Page 130 of The Naughty List

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be over there doing that in front of you. I’m sorry. Now I’m going to take you home.” The girl walks up to him and he tells her he’ll be back.

Now I’m mad. It was one thing when he was going home with me, but now he’s taking me home and coming back to finish what he started where I can’t see? No way. This is not happening.

He drags me out of the house party and to his car. He puts me in the passenger side seat and climbs behind the wheel. No worries about him drinking. He never does when I’m with him. He’s too afraid to set a bad example.

“What’s your problem, Carson?”

He looks at me. “I don’t have a problem, Felicity,” he spits out my name.

“You clearly do, Carson,” I spit out his name in the same disgust.

He lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “You really expect me to be okay with watching you sit on some loser’s lap and make out with him?”

I roll my eyes. “You really expect me to be okay watching you make out with some skank sitting on your lap?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Yeah, and now I’m in trouble and you’re not. I’m going home and you’re going back to the party.”

I see him grind his teeth.” Would it make you feel better if I didn’t go back?”

“Yes. Yes, it would,” I tell him.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Okay, then. What do you want to do?”

“Huh? Really?”

He nods me on. “What do you want to do?”

I smile to myself. “Ummm, I want to sneak a bottle away from your mom’s boyfriend and go swimming in the creek.”

“Fine,” he agrees, and I’m happy once again.

I wake up Christmas morning and I’m in no hurry to get this day started. I miss him like crazy. It’s like he’s embedded himself into my bones and when I’m away from him for too long, my whole body feels his absence.

“Rise and shine, cupcake,” Mom says, popping her head into my room. “Breakfast is ready.”

I fling the blankets off me and sit up. Her famous Christmas pancakes are done. Every year she makes pancakes in the shape of little Santa heads. Hat and all. She even colors it with strawberry syrup for the red hat, whipped cream for his beard and the fuzzy ball on the end, and blueberries for eyes. It’s really not all that tasty, but I don’t dare tell her that. She’s been doing it since I was a little girl. It’s a Christmas tradition and I’m more for keeping the traditions than having a tasty breakfast.

We eat and clean up the mess, then take our coffee into the living room to exchange our own personal gifts. I give Mom her gifts first. She unwraps the first one and smiles at the mother and daughter wineglasses I found at one of the shops in town.

“I love this,” she says, setting it aside and picking up her second gift. She opens it to find the scrapbook I made. It’s filled with pictures of us from the time I was born up to just a few days ago. Each page I decoded with stickers, glitter, and bows. There are cute sayings that I wrote by the pictures. It’s a gift that’s completely handmade and from the heart. As she flips through the pages, she wipes tears from her eyes.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever received.” She leans over and pulls me in for a hug.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, kid,” she says, pulling away and drying her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “Now, open mine.”

She hands me three. The first one is wrapped in red paper with a big green bow. I open it and find a personalized coffee cup. It’s the backs of two women. One is older with gray in her hair and the other is younger, dark hair with curls and highlights. Their arms are around one another and it says a cute little saying about how daughters turn into their mother’s best friend. My eyes tear but I will them away. “Aww, this is cute. Thank you.”

She nods me on, and I open the one wrapped in green paper with a big red bow. I find a first time on your own kit. It has tons of gift cards for restaurants and grocery stores. It has a little pocket that says gas money. Another that reads mad money and another that says because I know you’ll forget something. There are many more pockets in the kit, but I get the gist and laugh. “Thanks, I have a feeling this will come in handy very soon.”

“The last one is my favorite,” she says with a smile.

I open the last gift and find a picture frame. The frame holds four pictures and she’s already put pictures in them. The first one is a picture of Carson and I when we were kids. He’s frowning at the camera and I have my arms crossed over my chest, refusing to look at him. The picture makes me giggle. The picture next to it must have been taken the same day because we’re wearing the same clothes, but in this one, we’re hugging with big smiles on our faces.

Below those are two more. The first is a picture from the other night at dinner when we were fighting. His brows are pulled together and his jaw is flexed, like he’s angry or in deep thought. In this picture, I’m looking at him with a dirty look, my nose curled up and brows knitted together. I didn’t even know she had snapped this picture. I remember her looking at her phone, but I had no idea it was directed at us.

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