Page 48 of I Choose You
Christmas Eve at my father’s house was chaos. It started the first Christmas after our mom died. A bunch of my mother’s friends had come over, stopping by on the way to their own holiday parties, bringing dishes and desserts with them. The next year, even more people stopped by. By the third year, my father had prepared some food, expecting a small gathering. We ended up with over a hundred people in and out of the house, eating and laughing. People started staying for longer, making our house the party they were heading to, not the stop along the way. It had been like that ever since.
Kayleigh used to love our Christmas parties.
Fuck, where did that thought come from? I hadn’t thoughtabout Kayleigh since… well, since Claire started circling my mind.
A couple of people had left their seats, either to mingle or get more food, so I led Claire over to the fold-out chairs they’d vacated.
“Are you okay?” Claire asked quietly. My lack of a poker face must have tipped her off that my head was elsewhere.
I nodded, but was I? I wished I hadn’t even thought of Kayleigh, but now that I had, I realized it didn’t hurt like I thought it would. I thought she was my forever, my ride-or-die. Instead, I was sitting at my family Christmas party without her, the first time in seven years that she didn’t attend it. I looked around the room. Kayleigh would have loved the matching outfits some of the families were wearing. She would have loved to gossip about the ugly sweaters, guessing who was wearing it for comedic purposes and who just liked ugly sweaters. But those thoughts didn’t send me spinning in a race to the bottom anymore. They were nothing more than memories of someone I used to know.
Wyatt and Wes were sitting across from us, talking and laughing like everyone else. Claire laughed at something they said, the sound of it pulling me from my thoughts.
Claire.
I watched her while she smiled and laughed and charmed my brothers—Wes may not have been related by blood, but he was still a brother to me.
“Cartoons today are so fucking strange. I just want to put on some classicRugrats, and instead, I have these annoying-as-fuck songs on repeat. I’ve tried to tell Maeve that she’s too young to pay attention to these shows, but she insists on playing them for hours,” Wyatt complained jokingly. “You’reprobably too young to even remember the good cartoons.”
“How old do you think I am?” Claire wheezed out through her laughter.
“I don’t know, maybe like twenty…”
“No. He’s not answering that,” Wes interrupted Wyatt. “Jesus, man, when am I going to stop having to save your ass? Answering the age question… fucking amateur,” Wes grumbled, shaking his head and running his hand down his beard, probably trying to make sure there was no food stuck in it.
“I’m thirty-two, basically an old maid. I’m not a kid, like this guy.” Claire pointed her thumb at me. Sure, I was younger than Claire. And Wyatt and Wes. But I wasn’t that young.
“What is age, anyway? We’re all adults here,” I said.
“Sure, just some of us have been adults for a lot longer,” she teased.
“A little longer,” I corrected.
Wyatt’s eyes bounced between us, his annoying smirk pulling at his mouth, so I let the conversation drop.
Claire’s empty plate was on her lap, so I collected it so I could throw it out with mine. Her dress was so short in the sitting position that my hand brushed across her thigh. Claire was fidgeting with the hem of her dress, pulling it down, adjusting herself in her chair. I looked around the room, wondering if anyone else had noticed. Wyatt was looking at her face as he talked to her, thank fuck. Wes was buried in his food. My gaze continued to sweep the room.
One of Luke’s cop buddies was checking her out. And not very subtly. My chest rumbled as I stared him down, willing him to move his eyes from her to me. I leaned back and threw my arm across the back of Claire’s chair. That caught hisattention. He met my eyes and then quickly looked away. Why did it matter if some guy was checking her out? She wasn’t mine. Did she want guys checking her out?
Wyatt was watching me, a wide grin across his face. I pulled my arm back from around Claire and got up to throw the plates out. “Don’t let anyone steal that seat,” I told her.
She smiled up at me, eyes shining. “Move your feet, lose your seat.” She shrugged. My lips tipped up at the corners.
I threw out the plates, then tracked down a blanket that Claire could use to cover her lap. With the blanket and two new drinks in hand, I retook my seat and handed her a glass of wine. I wanted to throw the blanket across her lap, cover her up so no one else would be able to see her so exposed, but it wasn’t my call.
“Here. If you want it.” I handed her the blanket, giving her the choice to either use it or not.
Claire didn’t take it from me right away. She looked at my outstretched hand with the blanket, then to my face, bouncing between them back and forth.
“You just looked a little uncomfortable, fiddling around with your dress. Use it, don’t use it. Up to you.” Just as I was about to put it down under my chair, she reached out and took it from me.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft, filled was sincerity and gratitude. Did she still think of me as that dick who was rude to her when she got to town? She seemed so surprised, and it wasn’t even a big deal. It was a blanket, for Christ’s sake.
I was unreasonably glad she took it from me though.
16
Claire
