He’d already been running late when he returned to his place to get ready to go, and then he’d had an awkward conversation with a woman he’d gone out with a few times. He’d thought there might be potential there, but his feelings for her were definitely cooling. He’d been trying to let her down easy. Only she didn’t want to be let down at all.
When he’d finally gotten off the phone, he’d been tired and frustrated. He spent most of the drive mentally composing a proposal for a new project he wanted his father to invest in.
At least the sky and the roads were clear, so he didn’t have to focus much on his driving, and he started to relax when he pulled his car into the garage.
Dinner shouldn’t be bad, since he and his father had been on pretty good terms lately. He could spend a relaxing, companionable evening with Helen, without any pressure or stress, and tomorrow he had the day off.
Hi mood had recovered by the time he walked into the house—only to be greeted by silence.
He frowned. Usually Helen was waiting for him and would run up to greet him with a hug, except when she was mad at him or was caught in a snowstorm.
He knew she wasn’t angry with him right now. They’d talked on the phone the previous day, and she’d seemed excited about his visit.
He shrugged off the strange lack of greeting and took his bag up to his room. He checked Helen’s bedroom on his way back down, but she wasn’t there.
He found his father in the study, sitting by the fire, listening to Puccini at a very loud volume, and reading a book.
He lowered the music when he saw his son enter. “I heard back from Walton. He said your plan was a good one, and the plant has begun implementing it as of now.”
Cyrus nodded. “Good. Tell him to watch Cutler. I don’t trust him at all.”
“I’ll convey your suspicions.” He raised his book again. “Dinner is at seven.”
“Where’s Helen?”
“How would I know?”
Cyrus sighed. “Is she here?”
“She’s around somewhere. She’s probably too distracted to notice your arrival.”
“What does that mean?”
His father smiled, almost predatory. “It means I wouldn’t count on your being her favorite any longer.”
Cyrus started to ask another question, but he stopped himself. His father was looking too pleased with himself, and it would be a mistake to give him the advantage by acting curious or confused. Instead, he just murmured, “Hmm,” and left the room.
He was confused, though, and a little worried. It wasn’t like he had to be Helen’s favorite person, although he knew very well that—with the exception of those months she'd been angry with him about the imagined slight—he had always been her favorite. But he didn’t like the idea of something going on with her that he didn’t know about.
They only saw each other a few times a year, but they emailed or talked on the phone at least weekly and she’d taken to sending him funny texts at odd times of the day. He also got regular updates on her from the security assigned to her.
Cyrus thought he basically knew what was going on in her life.
He had to ask a member of their security team to find out where Helen was in the house, since he didn’t want to traipse all over looking. On discovering that she was in the kitchen, Cyrus went to find her.
He found her rolling out dough on the large granite island. Her long red-blond hair, darker than it had been a few years ago, had been clipped up on her head, but it was now falling down and hanging messily around her face. Her cheeks, forehead, hair, and sweatshirt were all covered in flour.
When she finally looked up from her exuberant rolling, she gasped in surprise and cried, “Cyrus!” Despite the excessive flour, her face glowed when she saw him, and she immediately dropped the rolling pin and ran over to hug him.
“Uh,” he began, predicting the result of a hug from her at the moment. Then he resigned himself to being covered with flour too as she hurled herself into his arms.
He laughed as he returned her hug, wrapping his arms around her warm, messy, little self.
He had to admit that it was really nice—to have someone who was always happy to see him, someone who genuinely liked him simply for who he was, someone he could trust to never betray him.
He wondered if this was what it should be like to have family.
“You’re late!” Helen exclaimed. “You were supposed to be here hours ago.”
“A few things came up.” He brushed off his dark shirt and trousers, which were now festooned with blotches of flour. The brushing did nothing to restore them so he gave up. “So you decided to amuse yourself until my arrival by baking?”
“Sugar cookies,” she declared with a wide smile. “For tonight.”
