Page 87 of Love Letters to Christmas

Brian

“Yes!” I cackle, devious, and run—because there’s no way Amelia lets me keep this long enough to read it if I do not.

She’s already on her feet, chasing me from the box of letters in her room, to the kitchen, around the island, toward the couch. “Brian, no!” she shrieks. “You give that one backright now.”

“Expressive mischief in your eyes, clear as day when your brows rise,” I read, smile wide. “The secret to the thoughts within, those two curved clues upon your skin.” I look up, and dart left, keeping Amelia on the other side of the couch. “You speltexpressivewrong. Alsomischief.”

“I was ten!” she cries, and lunges.

I catch her before she goes careening off the back of the couch. Bracing her, I hold my letter out of reach and continue, “Here, my meager attempt at an ode to your fair brows and their strange code. For though they say eyes are the windows to the soul, in my opinion eyebrows take that sacred role.”

As I finish, Amelia sniffles and says, “I am going to kill myself.”

I tutt. “Hailey would be so disappointed to hear you talk like that. I’m framing this.”

She buries her face against a cushion, free strands of her hair floating down her back, so pretty. I have no idea why she started wearing it down. Maybe because she noticed I’m a little obsessed with it.

Pitiful, she says, “I think you shouldn’t get a letter tomorrow, or for the rest of this week.”

“Now, A-mail-ia,” I chide. “You know that would kill me. After a month of daily letters, I can’t stop cold turkey. It’s against doctor recommendation. They are a drug that you take once daily forever, and that’s just the way it is.”

She liquifies, melting off the couch and onto the floor. Face down in the carpet, she mumbles, “This was a terrible idea.”

This was the best idea ever.

Swinging myself over the backrest, I settle into the corner nook of the couch. “I quite enjoy my daily hit.”

“You’d have been so uncomfortable if I’d given you that atrocity.”

“I’d have been hypnotised by the pretty seal and asked you to marry me, using naught else but Eyebrow-ese.”

Amelia tilts her face, looking feebly up at me. “Eyebrow-ese?”

“The language of my face caterpillars.” I waggle them, certainly sayingI love youin Eyebrow-ese.

“Caterpillars are adorable.” She pouts. “Yet that’s still an insult to the majestic nature of your regal countenance.” Her phone alarm goes off in the pocket of her dress, and she winces.

I grin. “Are you going to tell Hailey about my eyebrows today?”

“No,” she protests, pulling herself off the floor, but I do have my doubts. She rambles about me to her therapist whenever she needs to distract herself from some heavy topic. I once overheard her explaining that her favorite color istechnicallyblue, but only after the exact green of my eyes, but since you can’t just get the exact green of my eyes outside my eyes, whenever someone asks her what her favorite color is, she either saysa very specific greenorblue.

Intospecificthings, my Mail-ia.

Dusting off her dress, she glances at me.

I watch her, listening to her alarm for her virtual therapy session with Hailey sing “Invisible” by Zara Larsson from the movieKlaus.

I let my smile warm.

She lets herself smile. “Well,” she says, “I should go set up my laptop.”

“Yeah, probably. You shouldn’t be late. It would be a shame if Hailey can’t hear as much as possible about my eyebrows.”

Amelia rolls her eyes, then she leans down and grazes my lips. “I love you.”

I catch her waist and deepen the kiss. “I love you, too.”

And that’s when she steals my letter.

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