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“You bet me he’d propose on the ice rink.”
Laughing, he pulled Thatcher—who had been laying on his back chewing on Broderick’s shoelaces—into his lap. I might’ve been crazy, but between the two brother retrievers, Thatcher had the lighter ears. I sat down beside him to steal some puppy snuggles, but not before tucking the cash into his button-up pocket.
“My ‘never getting married’, ‘forever alone’, ‘unlovable’ big brother proposed to the love of his life on a plastic ice rink tonight.”
Broderick scoffed, his humor palpable as he made a big claw, shaking his hand before coming down over Thatcher’s snout and grinning as the puppy gave his best, most ferocious play growls back before releasing him again. “He did it well.”
“There were tears.”
“For him and for me,” he admitted playfully. I looked back out at the bizarre, orchestrated magic of twinkle lights and enormous gingerbread house beside the striped red and white walls of the rink in question. The image didn’t compute with the sheen of humidity on my bare legs and sweat dripping down the low of my back. Jameson and Noel were still skating in circles over the waxed surface. Nat King Cole played over the loudspeakers, and the scent of peppermint cocoa competed with the savory spices of the Cuban restaurant across the circular park. It was like a Florida themed snow globe, complete with lights wrapped over palm trees, making an undeniable phallic shape.
“Nothing says Christmas spirit like twinkle penises.”
Eyes closed in something like amused resignation, he just shook his head. “Your mouth,” he muttered, clawing Thatcher again. This time, his floppy little ears fanned out like tiny gold wings, eyes comically wide as he nommed on his fingers.
The familiar joke somehow warmed my chest and tightened my airway at the same time. I wanted this to be our normal. Wanted everything to fall into place.
“Think of anything?” I asked, scanning the caramel corn line and finding Pax, Finn, Hads, the twins, and Max. My eyes had just found my parents, Rhyett, Brex and Quinn, across the way on the merry-go-round together when he spoke up.
“I think you’re the most beautiful piece of the sunshine state tonight.” A gust of warm, salty air kicked up, blowing the glittering fake snow over our way. But the pressure of his focus brought my eyes to his. He smiled softly, leaning forward to pluck a 'snowflake’ off my lashes. “I’m thinking that I’m the luckiest man alive because you let me call you ‘mine’. And there is no happy ending to my story if you’re not at the center.”
Eyes stinging, I held his gaze, until a laugh burst up my throat when he barked, “Hey,” and jerked his hand away from tiny razor puppy teeth. “Little piranha. Just had to ruin the moment?”
“Brod?”
“Yeah?” he asked as Thatcher squealed and backed away from the hand now encircling his mouth. Broderick let him go, but narrowed his eyes when the puppy shot him a disbelieving stare. Evidently, both quick to forgive, the standoff ended as abruptly as it started when disproportionate puppy paws clumsily bound over Broderick’s legs, landing on his lap.
“You wanna get out of here?”
Still working to wrangle the fluffy piranha, his eyes snapped to mine. “Fuck, yes.”
While Broderick returned Thatcher to his new daddy, I walked the perimeter of the market, admiring sweet families as they shared cotton candy the size of my head, or pulled apart cinnamon buns, or climbed up on the merry-go-round. Who knew that admiration and envy could walk hand-in-hand? I wanted that. But where on earth did kids fit amongst book tours and filming schedules?
My phone buzzed, and I fully expected Hads or Noel to be tracking me down, which is why it was so damn strange to see Lionel calling across the screen. What in the hell was my agent doing calling on Christmas?
Determined to find out, I swiped the button and said, “Lionel? Merry Christmas! Everything okay?”
“Merry Christmas is right,” he said, sounding a little bit out of breath and a lot a bit excited. “Are you sitting down? You’ll want to be sitting down.”
“The last time someone said that, Chris was telling me we’d been acquired by the network.”
“Well. The little shit stole my line. But you’re going to thank me for crashing your Christmas.”
Broderick
The broad fan of our headlights spanned over the Main House. Funny, having grown up in what was dubbed ‘the main house’ back in Mistyvale, like a center point where kids and cousins and aunts and uncles all congregated, only to see the home base shift five-thousand miles away. This one was modernized. A nostalgic white farmhouse surrounded in Florida green.
Our music abruptly amputated when the engine turned off, and we sat in ponderous silence for a long beat, just staring through the dark at the house only illuminated via Christmas tree through the oversized living room windows, and fat bulbs that left the wood patio in a golden glow.
“So,” I finally said, breaking the pregnant silence.
“So,” she echoed back.
“Time to make decisions?” I asked, but even my voice gave away my desperation. She nodded and my shoulders slumped. I reached down between the seat and the door, and longed for the days of a pulley lever instead of a button that slowly leaned the seat away from the wheel. “This feels ridiculous.”
She side eyed me, smirking as the seat buzzed, easing back so I could turn to face her. “If it means anything, it also looks ridiculous.”
“Can you imagine this thing in an emergency?” I growled.
