Page 128 of Alive At Night

“Good?” Gemma repeated. “That’s what you told me on the phone, but I thought there’d at least besomethingelse to spill.”

I laughed. “I don’t know! Sofia was a gem. She was really sweet, and I’m glad I went so I could finally meet her. I feel like we come from different worlds, but maybe one day, we’ll exist in the same one.”

Gemma tipped her head to the side, sipping her drink while she thought. “I think you could,” she said after a moment. “If that’s what you want.”

“It would be nice,” I said quietly. “But for some reason, I thought I’d feel different after meeting her, and I don’t, really.”

I felt different since the wedding, but it didn’t have anything to do with Sofia.

“And Julian?” Gemma probed, right on track with my thoughts.

“He was…” I cleared my throat. “He was surprisingly a gentleman.”

“A gentleman?” Gemma repeated, clearly in disbelief. Her tone hinted at something else, too, but I couldn’t place it.

I nodded, daring to smile a bit, even though it would confuse the hell out of Gemma. Oh, well. She should probably start getting used to it. Every day, I grew increasingly attached to the idea that Julian was real.Wewere real.

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t tell him I admitted this, but he was really nice about the whole thing.”

Gemma narrowed her eyes. “Nice?”

My grin widened. “Yeah. Nice.”

* * *

The Briggs familyalways spent the week of Christmas on Cape Cod, where Gemma’s grandparents lived. Aunts, uncles, cousins—they all joined in one hoopla of merriment.

The weekendbeforeChristmas, they celebrated in Whitebridge. Jenny and John, Julian, Gemma, Janie, Josie, Gianna, Genevieve…and me, Juniper.

We called it a party because we made it one. We always dressed up, drank wine from the crystal glasses that only got used once a year, and sloppily sang Christmas carols while Josie played the piano. She wasn’t very good, but then again, neither were we.

Christmas was the highlight of my year. Because after I celebrated with the Briggs family, I got to do it all over again with my own. A two-in-one special.

But while the Briggs family Christmas was an annual tradition, this one managed to hold a lot of firsts for me. The first time I was nervous about going to the Briggs’ house. The first time I sat in my bedroom at my parents’ house beforehand, obsessing over what to wear. The first time I felt guilty because of what I wasn’t telling Gemma.

Janie and Gianna crowded me as soon as I walked through the door, followed by Genevieve and Josie, giving hugs and performing choruses of holiday greetings. But as happy as I was to see them, my eyes scanned the surroundings for one Briggs in particular.

Julian hung back, leaning with one shoulder against the wall in the foyer of their old Victorian home. A black sweater clung to his athletic frame, making his hair stand out in contrast even in the dim lighting, candlelight flicking up the walls.

His lips tilted up in a half-smile, but his eyes…God, his eyes watched my every movement as I shrugged off my coat. They appraised my velvety emerald-green dress and black, polka-dotted tights. They studied me over the rim of his glass as he sipped from what I could only assume was a beer, likely a cheap one.

Finally, Julian pushed off the wall, and all of his sisters’ chattering voices muted, dying down until all I could hear was my heartbeat as Julian approached.

I didn’t think I could do this. Who would have thought that pretendingnotto like Julian would be more challenging than pretending to like him had been at the wedding? Maybe it was because I hadn’t needed to pretend much at all.

“Hey, Rosie,” he said, sounding all beautifully gruff. “I can take your coat.”

“Look at you being a gentleman,” Gemma said, elbowing her brother as I tried to ignore how Julian’s fingers brushed over mine when taking my coat from me.

Julian rolled his eyes up but otherwise ignored his sister before walking away with my coat. So I leaned in, grabbing Gemma’s arm and muttering, “Told you.”

“I’ve yelled at him a lot lately for acting like an ass toward you,” she murmured back, walking us into the house. “Maybe some of it finally got through his thick skull.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “I think he’s trying harder now that we have to work together.”

It wasn’t a lie.

But it also wasn’t the truth, and I hated not being completely honest with Gemma. Yesterday in the car, both Julian and I had been quiet, barely interacting. This was hard to navigate, and I didn’t like it.

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