Page 8 of Christmas Wish

My dad cleared his throat. "Okay, okay. My turn." He picked up a slip of paper. "I love you even when you pretend to fall over things that aren't actually in your way."

Everyone laughed except for Tucker.

"Okay, I feel like I'm missing something," Tucker said.

"You are. But it's your turn to guess," I said.

"Umm..." He looked around the room. "Mr. Wild about Mrs. Wild?"

My mom laughed. "I'm not clumsy, dear."

"Then Mrs. Wild about Mr. Wild?"

"Bingo," my mom said. "Sorry, everyone knows that about my dear husband." She touched my dad's cheek.

My whole life I had wanted what they had. I thought I had found that in Brendan. But he never looked at me like that. Unconditional love. I wasn't even sure that really existed in my generation.

Tucker grabbed a piece of paper from the hat. He cleared his throat. "I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. And I can't believe it took me this long to finally tell you how I felt. I'm just glad I wasn't too late." Tucker lifted his eyes from the paper and they landed on me.

It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest.

"It's your guess, baby," he said.

"Right." I turned away from him. "Izzy to Ben?"

"Nope," Izzy said and smiled at me.

I looked back up at Tucker. I didn't want to guess wrong about him and embarrass myself. But even if he had written it, it didn't mean it was true. He was just pretending. "You to me?"

"Of course."

The way he was looking at me made this whole night seem real. I was probably imagining it, but it seemed like he was looking at me the way my mom looked at my dad.

His fingers slid slightly up underneath my sweater.

My throat made a weird squeaking noise and I quickly turned away from him and grabbed a slip of paper from the hat. It was hard to focus on the words as his thumb trailed along the waistline of my jeans. "I'm so happy that dreams come true and that you finally found each other." I frowned and turned the paper over. My sister had written this about Tucker. I looked over at her. We used to be so close. Of course she knew about my crush on Tucker.

She smiled at me. "I guess I got an easy one. That was me to Tucker. Which is great, because I'm awful at guessing."

"I'm glad I'm here too," Tucker said.

I looked back up at him. Lu

ckily I was sitting down, because his smile made my knees feel weak. I tuned out the rest of the game, completely entranced by his fingers against the small of my back.

It was one thing to pretend to be my boyfriend. It was another to do what he was currently doing. He was touching me because he wanted to, not because he had to. No one could even see his hand. Actually, wasn't he doing all of this because he wanted to? Talking to me in the store, giving me a ride home, offering to help me out with my mom? Maybe Tucker didn't need to just be a fantasy anymore.

"So how did you two meet?" Izzy asked. "I mean, obviously you went to school together. But how did you two finally get together?"

"I have to say it was fate," Tucker said. "We ran into each other in a grocery store a little while back. It was so completely random. But I recognized her right away. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. And I told myself that I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't finally go talk to her. Luckily she remembered me too. And we've been inseparable ever since. Right, Julia?" He had pushed my sweater up even more, so that his whole palm was against my skin.

"Mhm." My voice sounded weird and high-pitched.

"I can't even believe it," Izzy said. "After all these years? Julia had this ridiculously big crush on you ever since, what middle school?" She looked at me.

"I don't know about middle school. And it was a small crush. I mean, we didn't even know each other. That would be crazy." But I had been a little crazy. I had been in love with him for forever.

Izzy laughed. "Yeah, right. You basically stalked him."

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