“I didn’t know you had any culinary aspirations.” He idly noted that she was getting prettier as she grew into her features.
“I don’t. I’m a horrible cook. But I wanted—” She cut off her words for some reason, looking slightly self-conscious. It immediately triggered Cyrus’s curiosity, since she rarely appeared self-conscious around him. Her green eyes seemed to really look at him for the first time, and her expression changed, “Oh no! I got you covered with flour.”
He chuckled at the way she’d just now had such an obvious revelation. “No big deal. What were you going to say you wanted?”
She opened her mouth, but before she could reply another voice broke into their conversation.
“Hey, Helen. Did you know there’s—“ The new voice cut off when the owner of the voice entered the room and saw Helen was no longer alone.
A young man, probably around Helen’s age, had walked into the kitchen. He was tall and athletic with dark hair and a square jaw. He wore jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirt. “Oh,” he said, pausing and looking at Cyrus in surprise. “Sorry.”
“This is Cyrus. He’s Drake’s son, you know,” Helen said, going over to stand next to the young man with a smile that almost looked shy. “Cyrus, this is my friend Ben.”
The way she said the words sounded almost like a pronouncement, as if she were voicing something of utmost importance. She slanted Cyrus a very particular look that he understood immediately.
She was trying to covertly tell him that he was supposed to be very nice to Ben. Because she really liked him.
Cyrus immediately smiled and held out his hand, giving the boy a quick but close assessment. Ben was clean-cut and healthy, with a relatively intelligent expression and a smile of almost earnest good-nature.
Cyrus's first impression was that Helen would be able to run verbal circles around the boy. He’d never be enough of a challenge for her.
But she seemed to like him very much. Her expression was glowing, almost besotted, as she gazed up at Ben. Cyrus recognized the expression since she used to look at him that way.
She’d been quite happy to see Cyrus earlier, but she hadn’t looked at him the way she used to.
He brushed the thought aside. It was ridiculous to feel like something between them had changed merely because she had a very normal crush on a classmate. She was sixteen. Something would be wrong if she didn’t have a romantic interest.
She’d mentioned Ben to him before, but always in the context of friendship, so Cyrus hadn’t made the connection that Ben was someone special to her.
But at least he seemed to be her age and appeared to be a sincere and responsible. Much better than the crowd she’d been hanging out with two years ago, when he’d almost had a heart attack on finding her being groped by a drunk football player.
She’d grown up a lot in those two years, and he was glad that she seemed more comfortable with who she was and that she’d made real friends who seemed to care about her as a person.
If that meant she would start to have boyfriends, then so be it.
Helen had been rambling on about her adventures with Ben in cookie-making, but Cyrus was only listening with half an ear. When she demanded that he help them cut
out the cookies from the flattened dough, Cyrus obediently took a cookie-cutter. He was already covered in flour, after all.
He also accepted the cocoa Helen offered him, since both she and Ben were already drinking from big mugs.
He made a gesture toward pressing out cookies in the shapes of stockings and stars, but he mostly just watched how Helen acted with Ben.
Her behavior wasn’t hard to interpret. She took every opportunity to touch him casually or smile at him, but Cyrus was pretty sure they weren’t officially dating. They were probably ostensibly still just friends. Obviously, Helen would like their relationship to be something different, and from the way Ben was smiling back at her, Cyrus figured it wouldn’t be long until they were a couple.
Cyrus wasn’t sure what he thought about it. He checked with Helen’s security team regularly, just to make sure his father wasn’t neglecting his responsibilities, so he knew what she did and where she went. She’d never had a boyfriend before.
Ben didn’t seem wild or very sophisticated, so Cyrus thought it was likely that, if they paired up, they would move very slowly. That would be a good thing.
“What do you think, Cyrus?” Helen asked, poking him hard in the arm.
“What do I think about what?”
She frowned at him impatiently. “Ben should come back after dinner to watch White Christmas and eat the sugar cookies with us, since he helped make them. Right?”
