SYLER MCKNIGHT: A Holiday Tale

by Brent, Cora

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t care about my family,” he said.

  “Which explains why you’re such a common sight around here.”

  “Syler,” he sighed. “I’m busy. You know that.”

  “Of course I know that. You’ve been busy all your life.”

  He was perplexed. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing, Ry. Which is exactly what I’ve always gotten.”

  I was being unfair.

  Well, only a little bit.

  I was remembering when I was in my first year of college and I learned that Ryland would be speaking at some big shot climate convention in Boston. Despite our differences we were still brothers and I assumed he could stomach hanging out with me for a few hours, especially because he had to be mourning the recent death of our grandmother as much as I was. But after I spent most of the day waiting around for him in a hotel lobby he texted me to say he needed to meet with a prospective investor for a dig he was trying to finance. He wouldn’t have time for anything else. He didn’t even apologize, assuming I would automatically understand. I returned to my dormitory without responding to him.

  I was used to being discarded by my parents and I’d been disappointed before where Ryland was concerned. It stung to realize my big brother was intent on following in their footsteps in a major way. After that I felt more than ever like Gemma, and eventually Gemma’s kids, were the only family I really had.

  “Syler,” Gemma said, rising from her seat. “Will you help me clear the table?”

  I’d messed up, having this long overdue argument with Ryland in front of the kids. Not to mention Katrina. I wasn’t exactly pleased with myself.

  “Sure, Gem.” I quietly began gathering plates and napkins into a pile.

  The kids kept looking between their two uncles with worried expressions.

  Katrina tried to diffuse the tension by wondering aloud if the new layer of snow meant it was a good time to add to the snow family in the yard. She suggested adding some snow pets. The kids liked that plan. Florence the unhappy cat would be the next snow sculpture to join the collection. Florence looked up from her comfortable seat beside the fireplace, deduced that nothing exciting was happening, and then returned to her nap.

  Gemma was waiting for me in the kitchen when I carried a stack of plates in.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, carefully setting the dishes in the sink. “I didn’t mean to go off like that.”

  She sighed. “I understand you and Ry have your own issues going on. But it’s not his fault that our parents didn’t want to be parents.”

  “I know that.”

  “Try and get along with him, okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll do better.”

  She smiled. “I’m really happy to have both my brothers here.”

  “But I’m still your favorite brother, right?” I deadpanned. “I mean, I did rescue Beansy and all. That’s got to be worth some kind of most favored status.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. Then she glanced around to make sure no one else had entered the room and leaned in to whisper. “Yes, you’ll always be my favorite brother, Syler.”

  I grinned and began filling the sink with warm soapy water.

  “I’ve got to stop by Deanna’s house this morning,” my sister sighed. “She forgot her cake plate. It’s an antique, belonged to her grandmother.”

  I winced over the memory of my fight with Deanna last night. Gem knew nothing about that, at least I hoped she didn’t.

  “I can do that for you,” I offered.

  She was surprised. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s freezing out there. You stay here and hang out with Ry.”

  “Thanks. Just do me a favor and don’t hassle Deanna. I know she sucks sometimes but that ex of hers is a real piece of work. And despite the fact that she’s a pain in the ass I feel sorry for her.”

  “I promise I will be as polite as humanly possible to Deanna Barnes Coleman.”

  “Appreciate it. Let’s use this instead of washing by hand,” she said, opening up the door to the dishwasher.

  We loaded dishes into the dishwasher and Gemma decided to make some hot chocolate for the kids. She shook her head when I asked if she needed help.

  Outside the kitchen the mood had improved. Drew stood beside the Christmas tree, texting furiously on his phone while wearing a smirk. Chloe and the twins were making plans for their snow menagerie while their Uncle Ryland offered helpful suggestions. It was decided that Annika’s favorite chicken would be included.

