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“Mason’s,” Mom says warmly. “Now, Chelsea—hand it back.”
I glance down at the gift in my hands. It’s small. Rectangular. Light. Wrapped in pink paper that has penguins with Santa hats all over it.
And it suddenly feels like the stupidest gift on the entire planet. I want to cry.
Nat King Cole keeps crooning about the little town of Bethlehem, and though he can do no wrong, I want him to shut up.
“It’s stupid,” I finally say. “Don’t worry about it.” I force a smile that I know full-well looks slightly manic. “I actually got you a gift card. This is for … John. I totally put the wrong tag on it.”
“You sent your gift with me to Spain,” John says. “The scarf, remember?”
“No,” I grumble.
On the tiny phone screen, John holds up the end of the scarf he’s wearing. “Thisscarf.”
I briefly consider crossing the room to end the call. Or hurling the phone into the gas fireplace.
“Chels.” Mason holds out his hand. “Please?”
I can’t ever resist hispleases. With a sigh, I hand back the gift, which is only missing one tiny piece of tape so far from the wrapping.
“Fine. But it’s dumb.”
My cheeks flush, partly because I really am rethinking the gift and all my life choices, but also because Mason’s fingertips brushed mine when I handed the gift over. The man has touched me countless times over the years, and even back when I was a tween and he was a gangly teenager, it always had an immediate and powerful effect.
I really need to get that fixed.
Mom scoots closer to me on the couch and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “You okay?” she murmurs, giving me a kiss on the side of my head.
“I’m superb,” I grumble, only solidifying my not-fineness.
Mom knows about my feelings for Mason. Her radar picked it up years ago, not like it was subtle. She’s let me whine and cry countless times to her about the general unrequitedness of it all.
When I was younger, she would remind me how much older he was. But now that Mason and I are both in our twenties—I’m twenty-four and he’s twenty-nine—she can’t comfort me with the age gap. It stopped mattering when I graduated high school.
Whatdoesmatter is if he’s not into you. And when you’re afraid to tell him how you feel because he’s more than just your brother’s best friend; he’s part of yourfamily.
The part of your family who is setting the record for taking the longest to open a present in the whole universe. Next year, I’ll gift him a plaque saying just that: World’s Worst Present Opener.
But I will NOT wrap it. He will be banned from wrapped presents. Forever.
Mason finally gets one edge of the wrapping paper untaped and unfolded, but instead of sliding the box out, he glances up, the tiniest of tiny smiles lifting one side of his mouth in a way that makes my cheeks flush.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks, totally deadpan.
“Mason,” I groan, stretching his name into many syllables. He says nothing, and Mom only chuckles as he painstakingly lifts another piece of tape with the kind of care that should be reserved for handling infants. The longer he draws this out, the stupider my gift is going to be. This much anticipation is too much.
John must agree because he starts pleading and then ordering Mason to hurry up and open it.
Mom leans close to me and whispers. “Are you excited for your date tomorrow night?”
Oh, right. My date. The one I’m SO excited about that I totally forgot.
I lower my voice, hoping Mason can’t hear us. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” I say in a low voice before taking a sip of hot cocoa. There is nothing like hot cocoa on Christmas morning. Or any old time.
“And how did you find this man?” Mom asks. John thankfully starts heckling Mason, so there’s no chance he’ll overhear now. “Do I need to be concerned about your safety? I can always hang out in the parking lot with my taser.”
I choke on my cocoa, requiring back slaps from Mom and a Christmas-themed napkin from the coffee table. Mason pauses in his already slow unwrapping of my gift, looking up to see if I’m okay.