Swallowing hard, Cyrus tried to hide his real reaction—which was irrationally one of resentment. He had no particular attachment to the movie, the cookies, or the cider, but he was attached to the tradition. It was virtually the only one he had. Having Ben there would definitely feel like an intrusion. But all he said was, “Sure. If he’s able to. Don’t you do something with your family on Christmas Eve?”
“Yeah,” Ben replied. “I can ask, but my folks probably won’t want me to leave on Christmas Eve.”
Helen frowned, almost pouty, as she sipped her mug of cocoa. It wasn’t her normal expression of disappointment, so Cyrus assumed she was playing it up to look cute for Ben’s benefit. “Well, come if you’re able. It will be fun. Won’t it, Cyrus?”
Cyrus would find it much more fun and relaxing with only him and Helen like it normally was, but he wasn’t about to say as much, since she was obviously counting on him to affirm her invitation. “Of course,” he murmured, “Although I can’t vouch for the sugar cookies this year, given their source.”
Helen huffed and swatted at his shoulder. The gesture resulted in getting more flour on his shirt. It also resulted in her spilling her cocoa all down the front of her sweatshirt.
She squealed and set down her mug, pulling the fabric away from her chest.
When Ben laughed, she scowled at him. “It’s hot!”
“Sorry,” Ben said, looking far too apologetic, confirming Cyrus’s suspicions that Helen would easily be able to walk all over him.
She started to pull her sweatshirt up over her head while keeping the wet fabric away from her skin. It was a rather awkward attempt, since the tank top she had under it kept pulling up with the sweatshirt. Eventually, she ended up trapped with her head and arms caught in the fabric.
Her clumsy maneuverings and muttered exclamations of distress left Cyrus and Ben highly amused. Ben was trying not to laugh, and Cyrus wasn’t even trying.
“Don’t laugh at me, Cyrus!” Helen cried, futilely struggling to escape the sweatshirt, which had twisted into a vice. “Help!”
Cyrus reached over before Ben could and carefully helped untwist the sweatshirt and pull it over her head while she tugged down her tank top so she wouldn’t expose too much of her belly.
She was scowling malevolently at him as he pulled it over her head. “At least Ben isn’t mocking me so heartlessly!”
Ben was visibly struggling to repress his amusement, but Cyrus just shook his head wryly as he put the damp sweatshirt on the counter. “Fitting retribution for trying to hit me earlier.”
Helen stuck her tongue out at him and tried to pat down her hair, which was flying out everywhere with static electricity.
Without realizing it, Cyrus’s eyes had drifted down to do an automatic assessment of her outfit. He couldn’t help but notice that she was now only wearing a thin, clinging tank top, clearly revealing the lines of her bra and the full curves of her figure.
Cyrus’s first reaction was that Helen had developed physically a lot in the last year. His second was that it was highly inappropriate for him to be noticing that at all.
As he looked quickly away, he noticed that Ben didn’t have the same qualms and was eyeing Helen appreciatively in typical teenage fashion.
As far as Cyrus was concerned, it was highly inappropriate for Ben to be looking at Helen that way as well.
He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go find another sweatshirt? It’s too cold for you to just wear that top. Ben and I can keep working on the cookies.”
Helen nodded, looking a little flustered, and Cyrus was relieved when she left the kitchen, so Ben could no longer leer at her.
Cyrus asked Ben some casual questions so he could get to know him a little. By the time Helen returned, thankfully wearing another thick sweatshirt, Cyrus had concluded that Ben was a nice enough boy and would probably be as safe a boyfriend as Helen was likely to find.
It wouldn’t necessarily be fair of Cyrus to hold against him the fact that Helen had invited him to barge in on their Christmas Eve tradition and that he’d leered at her body too much.
* * *
When the cookies were made and Ben went home, it was time to change for dinner. Cyrus went to his room to shower and change.
