Page 88 of Santa Baby

The corner of the living room closest to the windows overlooking the street felt safe and cozy under the glare of Christmas lights. I could hear Dad snoring upstairs, and Mom’s faint voice echoed from their bedroom as she wrapped last-minute presents and talked on the phone to someone, probably one of her sisters.

I turned my mug of eggnog in a circle between my hands, sipping slowly. Dad liked it with spiced rum but I’d never been a rum drinker. I wrinkled my nose and set it down on the coffee table for probably the fifth time and went back to watching the snow pile on the sidewalk. A door creaked open upstairs, followed by cautious footsteps as someone walked down the stairs.

I kept my eyes on the window as Colin’s shadow fell over the living room. He cleared his throat, but I shook my head. “There’s nothing you can possibly say to me right now⁠—”

“I was an asshole,” Colin rasped.

I looked up at him. He was wearing an old sweatshirt and jeans, a look I hadn’t seen him sport in years. Maybe I was softened by the memory of my brother from the past instead of the corporate dickhead in a suit I often imagined him as, but I held his gaze.

“I was drunk.”

“Go on.”

“Do you want me to grovel at your feet, Fia?”

“You just embarrassed me in front of the entire family and drove Mason away!”

Colin’s face fell. He ran his hands through his hair as he sat down on the opposite side of the couch, uninvited into my personal space. “He’s my friend. The idea of you and him…”

“It’s none of your business.”

“In my eyes, you’re still ten,” he snapped. “I just can’t—Had I known⁠—”

“That I was going to fall in love with him?” My voice broke over the words.

Something broke in Colin too. He rubbed his temple like he had a vicious headache, which he fully deserved. “Are you really?”

“I am.” The words fell out of me as naturally as the air I breathed. Maybe it hadn’t hit me before, but the truth was hitting me now, directly in the chest. “I’m in love with Mason, and whatever you said to him tonight absolutely ruined it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t have mattered because this wasn’t your business, Colin. It’s mine. Do you see me raging because Mason mentioned something about you and Liv? My best friend?!” In reality, I’d been wondering what the hell I’d missed when it came to that, but the idea of Liv and Colin together felt as foreign as Colin thinking he had the right to stick his nose in my business.

“I wanted you to go follow your dreams in California. I didn’t want Mason getting in the way like Jake did.”

“I wasn’t going to take the job.”

He chuckled like he didn’t believe me, then tapered off, noticing the cold, serious look on my face. “Why not?”

I pulled my knees against my chest. “A few weeks ago, I would have been jumping up and down, packing my things, kissing everyone goodbye but I don’t want to go to California. I want to stay here, in the city. I want to start my own business, and I have a small portfolio now. I could start taking on clients, just small things, work my way up to larger events eventually, if I wanted to. I just don’t want what I used to want.”

“Because of Mason.”

“Because of me.” I toyed with the fringe on the edge of the blanket covering my legs. Colin’s eyes were calm and glassy. I rolled my lip between my teeth, shrugging. “I missed being a photographer when I was doing these events with Mason. I kept thinking, wow, this would make a great portrait. A landscape. Those people and their outfits. The love I saw. I wasn’t thinking about putting on the events. I was thinking about capturing them with my camera, and Mason just understood that. One of the parties we went to—” Tears stung my eyes as I smiled around the memory. “We had to bring ornaments to hang on trees all around a massive ballroom. He brought an ornament shaped like a little camera for me to hang and I think I realized I loved him at that moment.”

“Fia, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s ruined.”

“No, I can fix it.”

“He walked away from me. He just left.”

“It was my fault. I said something to him that I shouldn’t have.” He stood and chewed his lower lip in thought before absently nodding to himself and walking toward the kitchen, grabbing his jacket off the back of one of the chairs in the dining room.

“Where are you going?”

“Searching for some Christmas magic. Don’t wait up for me.” He left without another word, but his car remained in the driveway, covered in snow. I watched as he walked down the street under the glow of the streetlights until he was out of sight.