Page 10 of The Holiday Ex-Files

But I was okay. Totally not unhappy. I helped people rid themselves of painful reminders. And I gave great tips on how to be single. Case in point: I was wearing sweatpants. Even though my mom hadn’t tried to push anyone on me in a year, I wasn’t letting my guard down. I even brought throat lozenges with me in case I needed to burp anything out. I wasn’t exactly proud of that skill I’d acquired during my college years, but I would use it to my advantage if I had to.

I trudged in, soaking in the smell of pine trees and the perpetual aroma of campfire. I loved that smell. There was something so comforting about it. It reminded me of camping trips with my family and simpler days.

When I walked in, it looked like a child’s birthday party gone wild. All I saw was a sea of noisy children running around, with various toys and balloons, in the open and spacious great room. I half worried they’d tied all the adults up somewhere and were reenacting Lord of the Flies. Thankfully, three of my brothers—Derek, Seth, and Kellan—appeared, each with a toddler in their arms, and they looked to be unharmed.

The minions were alerted to my presence, and several of them rushed me. They always knew I came bearing gifts. Soon I was surrounded like I was their goddess and they had come to worship me. It wasn’t a bad gig. I knelt and let them all pile on me. Corey, Ryland, Anna, Teddy, Emily, Jacob, Alexa, Bradley, Collin, Sarah, Michaela, Toby, Melody, and Aubrey. My brothers set their toddlers, Saylor, Evie, and Lisa Marie, on me too. I was groaning under the weight of them all. The older kids were getting huge.

I succumbed to the weight and ended up on my back, hardly able to breathe, but happy. Death by minions wouldn’t be a bad way to go. I kissed as many cheeks as I could and did my best to save the little ones from the crushing weight of the big ones. Thankfully, parents started showing up and extracting their kids.

Kellan, who was just older than me, held out his hand to help me up. I always had to suppress my smile around him. He was the “special” one in our family. An Elvis impersonator who lived in Vegas with his Priscilla Presley impersonator wife, Tonya, and their little girl, Lisa Marie. Kellan went all out with the black, slicked-back hair and sideburns that would take a lawn mower to shave off. At least he wasn’t wearing one of his many rhinestone jumpsuits today. However, he was wearing a T-shirt with a big Elvis head surrounded by pink hearts.

I took Kellan’s hand. “Well, thank you very much,” I did a horrible impression of the King of Rock and Roll.

Kellan chuckled. “You need to work on that, sis.”

“I’ll put it on my list.” I gave him a side hug, once I was on my feet. “How was the drive?”

He and Tonya drove the over seven-hour trip once a month to stay for the weekends we had family dinners. The rest of my siblings lived in either Aspen Lake, Reno, or Carson City. Not one of them worked for my dad, Daniel, which was super disappointing to him. That kept the pressure on me to keep taking photos of listings for him. He was so proud of some of them, he’d hung them on his home office wall. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my job at Jenkins & Scott Realty—it was some of the employees. Not that I saw Ben often. He lived on the California side of the lake, managing one of the offices there. In his opinion, the California side was much better. What did he know? His wife loved to say, “Claudia Cann can only do California.” Internally I gagged thinking about her and her stupid third-person sayings.

I just needed to stop thinking about her, period. I focused back on my minions. I grabbed the bag and went to hand T-shirts out to them, but was interrupted when a surprise visitor strolled in the front door without knocking.

Noah walked in like he was one of the family. Even some of my minions ran to him and hugged his legs. It was kind of adorable despite his love of annoying me. In years past before the incident, he frequently came to the monthly Sunday dinners, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. I had no idea why he was here today.

While he should have been distracted by the barrage of minions and my brothers making their way toward him, he made sure to grab my attention. He raised his hand and mouthed, “Hi.”

I tilted my head. I was pretty sure he was wearing the exact same outfit he’d worn in the last two photo shoots I’d cropped his exes out of. Fit-me-right jeans, a button-up he left untucked, and a charcoal blazer. He looked like he had walked off a GQ cover. I could only imagine how stunning the woman was that he’d done yet another photo shoot with. Seriously, he needed to slow down. These poor women. Unless, that was, he had finally convinced the mystery woman to go out with him. But would he do a photo shoot with her so soon? Or maybe he wasn’t doing a photo shoot. Either way, I still narrowed my eyes at him.

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