Kique looks around the room. “How did y’all know where he was going?”
Athena shakes her head, like Kique is too innocent for his own good.
“On theFind My Dumbass Hermanoapp.” Ares wiggles his phone.
“GPS on his SUV,” Apollo chimes in.
“I had a tracker injected into his neck while he was sleeping.” Athena’s deadpan is so serious that no one really knows if she’s serious or not. Including me.
While Mamá and Valentina organize a margarita production line, and Valentina oohs and ahhs at the variety of food my family brought down with them, I stare in awe and try not to draw attention to the fact that I’m a fish out of water.
Of course our mothers are instant soulmates. Because whywouldn’t the universe take the most dangerous women in my life and fuse them into a single unstoppable force? Sofia and Hen are next, mark my words.
What kills me is how fast my siblings sink into the room like they’ve been here a thousand times—Ares is helping Roman with a tray of food, Apollo is already arguing with Sofia about hockey, Athena’s flirting shamelessly with Valentina’s spice rack.
They belong everywhere while I’ve never belonged anywhere.
Ares holds out a plaid gift bag. “You left this next to the tree. I figured it meant something. But because you peeled out of the driveway like you were being chased by the FBI, I didn’t have time to ask.”
I take it. The weight hits me like a punch so I place it on the floor next to my feet because I’m definitely not ready to face that bag, especially in front of everyone. I packed this bag at two in the morning three nights ago when I still thought I’d spend Christmas at my parents, or in my silent, cavernous penthouse pretending not to exist. I was contemplating mailing it.
Inside? A book Xavier mentioned offhand during one of our late-night chats. A pair of absurdly soft socks he once said he’d steal off me someday—I got him his own pair, I didn’t regift him mine. And a framed picture of the two of us—Ares secretly took it because he said my face looked “almost human.”
Ares leans in, low voice. “I wasn’t letting this rot under your damn tree.”
I swallow hard. “Thank you.” I chickened out of sending it in time for the holiday.
He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Buy me tamales and we’re even.”
The kitchen erupts with some kind of joyful yelling at thatword—tamales—and suddenly the entire Martinez household becomes even more animated. Roman shouts something about steamers and “don’t you dare lift the lid.” Sofia is threatening someone in Spanish, possibly Xavier, and Valentina is cackling like a holiday witch surrounded by sparkly, colorful anarchy.
Xavier grabs my wrist. “You okay?”
Am I? No. Not even slightly. But I really want to be. I can’t figure out how to get this tightness out of my chest so I can breathe properly.
His fingers anchor me again, steady and sure, and I let out the smallest hiss of a breath. “It’s… a lot,” I admit. I glance around the kitchen where multiple generations of Martinez and de la Peña chaos are vibrating at a perilous frequency. What happens when the families collide?
He bites back a smile. “They like you.”
The way they look at him—soft, proud, utterly certain—hits at that place I don’t let anyone see. I’ve spent my whole life being tolerated by my father. But Xavier? He is…loved.
“They’re terrifying.”
He squeezes my hand. “Come on. You’ve survived mergers and playoff hockey. You can survive our collective mothers on Christmas Eve.”
I let him tug me forward, and something stupidly fragile cracks inside me—this tiny, impossible thought:If life looked like this every night, I don’t think I’d mind.My laugh comes out thin and a little unhinged despite the hope planting seeds in my chest. “Yeah. Sure. Mothers. Easy.” Easy. Wouldn’t that be nice? Inside, every alarm in my body is screamingrun, and I’m trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person does when they aren’t one bad thought away from bolting out into the cold.
Okay, Texas isn’t all that cold, but bolting nonetheless. And as the noise swells again—my family, his family, everyonetalking over everyone—the ground shifts under my feet. Again.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t be leaning into it like this; it’ll only make it harder when things don’t go how the blooming hope in my chest wants it to. But Xavier’s hand is still wrapped around mine, and so the knot under my ribs loosens one impossible inch. So maybe just for tonight… I can pretend I’m someone who gets to have a Christmas like this.
CHAPTER 39
Artemis
The tamale-making assembly line is… something.
Ares is terrible at it, which earns him a wooden spoon to the knuckles from Valentina. If Abuelita was here, he’d have taken a spanking to both hands.
