And at the end of the day, I get to come home to Abby. I couldn’t be happier.
After saying hello to everyone in the living room, I make my way back to the kitchen, where Matt is finishing up carving the turkey and arranging it on a serving platter while Hannah pulls sweet potatoes covered in golden brown marshmallows out of the oven. “Hey, guys. Need any help with anything?”
Hannah waves me off. “No, no. We’ve got it. Help yourself to a drink, though. There’s beer and hard seltzer in the fridge, plus soda and water. You know where we keep the liquor if you want a mixed drink of any kind, but you’re bartending yourself if that’s the case.”
Chuckling, I pull open the fridge and grab a beer for me and a hard seltzer for Abby, heading back into the living room to hand it to her, bending to kiss her.
She looks up from her conversation with Elena that Layla also seems to be following and gives me a big smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I brush one last kiss across her lips before straightening and turning to the room at large. “Anyone else need a refill?”
I’m greeted by a chorus of nos, so I head back to the kitchen, feeling like a loose end here. Sure, I could chat with everyone else, but I’d be butting into already existing conversations. And I’ve been wining and dining a lot of potential new clients lately, trying to convince people to start the new year with my firm, and even though I can schmooze and make small talk with the best of them, I’m not in the mood tonight. I came to hang out with my friends. And while Coopman and Carter aren’t bad guys, and I’m sure we’ll have fun once we all have a few drinks in our systems and the gift exchange shenanigans start, I haven’t hung out with Matt and Chris in ages. Chris isn’t here yet, so I’ll be bugging Matt.
Standing in the kitchen doorway, I lean my shoulder against the wall and take a pull of my beer, watching Matt and Hannah at work.
Matt glances at me over his shoulder. “Hey. I have something I want to talk to you about.”
I perk up at that. “Oh, yeah? Should I be concerned?”
He gives me a quick grin and a nervous-sounding chuckle that I think is supposed to put me at ease, but has the opposite effect. “No, no. It’s nothing bad, I swear. Just an idea I had, and I’d like to get your input.”
“Shoot.” I hold my beer bottle up, waiting for him to tell me what’s going on.
He glances at Hannah, then at me, then fusses with the last few pieces of turkey on the platter in front of him. “Nah, man. Not right now. After dinner. Food’s ready.”
My brow wrinkles, and I make a disgruntled sound in my throat. “That’s fucked up, man. You don’t tell someone you want to talk to them about something”—I point at him with the mouth of my beer bottle—“something that sounds serious based on your tone of voice, and then be like, we’ll talk about it in a couple hours when we’re all drunk and you’re too hammered to tell me no.”
That provokes a real laugh from him that still does nothing to ease my mind, and Hannah throws me a grin as she passes in front of me to place a stack of paper plates and napkins on the table next to a cup full of plastic silverware. “It’s no big deal, Lance. Really,” she says like that’s supposed to make me feel better.
“Food!” Matt calls to the living room, and a herd of elephants materializes behind me, pushing past me to get to said food.
“I’m starving!” groans Coopman.
“Hey!” protests Elena again. “You make it sound like we haven’t been feeding you.”
Layla laughs. “Evan requires food every few hours, and I wouldn’t let him have a snack before we left. His stomach’s been growling for like half an hour. He thinks he’s starving to death.”
Coopman glares at her. “I am starving to death.” Then his face softens, and he leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “But I’ll still let you get your food first.”
Her cheeks turn pink as though she’s embarrassed by the show of affection in front of an audience, but she doesn’t take her eyes off him. “Thank you,” she says primly, taking a plate, a napkin, and a fork and serving herself first. Carter also ushers Elena forward, letting her go before Coopman can get himself a plate. Coopman playfully shoves Carter, but Matt lets out an earsplitting whistle, putting an end to the scuffle before it goes any further.
“No fighting in the kitchen,” he declares. “Take it out back if you need to.”
“Nah, man,” Coopman says. “I’m too hungry for that.”
Abby steps up next to me, and I pull her close with an arm around her as we wait for these lunatics to get their food and get out of the way. She turns a happy face up toward me, laughter dancing in her eyes. “I think it’s safer to wait until they’re all done.”
“Agreed.” I give her a quick kiss, unable to help myself when she’s offering up her face so freely. “Do you have an ETA on Chris and Megan?”
She shrugs and leans into my side. “I think soon. She said they’re on their way, but that could mean they’re just getting ready to leave their hotel room, so it might be another thirty minutes. You know how Megan is. Soon in her vocabulary doesn’t mean the same thing as it does to everyone else.”
I chuckle. “Right. Like how ‘ish’ in relation to a time means anywhere from fifteen minutes before to thirty minutes after.”
Abby nods. “Exactly.” I feel her eyes on me still while I watch the others get their food. Matt gestures for Abby and me to go, but I shake my head and indicate that he and Hannah should go first, rules of being a host be damned. We’re old friends. We don’t need to stand on those kinds of protocols.
With a shrug, he turns to Hannah and guides her to the food with a hand on the small of her back.
“What’s wrong?” Abby asks softly.
I glance at her and shake my head. “Nothing. Matt said he wants to talk to me about something, but didn’t say what.”
