by Noelle Adams
“No hurry,” he said. He’d been picking up books and piling them the top of the dresser, organized by size. “We still have plenty of time to get there before dinner.”
“I don’t want Drake to get annoyed because we’re late.”
“We won’t be late. He doesn’t get annoyed with you anyway.”
“Well, he might. And he’s been good to me, so I don’t want to antagonize him.”
Cyrus looked at her suddenly, as if he’d just realized something. “He likes you, Helen. He’s not going to change his mind about you.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean?”
Cyrus stepped over to her, holding her eyes seriously. “I just mean he really likes you, and that’s not going to change. He’s always liked you. He’s not going to change his feelings because you’re late for dinner.”
Helen shrugged. She felt kind of stupid suddenly, as if Cyrus had caught her in an immature moment. He’d been right about her worries, though. She realized it in a deep surge of knowledge. She’d always been very careful around Drake Owen—reading him as accurately as she could so she could act in a way that would please him. Even when she was a teenager and had been rebelling, she’d always done things she was pretty sure wouldn’t overly concern him.
The only thing she’d ever consciously done that she knew he wouldn’t like was date Ethan. And she’d done that, in part, because it wouldn’t please him, because it wouldn’t please Cyrus.
She’d wanted to prove something—to them, to herself.
But it had been a huge mistake she didn’t even like to think about now, since her stupidity humiliated her.
Everyone was stupid when they were young, they said. But that didn’t mean she was happy about being stupid herself.
To distract herself from a line of thought that made her uncomfortable, she slipped off her bracelet and earrings and put them on the dresser. She stared at herself in the mirror as she tried to unclasp her necklace. She didn’t look bad, but she looked a little flustered and flushed, and she preferred to look more stylish and in control.
The clasp on her necklace was delicate and very difficult to get without seeing. She tried for a minute but then gave up. “Can you unhook my necklace?” she asked Cyrus.
He came over without objecting and stood behind her, his handsome, masculine image next to hers in the mirror. As always, he already needed to shave again.
He gently moved aside her long hair so he could reach the clasp, and Helen stared at the two of them in the mirror for a long time.
They looked like they belonged together, she realized without warning.
She brushed the stray thought away, since there was no good reason for thinking it. But she could feel Cyrus’s warm fingers brushing the sensitive skin of her neck, and it sent strange shivers down her spine.
She lowered her eyes, reminding herself that this was Cyrus. He was like family, like her best friend. And the one time they’d been more than that, he’d immediately rebuffed her, making it clear it wasn’t at all what he wanted.
When he got the necklace undone, he put it down softly on the surface of the dresser.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to sound casual as she turned around. Her blood was racing, though, and she was breathing in fast little pants.
He was standing closer than she’d expected, and his big, strong form trapped her against the dresser. She reached up instinctively, closing her fists around the fabric of his sweater in a desperate attempt to cling to anything.
When she looked up at him, she saw he was gazing down at her with an expression that was deep, intense, intimate.
Her whole body throbbed with excitement. “Cyrus?” she breathed, stretching up toward him because every instinct in her body told her to.
She was the one who moved, who pressed against him and reach up for his lips. But he responded. He inclined his head. Then one of his hands flew up to cup the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair and holding her head in place as the kiss grew more urgent.
At first, their lips and tongues just teased—testing, questioning, learning each other. But as the throbs and shivers of pleasure intensified in Helen’s body, she moaned into the kiss, her arms twining around his neck possessively as she opened her mouth to his.
He accepted the invitation, his tongue making a passionate advance as his other hand slid down her back to palm her bottom over the fabric of her skirt. He traced the fully curved line of her ass, fitting her pelvis more snugly against his.
Helen’s whole being hummed with excitement, with pleasure, with feeling, with primitive satisfaction. This was what she wanted. This was what she’d always wanted. This was so exactly right.
She’d started to claw at his shoulders as an urgent pressure tightened between her legs when he suddenly jerked away from her.
She stumbled back into the dresser, surprised and disoriented. “What?” she gasped. “What?”
Cyrus looked just as dazed as she did, and his body was coiled as tight as a pistol. His face was damp from perspiration, and he’d taken several hurried steps back, away from her.
“We can’t do that,” he rasped, rubbing a hand over his face. “We said we would never do that.”
“Oh.” Her mind was starting to work, and she felt a familiar sense of rejection. It was just like two years ago, when she’d kissed him in the library in front of the fire. She’d been sure it was right, but he’d been sure it wasn’t. And she was left crushed and unwanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from her, which just seemed to make it worse. “I don’t know what happened.”
“I…I…” She couldn’t seem to say anything but the truth. “I thought it was…it was good.”
“We can’t,” Cyrus said, rubbing his head as if he were trying to claw something out of his brain. “I’m sorry, kid. I’ll wait down in the car.”
Then he just left. He walked out of her bedroom. Out of her apartment.
