I pad through the house, looking in each room until I find him.
On the bench at the bay window in the family room, he’s looking out at the snow-covered front yard while he pulls ona therapy band, working out his arm. The room is still dark enough in the early morning sun that the lights twinkling from the tree and from where they line the ceiling cast a cozy glow on him. In a pair of green and cream flannel pajama pants and a cream waffle knit top, he looks Christmasy without being embarrassing (unlike my brothers). The look reflects the other side of his personality that I’ve gotten to know and love. Not everything about Coop is showy. So much of him is sincere and real. All of him is pretty wonderful.
A creak in the hardwood floor gives me away, and Coop spins to see me. He stands and smiles, but when his eyes catch my sweatshirt, a wide-mouthed gape replaces it. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s the Christmas sweater my mom left for me this year.”
I meet him in front of the Christmas tree, and he holds me close. “She’s even more awesome than I thought.” He kisses my temple, and his hand fiddles with the collar of the sweatshirt. At first, it feels like he’s just playing with the skin at the nape of my neck. But then he angles his head, and I feel the thick cotton pull from the back of my neck.
I push away with big eyes. “Are you checking the size?”
“Just seeing if it’s big enough to fit me!”
“You’re not stealing my sweatshirt.”
“You stole mine.”
“Iwonyours. In a bet,” I say.
“We tied.”
“First place is first place.”
“I want the sweatshirt.” Coop tugs on the bottom of it and I push him away with a laugh. “Take it off.”
His hands grip the bottom of the sweatshirt, and he tugs me against him. “I’m not taking it off.”
His hands pinch my sides, and he grits his teeth in that playful manner that makes me want to squeal. “I guess I’ll have to stick around for a while, Sugar Plum.”
I smile, stretching up enough that he kisses the tip of my nose. “Oh yeah? How long is that?”
My eyes close as he kisses one eyelid and then the other. “How long will it take you to let your guard down?”
“Long. Like, super long. Years. Maybe decades.”
His lips are roaming my face, pressing softly against the skin of my forehead, cheeks, chin, and jaw. Then I feel his breath against my mouth and the softest brush of his lips against mine. “I’m good with that,” he says.
I smile as he kisses me. I’m kissing Cooper Kellogg in front of a Christmas tree in my childhood home. I have a life-size cutout of him upstairs in my bedroom. But the real thing down here is so much better.
He gives me another soft kiss and then rests his forehead against mine. I open my eyes to see that he’s smiling.
“Have you heard from your parents?” I ask.
“I got a ‘Merry Christmas! We love you’ text about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Did you try calling them again?”
His lips pull to the side the way they do when he’s holding back emotion. “No. They’ll call me when they have time.”
Hurt and defeat war on his face, while outrage burns in my chest. He loves his parents with his whole heart, and they sound like amazing people. But how are they not beside themselves trying to get in touch with him? What excuse could they possibly have?
“I’m sorry,” I say. Upstairs, my brothers’ alarm goes off. “We need to go sit on the stairs before the Tweebs find us.”
We get up, and he puts his arm around my shoulders as we walk to the stairs. “Tweebs?”
“Twin dweebs. I stole it from a TV show when I was a kid.”
“But you’re triplets.”
