, I was pretty sure, was incapable of maternal affection. These kids deserved to know their big brother loved them at least. That I was excited to see them, even over a video call, even if I’d decided against coming home for Thanksgiving this year. Last year had been such a disaster that I refused to risk repeating it.

Once Ryder had finished telling me about how evil his teacher was in school this year and how good he was getting at hockey—“Dad says I’ll be just like you some day, Roman! You’ll see!”—I was passed off to Kendra. She was the girliest and bubbliest of the whole bunch, almost fourteen and absolutely obsessed with a Korean boy band. She didn’t know yet that I got her tickets to their concert for Christmas, and it was hard not to tell her as she gushed about their newest music video. It was the least I could do after I left all of them. Hell, maybe I was just like Mom after all. Buying their affection, their forgiveness.

When our chat finished, it was finally Max’s turn, and he was holding baby Ellie too, both of them beaming at me. Ellie was getting so big, her curly dark hair falling almost to her shoulders now.

Max grinned up at the camera, his smile a little too wide, like he was trying to hide something. I could see it in his eyes—the same look he got when he was younger and had snuck an extra cookie or borrowed my skates without asking. But this was different, more nervous than mischievous.

“Ellie misses you, Roman,” he said, bouncing her a little on his lap. She giggled, her curls bouncing along with her, and my heart clenched in that familiar way it always did when I saw my siblings. Ellie was still too young to understand how much I missed her, but Max knew. They all knew.

“I miss you guys too,” I said, leaning back in my chair, trying to get comfortable as I picked up another dumpling with my chopsticks. “How’s everything been with school? You keeping up?”

Max rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Grades are fine. Boring stuff.” He shifted a little, glancing behind him, like he was making sure no one else could hear. “But, uh, there’s something else.”

I raised an eyebrow, pausing mid-bite. “Oh? Something more exciting than algebra?”

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