Helen stared at the door he’d walked out of. After a moment, she realized that it wasn’t as bad as it felt. It wasn’t as bad as last time.
She knew better now. She’d lived through enough to know that she didn’t want to stop kissing him. She didn’t think it was wrong.
It was right. It was right. So she just needed to make Cyrus see it too.
***
The first hour of the drive to Clarksburg was unusually quiet.
Cyrus was often silent and reflective, but Helen was a talker, and the time they spent together was rarely quiet unless they were both reading or working.
He drove, focusing on the road and occasionally making an idle comment, and Helen sat in the passenger seat wondering what she should say.
She was tempted to just demand that Cyrus tell her what his problem was—why he thought a relationship with her was so completely outside the bounds of acceptable.
It could be his hang-ups were irrational and thus easy to overcome, but it could be he just didn’t want her. And she wasn’t prepared to face such a brutal reality quite so bluntly.
She’d grown up getting her fair share of male attention, but most of the time she was convinced her appeal was more about the things associated with her than it was about herself. Thinking back on it now, she wondered if her perceptions were really accurate. Certainly, she’d had more than a normal number of disappointing experiences where a boy she liked revealed that he was with her primarily for the privileges of her association with the Owens or because of her inheritance. Some guys had probably liked her for real, though, and she’d assumed they hadn’t.
Cyrus had always been the one she could depend on to care about her for nothing but herself. And, when she’d been eighteen and he’d made it clear that he didn’t want her as anything but a kid-friend, she’d been hurt and insecure and had wanted to prove that she didn’t need him. This had made her particularly susceptible to Ethan.
Her relationship with Ethan had just cemented in her mind that trusting men was a dang
erous risk. Except Cyrus. She had always trusted him, and he’d never let her down.
Even now, as they were awkwardly silent on the drive to Clarksburg, she saw him shooting worried glances over at her and sometimes looking as if he were trying to say something.
Eventually, her need to know got the better of her, so she summoned her courage. “I didn’t think kissing you was so bad.”
Cyrus blinked. He opened his mouth but couldn’t seem to speak.
She continued, “If you didn’t like the kiss, I’d understand. But you seemed to like it well enough. And I don’t know why it’s so off the table.”
“Helen, for God’s sake, you know why it’s off the table. I’ve known you since you were ten. You’re like—“
“Don’t you dare say I’m like a sister to you. I don’t believe it. We’ve never been like brother and sister.”
“No, not exactly like siblings. But like family.”
“So? What’s your point? Romance often turns into family, doesn’t it? Maybe we’d just do it in reverse.” She was pleased she sounded blithe and casual, since she didn’t feel it at all. Her hands were shaking a little. Now that they were actually in the conversation, however, it didn’t seem like it was likely to completely devastate her.
“It doesn’t work that way, Helen. I can’t. It just feels wrong to me.” His face was tense and his eyes guarded—not surprising, considering what they were discussing.
“Maybe it feels wrong because you’ve never thought about it before. So the best thing to do is just to start thinking about it.” She gave him a little smile.
A faint smile reflected in his eyes, but didn’t follow through to his lips. “I don’t think so.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I think you’re being unreasonable. We’re not related. It’s never felt like we were related. You’re obviously not some perv who wanted to make a move on me when I was a kid. I’m not a kid anymore, Cyrus, and I just don’t think it should be that big a deal.”
“Of course it would be a big deal,” he gritted out, suddenly urgent. “What if it didn’t work? Then what would happen? Are you saying you’re willing to risk our relationship on such a thing?” When she opened her mouth to respond, he spoke over her, “And anyway, it doesn’t matter. The kiss was just a random thing. To tell you the truth, I just don’t think about you that way.”
Helen’s stomach dropped. Her heart dropped. “Oh.”
There was a long stretch of silence as she processed his words. It hurt—a lot. And it felt final. If he didn’t think about her that way, then he didn’t, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” he said eventually, sounding rather strained. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said with a casual shrug she didn’t feel. “It was just a thought.”
She didn’t talk much the rest of the drive. She tried not to think about it too much. If she did, it would hurt too much, and she didn’t want to ruin her whole Christmas.
Her life was quite happy and satisfying in almost every way now.
She didn’t have to have everything.
***
She was on her way down to dinner when Cyrus stopped her on the landing of the stairs.
“Helen, wait,” he said, his voice a little thick.
She looked up at him—heartbreakingly handsome in all black. His blue eyes were strangely urgent.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course,” she said with a smile that was only slightly forced. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Don’t lie to me, Helen. I know you’re upset. But I don’t think you’ve thought it through enough. I think, once you do, you’ll see I’m right.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with another smile, “If you don’t want me that way, then you just don’t. You’re not the first man to not want me.”
“Don’t say it like that. I just can’t—“
“Seriously, Cyrus,” she said, “I’m a little disappointed, since I was starting to think…but it’s no big deal really. I’ll get over it.”
