Page 26 of Take Me Home for Christmas

“I just wanted to keep it light, you know?” I said weakly. Because Dad’s prayer was always a tearjerker. I supposed I’d have to get used to spending this entire weekend in tears.

“Dear Lord,” my dad said, ignoring me and plunging in as everyone folded their hands. “We thank you for the blessing of this food. For the blessing of family.” He glanced at each person around the table, and then rested his gaze on my mom. “For the blessing of good health. For the blessing of love.” Then he looked at me and Brax. “We thank you for bringing us new people to love.” Lifting his gaze upward, he said, “We know that our Gracie is looking down at us from your loving arms and is with us in spirit as we celebrate. Amen.”

“Amen,” everyone echoed.

“To Gracie,” Caleb said, holding up his wineglass. For being as tough on the outside as Caleb was, he couldn’t hide his mushy heart.

“To Gracie,” Liam seconded.

My mom lifted her glass and nodded, her lips pressed together. I could only nod and lift my glass as well. Brax lifted his and simultaneously took my hand, leaving me to swipe at my eyes with the other one. And then do you know what he did? He squeezed it. Just like that. No questions. Just a tiny littleI got yousqueeze.

My mom dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “She’s always in our thoughts,” she explained. “We like to say her name.”

Leave it to my mom to tell it like it was. As a family, we acknowledged out loud the one who wasn’t with us.

“That’s amazing,” Brax said. And he sounded sincere.

I glanced over, and there he was, giving me the softest smile. And that made me feel…like he got it. Without even knowing who Gracie was, he sensed something personal, private, and sad, and he acknowledged it. He acknowledgedher.

Then suddenly, Liam was digging in. He passed Brax the peas, who took some for himself and then handed the bowl to me. “Peas?” he asked.

Studying me closely, Caleb said, “Dude, she, like, hates peas.”

Brax froze with the peas in midair. I could practically feel him wondering what to do next. On the outside, Brax was calm, but a telltale flush was creeping up his neck. He hated screwing up: I knew this well from work. I took the bowl from his hands and said the most difficult words I’d ever had to utter. “Peas have antioxidants and…” And what? “and I, um…I love them now.” I scooped out a generous serving on my plate as I smiled, I’m sure quite maniacally, as my entire family stared.

Why didn’t I tell him earlier I hated peas? And even worse—what else didn’t I tell him that mattered?A lot, it turned out.

“You love peas now?” my mother asked in an incredulous tone. “That’s…amazing.”

I was dying on the inside, knowing that I would now unfortunately have to put my money where my mouth was. Ilevered a dreaded green spoonful up to my mouth. “Yep. Love ’em,” I said, then forced myself to take a bite, smiling while the sickening pasty vegetable filled my taste buds with its mushyblechflavor.

Then I did the only thing that would make this bearable. Washed it down with my wine. Lots of it.

And then almost my entire glass of water. Trying to do that subtly, while your brothers are watching you openmouthed in disbelief, is not an easy feat. Especially Caleb, who was piercing me with that astute, sharp gaze of his.

I drank more wine to help me get over the trauma. But even then, the aftertaste…ugh. Good thing I didn’t bring home fake boyfriends often, because that had beenreallypainful.

The worst thing was, how many peas could I hide in my beef stew or under the mound of mashed potatoes? Because I still had a giant heap left on my plate. And unless my family wanted to witness someone throwing up all over the pretty Christmas table, I was in big trouble. I had reached my limit.

“What’s your family like, Braxton?” my dad asked. “Mia tells us you’re very close to your sister.”

“I am. She lives in Philly with her husband, and she’s expecting her first child,” he said. I could hear the pride in his voice. “Both our parents have passed.”

Not for the first time, I wondered why he wasn’t with his sister. Why had he agreed to bail me out in the middle of Snowville, Wisconsin, instead?

“Oh, honey,” my mom said. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” Then he looked my way and smiled a wonderfully smitten boyfriend smile that was so good, it sent goose bumps up and down my arms. Or maybe that was just a reaction from the dreadful peas. “That’s why I was so excited to come home with Mia. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a family Christmas.”

What kind of Christmases did he have? How had his parents passed? He was like the blank pages of a book I wanted desperately to fill in.

This was such a dangerous game we were playing. One that made me greedily want to know more, more, more. The truth and the lies all blended together so that I was losing track of which was which. I felt like I was on the edge of a precipice, ready to fall into the trap of crossing the line between real and pretend. And it was only dinnertime.

Guilt and confusion flooded me. But that awful pea aftertaste kept me grounded in strict reality.

“You’ve come to the right place,” Caleb said, shaking his head as he cut a bite of the beef that was so tender that it literally fell apart on his fork. “Mom loves Christmas more than Mrs. Claus.”

“What I love is having you all here,” my mom said with a crack in her voice.

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