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Chapter 28
Abby
Abby rang the doorbell at the Valentine house and waited nervously for the door to open. She didn’t know why this felt so significant. After all, she’d been here many times in the past, and every person that was going to be on the other side of the door was someone that she knew quite well.
So why the jitters?
She guessed that it was just because of the occasion. Being invited to a family gift exchange– emphasis on the word family in her own mind only, but still…it was a big freaking deal.
Jet had emphasized how casual the whole thing was when he’d called to ask her over. No stress, he’d said. Just a simple, generic gift with a twenty-dollar limit, he’d said. Doesn’t even need to be for a specific person because we’re playing Yankee Swap, he’d said.
In fact, he’d talked so fast and so much about how she didn’t need to stress about this that she immediately began to stress about it, and she hadn’t stopped since.
Also, although buying a “generic” gift might seem easier than one for a specific person in theory, when she’d gone shopping this afternoon, she’d discovered it was a hell of a lot harder in practice.
This had to be a gift that would be enjoyed by men or by women. By anyone in an age range spanning all the way from Mila to Jet’s grandmother. There was no way to leverage interests, hobbies, jobs, or…well, anything.
She’d gone through the mall, hit up all the specialty shops like Barnes & Noble and Bed, Bath & Beyond. In the end, she’d gotten an armband phone holder from Best Buy. She figured everybody liked walks in the woods. At least in Valentine Bay, where there were so many pretty places to ramble. So having a secure place to put your phone, keys, and a little cash had to come in handy.
Well, she’d figured, whether that’s true or not, I’m gonna tell myself it is. Because if I don’t start heading back to town now, I’ll never make it in time!
Now, she found herself on Jet’s porch, fidgeting like a nervous door-to-door saleswoman, holding her store-wrapped box and feeling stupid.
Who was going to want a freaking armband phone holder? What in the hell had she been thinking?
The door opened and suddenly the world felt very different. There was Jet, with the wide smile he got every time he looked at her, and just like that she had zero fucks to give about what the rest of the world thought about the last-minute gift she’d picked.
She was with Jet and he was looking at her like she was the most adorable thing on two legs and there was no better Christmas present in the world than that. No matter how you sliced it, she came out the winner.
He stepped out onto the porch and kissed her. “Hey, babe.”
She flushed. It was only two little words, and he’d said them to her before. But the tone in his voice, the look in his eyes, the set of his shoulders– everything was different now.
Like Dorothy after she lands in Oz, Abby was seeing the world now in vibrant color.
She knew what had triggered the change. It wasn’t hard to figure out. The last time she and Jet had been together, he’d told her he loved her. She’d said it back.
Now they were seeing each other for the first time since that exchange with their clothes on and, yeah. The whole “love” thing definitely hadn’t lost even a drop of its magic.
Jet stepped out and slipped a strong arm around her waist and pressed his lips to hers. Her head swirled and the rest of the world faded away. God, she loved that. She was going to start calling that “The Jet Effect.”
“Jet, damn it! In or out. Either way, shut the door. The rest of us are freezing our asses off.”
The sound of Gavin’s voice popped the fragile bubble of the spell cast by Jet’s kiss, and she pulled back, laughing. “I guess we’d better go in.”
He shook his head and pulled the door shut behind them, leaving them alone on the porch. “Nah. He said ‘in or out.’ I’m choosing out.”
Her brow crinkled. “We should probably go in, though.”
He stepped close again, pulled her to him. “But if we go in, we can’t do this.”
He leaned down and kissed her again, this time deeper and more passionately than he’d done a moment ago. When they broke apart, she was breathless. “No, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Not if the party’s PG,” she giggled.
He pressed his forehead to hers and they looked into each other’s eyes. That was the wonderful thing about being with someone that you had so much history with, in addition to chemistry, she reflected. There was a lot that you could communicate with nothing but glances, or facial expressions.
She and Jet may have only been together for a little while, but they’d been intertwined for so much longer. They knew the same people. They had the same stories. It mattered. In every way that was important, Abby felt that she’d known Jet for their entire lives.
In her heart, the one place it mattered most, she felt that they’d known each other even longer than that. For several lifetimes. Or maybe back to the beginning of time.
The front door was yanked open, then, bathing them with light. It was the second time in as many minutes that interference from inside the house had burst the bubble of magic that always formed around her and Jet when they were alone together.
“Oh, for freak’s sake,” Genevieve deadpanned. “Of course you’re out here on the front porch, making out like two teenagers trying to sneak one more kiss in before curfew. There’s a party going on in here, weirdos. Come in and join it, why don’t ya?”
Without even turning to face Gen, Jet waggled his eyebrows at Abby. “There’s a party going on out here, too.”
Gen groaned and stepped back from the open door. “Good night nurse. If that’s going to be the quality of your jokes this evening, then, yes. By all means. Stay on the porch.”
Jet, grinning, stepped back and took her hand. “Apparently we should join the party,” he said. “Shall we?”
She squeezed Jet’s hand. “Lead on.”