She giggles. “Ah, I see. And now you’re twisting yourself into pretzels trying to figure out what it is. Matt should know you hate having information dangled in front of you by now. That’s just mean.”
“Right?” I say, giving the word all my pent up exasperation. “It’s a dick move.”
“Absolutely,” she agrees, and I know she’s mocking me just a little bit, but I don’t even care.
Fortunately, I don’t have to wait much longer. Once we’ve gotten our food, conversation quiets down while everyone digs in. Matt’s in the corner of the living room, propped up by his shoulder against the wall while he eats, watching the others gathered around the coffee table, the women all at one end, laughing and talking, Coopman and Carter watching them with amusement and occasionally interjecting their own comments. I join him, setting my beer by the wall, taking a bite of mashed potatoes, and watching the others as well.
“So,” he says after a moment, drawing my attention to him. He’s still focused on his plate, though.
“So,” I repeat, wondering if he’ll actually get out what he wants to say instead of making me wait until after the gift exchange or if he just lives to torture me. Honestly, it could go either way.
He grins. “You’re ready to kill me right now, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “Pretty much, yeah.”
A bark of laughter. “Sorry, man. I wasn’t even thinking about how you hate having things dragged out. I just wanted to make sure we got a moment to chat tonight.”
I make a show of looking around. “Seems like now’s a good moment.”
Nodding, his face grows serious, and once again he looks everywhere but at me. “So Hannah got a job with Earth Ambassadors.”
“Right. I think you mentioned that recently. Part time, right?”
He nods again. “Yeah. For now. They want to bump her up to full time.”
My forehead wrinkles. “But she coordinates all your marketing, doesn’t she? Plus running your social media?”
“Right. Yeah. She does.” He sucks in a deep breath. “This is her dream job, though, working for them. So, um …”
“So you’ll need someone to handle your marketing for you,” I fill in. “You want me to put a proposal together for you?”
He finally meets my eyes, surprise, calculation, and something else fighting for dominance on his face. “Huh.” He looks away. “I actually hadn’t thought of that.” Setting his fork on his plate, he brings his free hand up to rub his jaw. “I was actually going to offer you the job. See if you’d be willing to be my head of marketing.”
I blink at him a few times, not quite sure I heard him right. “You want me to work for you?”
He looks at me quickly. “I’m not an asshole boss or anything. I thought maybe it would be fun. We could travel together. You could come along on some of the trips to give you more of an idea of what I offer and the best ways to market it. Abby could come too. You had fun on that first surf trip we went on a few years ago. You even rode a few waves. You could get better. Help you stay in shape.”
Holding up a hand to forestall more of this really strange sales pitch he’s giving me, I shake my head. His face falls. “Whoa, whoa. Hang on a sec. I’m just trying to catch up. Of all the things I thought you might want to talk to me about, this was nowhere on the list.”
He cracks a smile. “Oh yeah? What was on the list?”
I chuckle. “Hannah’s pregnant and you want me to be the godfather. You need a loan. You’re in the doghouse and need a place to crash. You’re shooting blanks and want a sperm donor.”
His eyes bug out of his head on the last one, and he gives an incredulous laugh. “And what would your answer be to any of those?”
“Yes, how much, anytime, and I’d have to think about that last one for a long time. Talk to Abby. And Hannah. There are a lot of sticky details in something like that.”
His shoulders relaxed, he shakes his head, a smile still spread across his face. “Nice to know I can count on you in almost any situation, man.”
I shrug and pick up my beer. “Sure.”
Serious again, he turns to look at me. “And about the job?”
Another shrug. Do I want to work for Matt? Would I want to give up the client base I’ve built to focus on one company exclusively, knowing that my efforts directly impact its bottom line? Not gonna lie, getting to go on surf trips pretty much whenever would be a fun perk.
“I have to think about it, man. Do you have salary details and job duties written up anywhere that you could send me? I need to talk to Abby too before making any big changes like this.”
“Right,” he says, sounding a little choked. “Of course. Yeah. I’ll email you the details tonight.” He blows out a breath like he just finished a heavy set in the weight room. “Thanks, man.”
I grin. “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t said yes.”
He grins back. “But you didn’t say no.”
CHAPTER NINE
Daniel
I’d forgotten how crazy get togethers with this bunch of weirdos can be. Lance, Chris, and Matt were a couple years ahead of me in school, so we didn’t really hang out much outside of team activities—practices, games, fundraising dinners—while they were still at Marycliff. And most of the time I spent in this house while any of them were still students was during Chris’s last semester when I posed with Hannah for Megan’s painting series.
That was … something else. That was before I met Elena. Before the surf trip that kicked off Matt’s business. Before Evan started dating anyone steadily.
And by the time I got drawn into this group permanently, Chris was off playing pro football for the Mountain Lions. But Hannah and Megan welcomed me with open arms because of my attachment to Elena and the fact that I’d posed for Megan’s paintings, respectively.
So when Megan and Chris come through the front door, it’s with a mixture of happiness at seeing them and intimidation at seeing Chris that I stand and greet them.
