Page 65 of Butter My Biscuit

I open the front page, and she’s filled it full of pictures of us over the years. I chuckle.

“Oh, you had different pictures than me,” she says, flipping through hers.

Then, she crawls over next to me. Her head falls on my shoulder, and we turn pages together, pointing and chatting about memories we’ve shared. Then, we make it to the end, and a tear falls from Grace’s cheek. I turn to her, wiping it away.

“Aww, what’s wrong?”

“You’ve just always been there.”

I wrap my arm around her. “And always will be.”

“I love this so much,” she says.

“Love mine too.”

We hug each other, holding our books of memories, and sit quietly as the music drifts in the background.

“Are you ready to watchElf?”

“Yes,” she says.

I stand and hold out my hand for her. She takes it, and I let her lead the way to my bedroom.

When she takes a step forward, Grace lifts her head and gasps. “You made our castle.”

“After you.” I shut the door.

She looks inside the lit blanket fort and sees the TV withElfon the screen, waiting for her. I rearranged my room and moved my TV to the floor to make it happen.

“Oh, one second.” I go to the kitchen and make a bag of popcorn, then grab the bottle of bourbon.

When I return, she’s already inside it, lying down and looking back at me. “You always bring the snacks.”

“You know it’s impossible to watch a movie without popcorn.”

“The lights are a perfect touch,” she whispers, and I climb in, repositioning the pillows that I stole from my parents’ house today because I didn’t have enough.

Once I’m in place and we’re both sitting upright, she scoots closer.

“Where’s the remote?”

“I think I’m sitting on it.” Grace lifts her ass and pulls it out.

I lie down and open my arms. Grace falls into them, and then we watchElftogether, like we do every year. She throws a piece of popcorn into her mouth and catches it. At this point, we’ve got the movie memorized, just like her other rom-com favorites that we’ve watched hundreds of times over the years.

When we’re finished eating, we take turns with the bourbon, passing it between us. It does make the movie funnier.

“My favorite,” she says, pointing to the screen when Buddy kisses Jovie on the cheek and she tells him he missed.

I glance over at her and smile. Seconds later, she’s quickly smacking her lips against my cheek.

I turn to her, grabbing her chin with my fingers, and I study her mouth. “You missed.”

That’s all it takes for us to be lost in one another again. We’re a dangerous mixture of lips, tongue, and teeth. I nibble on her earlobe.

“We shouldn’t do this.” I try to be the voice of reason as she lies down, pulling me with her.

“We shouldn’t,” she moans out. Her fingers tangle in my hair as she pulls my mouth back to hers. “But …”

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