  My brother observed my entrance but he didn’t appear angry. He was probably just wondering if I planned to resume our argument. I gave him a nod to let him know I would do no such thing. He relaxed and continued the snow animal discussion.

  Katrina had moved from the table to an armchair, accompanied by her coffee cup. She twirled a long length of black hair around one forefinger and stared into the fireplace, lost in thought. When she saw me her blue eyes widened and she sat up straight.

  “Uncle Syler!” Gretel left the table and ran over to pull on my arm while clutching the chocolate-encrusted Beansy. “Will you read Princess Snowball to me?”

  “I’d love to Gret but I’ve got something I need to take care of right now.” I gestured to her other uncle. “I bet Uncle Ryland would love to read it to you. He doesn’t know the story yet.”

  Ry looked surprised by the friendly suggestion. He motioned to our niece. “Sure, Gretel. I’d love to read to you.”

  “Okay.” Gretel hung onto my arm for another second, unsure about this other uncle that she hardly knew. I patted her on the head to let her know he was all right and she finally grabbed her book and proceeded to drag Uncle Ryland over to the sofa.

  “You need to do the voices,” she informed him. “Like Uncle Syler.”

  “I’ll try my best,” my brother promised. He seemed surprised but pleased when Gretel abruptly plopped down in his lap in anticipation of listening to the story.

  Katrina had stood up as soon as she heard I’d be leaving. She’d abandoned her coffee cup on the end table but she still nervously played with her hair.

  “You’re going somewhere?” she asked me.

  “I just need to shower and run a quick errand.”

  She was disappointed. “But you’ll be back soon, right?”

  “Yeah.” I studied her. “And you’ll still be here, right?”

  We had things to talk about, she and I. And I was going to say what I needed to say to her even if I had to follow her to Detroit.

  She nodded and a smile tugged at her lips. “I’ll still be here, Syler.”

  The urge to kiss her was overwhelming. As was the impulse to carry her off to the nearest bed, strip off every article of her clothing and use my tongue to shatter her into countless orgasmic pieces.

  “Good,” I said, starting to back out of the room before I did something reckless.

  Sex was good. Sex was great. I wanted to have much much more of it with her. But I wanted other things with her too. Time. Laughter. A future. Over the years I’d made a lot of wrong moves with Katrina. I was determined that the next move would be the right one.

  “Talk later?” she asked, tilting her head with obvious confusion over my retreat.

  “Absolutely,” I promised and then turned around to make a beeline for the shower before I lost my battle with restraint.

  18

  The King of Heartfelt Monologues

  Syler

  Gemma gave me her address. She lived in the newer part of town, meaning a cluster of homes on the southern edge that were built in the 1960s as opposed to the rambling Victorians that populated the original plot of Maple Springs. A wilted inflatable Santa Claus decorated the yard beside a child’s small bicycle that was half buried in the snow.

  I held the plate of cookies front and center and approached the front door with caution. She was likely still furious with me. I hoped she didn’t have a shotgun.

  Ten second
s after I rang the doorbell the peephole darkened. I estimated there was a twenty percent chance she’d actually open the door.

  She did open it. She was scowling, makeup free and tying the belt of a long black sweater over her pink pajama pants.

  “I come in peace.” I held up the cookie plate. “You forgot this last night.”

  Deanna Barnes Coleman responded with a sullen look. A little boy with sandy colored hair and a reindeer sweater bounded over to inspect me.

  “Mommy, who’s that?” he wanted to know.

  Deanna looked down and brushed her son’s hair out of his eyes. “Just a salesman, sweetie. Go back to the living room and watch your show. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The kid grinned up at his mother and then followed her instructions.

  Deanna watched him go with a loving expression and then turned back to me, her tired features abruptly transitioning back to unforgiving granite.

  “Gemma just wanted to make sure you got your plate back,” I explained. “She piled it high with cookies. She knows the raspberry tartlets are your favorites so she gave you extras.”

  Deanna’s expression softened. Slightly.