As he was making his way down to dinner, Helen came running down the stairs so quickly she almost barreled into him.
She wore a dark green cashmere sweater that he thought was far too mature for her age in neckline and clinginess. The only saving grace was that she wore a velvet jacket over it. Her hair was loose and shiny, hanging down her back. It had been clipped up before, so Cyrus hadn’t realized how long it had gotten.
“Did you like Ben?” she asked, clinging to his arm and grinning up at him.
“He seemed nice enough.”
She frowned. “That’s not very enthusiastic.”
“Well, I only met him for a half-hour. It doesn’t matter if I like him anyway. It only matters if you like him.”
“Well, I do like him, but I want you to like him too.”
Cyrus thought about that and decided it was a good thing. At least Helen still cared about his opinion and wanted to keep him as part of her life.
Even though, as his father had predicted, he might not be her favorite person anymore.
As he and Helen waited in the dining room, Cyrus figured his father would probably be smirking over Cyrus’s surprise encounter with Ben.
Instead, when Drake Owen walked into the room, his expression was perfectly composed, perfectly cool, and almost arrogant. He walked with his normal slow dignity, and he appeared neither uncomfortable nor self-conscious.
Which was quite a remarkable feat, given the fact that Drake Owen was wearing a thick sweater of bright green, red, and gold on which was appliquéd a hideously gaudy image of a reindeer whose nose was actually illuminated to glow red.
At the sight of him, Helen squealed with excitement, clapped her hands with glee, and did a little jig of pure delight.
Cyrus stared in absolute amazement.
“Well,” his father said, arching his eyebrows and ignoring both responses. “Shall we eat?”
Helen was still giggling helplessly as they took their seats. Finally Cyrus recovered enough to ask, “How the hell did she manage to get you to wear that?”
“He lost a bet,” Helen explained, her face astonishingly pretty all flushed and glowing with amusement.
Cyrus blinked. “What was the bet?”
“I didn’t lose a bet,” his father objected coolly. “I made a calculated decision to ac
cept a challenge and was quite pleased when Miss Coleman managed to achieve it. I am happy to comply with her one condition, which was my wearing her Christmas gift to dinner.”
Cyrus couldn’t help but smile at his father’s bland tone.
“Call it what you want,” Helen said, “But we all know it was a bet that you lost.”
“I don’t know. What was it?” Cyrus was starting to feel frustrated at being left out of the background on this bizarre scenario.
“I was writing a story for the school newspaper. It was about a bunch of stuff your dad had donated to the school, and your dad was being very close-mouthed about donating them at all. He actually thought I wouldn’t be able to find proof on my own. So our bet—“
“Our negotiated agreement,” Drake corrected.
“Our agreement—which was quite clearly a bet—was that if I could find evidence that he’d donated them on my own, he would wear his Rudolph sweater for Christmas dinner.”
“So I take it you found out all the information you were looking for?”
“I still find it hard to believe you were able to get your hands on that evidence,” his father said, sipping a glass of red wine.
“Never doubt my ability to investigate a mystery,” Helen said with a grin.
“To snoop,” Cyrus added.
Helen gave him an indignant look. “I thought you were on my side.”
“Of course I am. If only because you managed to get my father to wear that hideous sweater. I’ve had to wear mine twice.”
Helen laughed, and his father actually chuckled. When Cyrus looked over at him, he suddenly realized that his dad was actually enjoying himself. They shared a look of genuine warmth that made Cyrus’s chest clench.
For a moment, it felt like they were a real family.
He wasn’t sure how Helen had done it, but she’d been good for his father.
She’d been good for him too.
* * *
Cyrus was cueing up the movie when Helen came into the media room, wearing fuzzy pajama pants, a fitted t-shirt and a long, red sweater that tied at the waist. She flopped down on the sofa beside him, propping her legs up on the coffee table and revealing blue socks with big white snowflakes on them.
Eight Christmas Eves Page 6
