Page 122 of Owen Bailey Needs Advice

ome play?” I rub my eyes and reread her last message. “Who are you and what have you done with the woman I love?” I say to no one but my empty home.

Annie: Are you in your car yet? Do you have pants on? Let’s go!

Oh, there she is.

I tug on a T-shirt, slip into some shoes, and snag Annie’s Christmas gifts. After a quick brush of my teeth, I’m off—at two fifty-one in the morning.

I reach Annie’s sister’s house a little after three. I can see her figure in the window, waiting for me.

She cracks the front door open, her auburn hair falling over her freckled cheek. “We aren’t waking the parents,” she whispers.

Bucky gives me an excited wave while Steve yawns, holding what looks like a giant plastic monkey to his chest.

“You came!” Annie whispers, her dark eyes, glassy and joyous, glisten up at me.

“Of course I came.”

She lifts up on her bare toes and presses a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. I cup my hand around her neck, peering into the eyes of the girl I’ve always loved. I place another kiss firmly to her lips—it’s quick, as we have an audience. Alice has traumatized me when it comes to kissing in front of others. Not that I’d make out in front of Annie’s nephews. But I may have let that kiss last longer than 1.2 seconds.

Annie laces her fingers through mine, and we walk through the maze of gifts and toys. We sit on the floor next to one another, the boys, and the lit tree. I stare into the lights a moment—there is something magical about this dim space and that bright, beautiful tree filled with Iron Man and popsicle stick ornaments.

“I had to convince them the tree lights wouldn’t wake their parents,” Annie says.

Little Steve snuggles down on the floor, his monkey still wrapped in his embrace, his back to the tree, and then his eyes flutter closed.

Bucky shows me each and every one of his dozen Marvel men—and I have to admit, I am enjoying all the toys that Alice would never touch. But then, even Buck yawns and sprawls himself out onto the floor. Soon, his breaths are heavy, and both boys are asleep before five a.m.

Annie and I sit on the floor with a boy on either side of us and the lit tree in front of us.

“Do you want to open your gifts?”

“Yes!” she says, very much above a whisper, then slaps a hand over her opened mouth. “Shoot.”

They don’t even stir, and I don’t hear Kayla storming out to see what’s going on. “I think you’re in the clear,” I tell her.

She brushes her fingers across her brow in dramatic fashion. “Whew.” Then she smacks my thigh. “You open yours first!”

She rolls onto her knees, stretching out between the boys to grab a box just beneath the tree.

“Here,” she says, shoving the thing into my hands.

I grin—Annie and I have always exchanged gifts, but this year it’s different. This year I get to give her a gift and tell her exactly what it means—how much she means to me.

I rip the paper from the box, trying to keep the sound to a minimum, and lift the lid. An orange shirt with black stripes on the shoulders and the number fifty-five on the chest sits inside. A Logan Wilson jersey.

“I bought the ugliest one they had.” She smirks, the beaming grin never leaving her face. “Just to show how I support whoever you support.” She nods, her smile folding in on itself.

“I love it,” I say, holding it up to look at it better. I drop the jersey into my lap and lean towards her. It’s still fairly aweing that she doesn’t pull away. “Thank you,” I say before placing a kiss on her lips and lingering there. For the most part, we are alone now.

“You like it?” she says, and I never thought I’d see Annie this giddy about anything Bengals-related.

“I do.” I raise my brows. “Now, your turn.”

I hand over the first, a small box that I suddenly realize looks very much like a ring box. “They’re earrings,” I say before she’s even torn the paper.

Her shoulders relax, but still, she smacks my arm. “You aren’t supposed to tell me!” She tears through the snowflake wrapping paper and opens up the lid of the little box. Her breath catches. “Owen—”

“They’re small.”

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