  “That was nice of her,” she murmured.

  “Gemma’s nice to everyone.”

  She slowly nodded and gnawed her lip. “I know. She really is.”

  I passed the cookie plate over and Deanna accepted it.

  “Look, I’m not good at apologies,” I said. “But I’m truly sorry for what I said last night.”

  She sighed. “I was being a bitch. I knew it. I shouldn’t have worn that shirt.”

  “Eh, I’m used to my status as a Spirit Killer.”

  “It’s not really even you I was angry at.” She lowered her voice, glanced behind her to make sure her son wasn’t in earshot. “Aiden took off to Niagara Falls with his new girlfriend. He won’t be here for Christmas. Explaining to my little boy that his father can’t be bothered to stick around to celebrate the holidays with him is difficult.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I really am.”

  Her chin quivered and she slumped against the door frame. “I didn’t think my life would turn out like this, Syler.”

  “This doesn’t look so bad. You’ve got a nice home, a cute kid. You live in a great town and you’ve got plenty of friends.”

  “Thought you said I had no friends.”

  “Ah, yeah. Sorry about that too. Didn’t mean it.”

  She snorted. “I might have flung a few insults of my own. Look, it’s really cool you came to town to help your sister. My brother would never do the same. You think maybe we’re both not beyond redemption?”

  “No one is beyond redemption,” I said. Listen to me. Syler the Wise.

  Deanna looked down at the plate of carefully wrapped cookies. “Will you tell Gemma I’ll call her next week? That I’d like to take her to lunch? She and I can destroy a bottle of wine together and console each other over our dipshit exes.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Mommy!” called Deanna’s son. “Rudolph is on. Come watch.”

  Deanna looked at me. “I should go. Thanks, Syler.”

  “Bye, Deanna. Merry Christmas.”

  “You too.”

  I jogged back to my car feeling rather cheerful. If I could share a civil conversation with Deanna Barnes then perhaps anything was possible.

  Back at the house, Ryland was in the front yard doing his best to obey the orders of two five year olds and their nine year old boss.

  “Uncle Ryland,” said Chloe, “you did all right but next time you make a snow cat, make her a whole lot bigger.”

  Ryland inspected his work. “I made her to scale. I took Florence’s measurements before we came outside.”

  The children mutely stared at him in their snowsuits; a trio of swollen, pastel colored, dissatisfied elves.

  “How about I make another Florence?” Ry suggested. “A great big one?”

  “Yay!” The twins jumped up and down and clapped their mitten-covered hands.

  “That would be acceptable,” Chloe decided.

  “Come help, Uncle Syler,” Evan begged through the layers of his scarf when he noticed me standing nearby.

  “I think Uncle Ryland has this covered,” I said. My brother and I exchanged a look. Not a hostile look. More like a watchful one.

  “Okay, here we go.” Gemma and Drew emerged with their arms full of accessories for the growing snow family.

  “Is that one of my flannels?” I asked.

  “You can spare it,” my sister notified me as she dropped all the items in the snow.

  “Fine. You can keep my flannel if you tell me where Katrina is.”

  “In the kitchen,” Drew said. Then he made some really annoying kissing sounds.

  “Enough,” I grumbled, brushing past him.

  The house felt amazingly warm after the outdoor polar experience. I hung my jacket on the brass coat rack that had occupied the same location for longer than I had a memory and then paused by the roaring fire to warm my hands before finding my way to the kitchen.

  As promised, Katrina was in there. She was singing some kind of off key version of Jingle Bell Rock and stirring a wooden spoon in a bowl. Her long hair was tied back and over her blue cardigan she wore a frilly apron that had belonged to my grandmother. She stopped in her tracks when she saw me.

  “More cookies?” I slid all the way inside and took up residence at the sink. We still had a variety of plates piled with cookies, all left over from last night. We needed more cookies about as much as we needed more snow.

  She aggressively stirred her batter. “Making cookies happens to be my coping mechanism. Well, that and Pretend Apocalypse.”