He peered at her so closely she thought he might see into her soul, but he didn’t say anything. Just reached out and stroked her hair gently before she turned and started walking back down the stairs.
***
After dinner, she went up to change into something more comfortable—which happened to be a soft purple lounge set Cyrus had bought her for her last birthday.
She went to find him in the media room.
Dinner had been surprisingly good. Drake had been in fine form, telling stories from Greek history and demanding they all go and view the new historic weaponry he’d added to his collection in the last year. If he’d noticed something rather tense in the air between his son and Helen, he didn’t mention it.
Helen wasn’t about to miss out on her and Cyrus’s tradition this Christmas Eve, even if she was a little embarrassed and a lot disappointed.
He would still be her best friend, her family, the one person she could always rely on. He was trying to do what was best for her, even as he let her down easy.
Cyrus was already in the media room when she arrived, sitting on one end of the couch.
“Hey,” she said, going over and sitting next to him.
He smiled at her. “Hi. Someone is bringing cider and sugar cookies in a few minutes.”
Helen smiled back, her chest feeling suddenly warm and soft. “Good.”
“Are you all right?” He was peering at her closely again.
“I’m fine. Although, if you keep asking me that, I might throw something at you.”
“As long as it’s not the hot cider.”
She laughed—sincerely. She felt better. Whatever the reason for Cyrus’s hesitation, it wasn’t because he didn’t care about her. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to be with her. She could see all of that clearly in the soft, fond look in his eyes as he chuckled too.
“Start the movie,” she said, snuggling up at his side.
He hesitated for a moment, but then he wrapped an arm around her. She sighed in relief. If he’d rebuffed the snuggling, she might have felt rejected again.
After they’d eaten the cookies and cider, Helen readjusted to get more comfortable, ending up lying on the couch with her head in Cyrus’s lap.
She’d lain that way last Christmas Eve, when she’d admitted to herself—and to Cyrus—that she would have to give up on her relationship with Ethan. And she’d lain that way on other nights too. When a friend of hers had been killed in a car accident. When she’d had a horrible headache that wouldn’t go away.
She felt safe in this position. Comforted. Loved.
She made it through most of the movie, but she eventually fell asleep. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping when consciousness started to press through the drowsy haze. Her eyes were still closed, but she could feel Cyrus’s thighs beneath her head. And she felt him gently stroking her hair.
She opened her eyes and caught for just a moment a look on his face that took her breath away.
She couldn’t process the expression immediately, and his face shifted into a teasing smile. “Didn’t we have a bet one year about whether you could stay awake for the movie?”
“I won that bet,” she said, adjusting so she was looking up at him fully without actually lifting her head from her lap. “You had to wear your sweater. But there was no bet for this year, or I would have made more of an effort to stay awake.”
He gave a breathy laugh. “I have no doubt about that.”
She sat up, mostly because her neck was getting stiff. She stretched a little, raising her arms above her head.
She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that Cyrus’s eyes dropped to her chest and lingered there. A quick glance down revealed that her top had slipped from sleeping and then stretching, and the neckline was displaying far more cleavage than was entirely appropriate.
When she turned to look at Cyrus, t
o verify his stare, he turned his head rather abruptly. Because she was looking for it, she noticed a very brief flicker of something on his face.
Guilt, she realized. Guilt and something like fear.
She remembered how he’d been looking at her as she’d been sleeping.
And she realized something. Something that changed everything.
She was suddenly overwhelmed with a flood of joy and recognition. She had to act on it and, since she couldn’t say anything to reveal what she now knew, she just threw herself toward Cyrus in an enthusiastic hug.
He responded immediately, hugging her back and laughing at the spontaneous gesture. But she felt a neediness in his clutching grip that she’d never noticed before.
She understood now. She understood. He’d lied to her before, a lie that was supposed to protect her. He did think about her that way. He did want her that way. He just thought he wasn’t supposed to.
And that was understandable, given their history. That was something that could change.
He loved her. She knew he loved her. And, what was more, he wanted her. He wouldn’t be able to hold on to his resistance forever.
She loved him too. She wanted him. But she could wait until he was ready.
Things were different now, but she was still Helen. And she was still with the same man on Christmas Eve. The man she knew intimately, trusted unquestionably, and loved deeply. The man who had found her on the side of the road exactly ten years ago.
Things were only likely to get better from here on out—which meant it was a pretty good Christmas Eve after all.
Eighth Christmas Eve
today
Cyrus was swelteringly hot, torturously itchy, and incredibly uncomfortable.
He would have liked to say he had no idea how he’d gotten roped into doing such a ludicrous activity, but he was acutely aware of why he’d agreed to something he never would have agreed to under normal circumstances.
Normal circumstances had completely flown out the window ever since Helen had entered his life.
When he was finally able to leave the festivities, he headed into a room in the back where he could he change out of his costume. He cringed when he glanced in a mirror and saw himself—long white wig, thick white beard, fake glasses, fuzzy red pants and jacket, and a very unfortunate big red hat.