Megan throws her arms wide and gives everyone a big hug. “You guys! I’m so excited we’re all together again! It’s been waaaay too long. We need to plan things like this more often. And maybe let’s not do it in December next time, because I hate driving over the pass in the snow. What’s everyone’s plans for the summer? Let’s get something on the calendar now. We can do a Fourth of July party, just like old times. Abby, remember that Fourth of July party when you and Lance were first dating? That was so much fun!”
Everyone laughs at her infectious enthusiasm. “Weren’t you hung up on some other guy back then?” Lance asks.
Chris scowls, and Megan gives Lance a playful swat on the arm. “Hush. You know Chris likes to pretend there weren’t any other guys before him.”
He loops his left arm around Megan and pulls her close, bending to kiss her. “I’m not that dumb. I know there were other guys before me. I just like to pretend none of them mattered that much. And that you weren’t actually hung up on that other guy back then, because he was a dickhead and we all know it. Plus, I wanted you to be hung up on me that day, because I’d already gotten hung up on you.”
She reaches up and cups his face with her hand, and I turn away, slightly uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment.
“Ha.” Matt interjects. “Nice revisionist history. You were just looking to get laid at that party, and Megan was the only unattached female in attendance.”
Chris flips him off with a smile on his face. “You don’t know what was going on in my head back then.”
“Neither do you,” Matt quips.
“Boys, boys,” Megan says, making a quelling gesture with her hands. “This is supposed to be a friendly get together. Let’s not squabble over what happened ages ago. Whether Chris was hung up on me that day or not is immaterial. He’s clearly hung up on me now, and that’s what matters.”
“There’s food on the table,” says Hannah. “We’ll do the gift exchange after you guys eat.”
Megan claps her hands to her cheeks, her mouth open in dismay. “Oh my god. I completely forgot about the gift exchange! I didn’t bring anything. Ugh. I feel awful.”
Hannah waves her off. “No problem. I got a few extra things just in case anyone forgot. Go eat. I’ll get them out.”
“Are you sure?” Megan asks. “I can sketch something real quick. Or I’ll pay you back. Whichever.”
Scoffing, Hannah waves off her protests. “It’s fine, Megan, I promise. Get some food.” Hannah disappears into the bedroom while Abby ushers Megan to the food, their heads together as they exchange whispers.
Chris, unperturbed by either their lack of gifts for the exchange or Megan whispering with Abby, offers a wave to everyone else. “Hey, guys. Sorry we’re late.”
Turning to him, I offer my hand. “Glad you could make it. Sorry about your shoulder. How’s that doing?”
A grimace flits across his face, and he rubs the shoulder in question with his other hand. “Still working on it. You know how it goes. Soft tissue damage takes longer to rehab than broken bones sometimes.”
I nod, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Yeah. Sucks.”
“It does.” He turns away a little abruptly, nodding hello to Evan before turning to Lance, a wide grin splitting his face. “Guess they just let anybody in here, huh?”
Lance laughs, smiling just as widely, and claps his friend on the shoulder—his good shoulder—steering him in the direction of the kitchen. “Well, you’re here, so yeah, obviously.”
I settle back into my spot on the couch, and Elena snuggles into my side, reaching up to turn my face to hers for a quick kiss. “Don’t worry about him. He’s an injured bear, and you poked him.”
Making an effort to smooth my face, I smile at her. “I know. It’s dumb, but I feel a little like a kid meeting one of his idols, you know? Which is ridiculous. I mean, I went on the surf trip with you guys, and he was there. This isn’t the first time I’ve been around him. But it was different, then. That was before, when he was still kinda my teammate. Now …”
“Now he’s a big shot pro football player,” Evan puts in quietly, leaning f
orward so he can look at me across Elena. “Too cool for the likes of us.”
Elena snorts. “I don’t think that’s it at all. He’s grumpy and tired and the first thing you did was ask him about the worst thing that’s happened to him in a long time. How many other people do you think are asking him the same thing? ‘How’s the shoulder? Getting better? When are you going to play again?’ And if he doesn’t have any good answers to those questions, you think reminding him of that is going to get you on his good side? Pssh. I don’t think so.”
Layla giggles from her corner of the couch. “She’s right, you know. Quit being weirdos and treat him like your teammate.”
An equal opportunity eviscerator, Elena turns her baleful gaze on Layla. “You’re one to talk, Miss Squish Yourself Into a Corner and Say Nothing.”
Unperturbed, Layla shrugs. “I’m not really part of this group, and we all know it. I’m just along for the ride. No one here’s dying to see me.”
Elena jerks her head back, clearly affronted. “Excuse me? What am I, chopped liver?”
“Yeah,” I chime in. “We’re always happy to see you and the asshole you’re still dating for some unknown reason.”
“Hey!” Evan gripes. “May I remind you that you chose to live with me for years. So your taste is obviously no better than hers.”
Grinning, I wave a hand, dismissing his statement at face value. “Not the same at all. I’m not sleeping with you.” I make a show of looking him over. “You’re not at all my type.”
Elena smothers a laugh in my shoulder as Evan gapes at me, offended. “You wish,” he mumbles. “Maybe you’re not my type.”
A Very Marycliff Christmas Page 5