  “Pretend what?”

  “Never mind. This is your grandmother’s snickerdoodle recipe. It’s my favorite thing in the world to make.”

  “Well, this time if you mess up the batter please do NOT pour it down the garbage disposal.”

  “What’s the garbage disposal there for if not to dispose of garbage? Besides, I’m tempted to do just that if it means you’ll take off your shirt and bend over.”

  “If that’s what you want to see you don’t need to break appliances, Katrina. Just ask.”

  She smiled at me. My heart contracted.

  “Things got kind of heated last night,” she said, somewhat timidly.

  “They did.”

  “I slept like crap. I kept thinking about you.”

  “I thought about you too.”

  A moment of silence ensued. I picked up a dish sponge because I didn’t want to stand there doing nothing while she stirred cookie batter.

  “You look like you want to say something,” Katrina prodded.

  I tossed the sponge back into the sink. “I want to say a lot of things. It’s just taking me a minute because I’m not the king of heartfelt monologues.”

  “No, you’re more like the tsar of sarcasm.”

  I chuckled. “True. But let me give this a try, okay?”

  Katrina set down the bowl of cookie batter and gave me her full attention.

  I wanted to take a deep breath but that would have been obvious. And slightly pathetic. Pathetic wasn’t something I wanted to be right now. Earnest, yes. Pathetic was right up there with contemptible. All morning I’d been selecting the right words to say and now was the time to use them.

  “Katrina, did you know that I’ve never had a lasting relationship?”

  “No. Well, yeah, I guess I did know that.”

  “Lately I’ve been putting a lot of thought into why that is.”

  She tilted her head, curious, waiting for me to continue.

  “And I think it’s because every girl I met was always being compared to someone else. No one stands a chance against her. She’s dazzling. She’s exciting and witty and forever loyal. Just the mention of her name makes my heart pound. Always has.”

  Katrina was interested but cautious. “She sounds unreal.”

&n
bsp; “She’s real,” I insisted. “Definitely real. She’s my fantasy but she’s real. And I think the main reason why I can’t be serious about anyone else is because all this time I’ve been waiting for her.”

  She lowered her head. “Syler.”

  “I don’t mind waiting. I’ll keep waiting. I’ll wait forever.”

  “Forever’s a long time.”

  “Yes it is. But she should know that she’s worth it.” I gently tipped Katrina’s chin up so I could look her in the eye. “I’ll understand if you don’t feel the same way. I’ll understand if you need to leave. I’ll still be here. Waiting.”

  I brushed my lips against hers. Tenderly, sweetly, a promise of all the things I wanted to experience with her. She closed her eyes and softly yielded. I knew I could have more right now. My dick throbbed inside my jeans and ordered me to take it. I wouldn’t. This was a moment I wanted her to keep as proof that I was serious.

  I touched my lips to her forehead and then pulled back. I took her hand in mine and kissed her vanilla-scented palm.

  “Syler?” she breathed.

  I kept her hand in mine. “Yeah?”

  “I was wrong. You do deserve the title of king of heartfelt monologues.”

  I grinned. “I’ll take it.”

  She squeezed my hand. “And I’m not going to Detroit.”

  “What about your job?”

  “Danielle was right. I didn’t like my job anyway.”

  “Danielle the chicken?”

  “Yeah. Did you know that I don’t even particularly like sports? I never want to see another locker room again. Maybe this is the kick in the pants that I needed.”

  “Funny, I remember you coming to all the football games in high school. You stood up in the stands and cheered for me.”

  “That wasn’t cheering, Syler. That was heckling.”

  I grinned. “So what do you want to do instead of sports broadcasting?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I should figure it out.” She made a face. “Since I’ll be thirty tomorrow. But right now I want to finish baking these cookies and then go Christmas shopping. Will you drive me to the mall?”

  “Only if you buy me one of those giant pretzels.”