Maybe This Christmas

by Susannah Nix

  “I couldn’t stand the thought of you all by yourself on Christmas—especially when you’re sick.”

  A thick knot formed in the back of Alex’s throat, preventing her from speaking. Her chest and cheeks burned as tears filled her eyes.

  Lucas’s face fell as he moved toward her. “Oh hey, you’re not supposed to cry.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, bundling her up safe and tight, and Alex buried her face in his chest. He smelled like sea air and home cooking, and underneath that he smelled like himself. Like home.

  She let out a small sob and he held her even tighter, rocking her a little and stroking her hair. “Please tell me these are happy tears.”

  “They are,” she managed, sniffling. She could have stayed there all day in the warm shelter of his arms, except her nose was running and she was in danger of getting snot all over his hideous cabled sweater. It was thick and scratchy and an awful shade of muddy brown, in addition to being at least two sizes too big, and she loved it almost as much as she loved him.

  The only thing worse than letting go of Lucas was the thought of leaving giant snot smears across his chest, so Alex made herself pull out of his arms so she could go to the coffee table for a tissue and blow her nose.

  “Still sick, huh?” Lucas closed the door behind him as he followed her into the apartment.

  “It’s getting better,” she said, noticing for the first time that he had an overnight bag with him.

  Be careful, she warned herself. He’s just here as a friend. If he was planning to seduce her, it certainly wouldn’t be when she was all gross and snotty.

  “Until I showed up and made you cry,” Lucas said, looking doubtful.

  “You know how emotional I get at the holidays.”

  “Yes, that sounds like you,” he said wryly. “Always crying at the drop of a hat.” His mouth pulled into a concerned frown. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you have a fever? Are you delirious maybe?”

  She was delirious all right, but not with fever. “It’s just that sweater,” she said, sitting down on the couch. “It’s so ugly it physically brings tears to my eyes.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, moving her blanket and pillows aside so he could sit beside her. “At least your sense of humor hasn’t suffered.”

  “Did Theo give it to you?”

  “Of course. His nefarious plot to humiliate me continues.”

  Alex wished she’d known Lucas was coming. If she’d known, she could have prepared. She would have worn nicer pants and cleaned her apartment, and she definitely would have showered. And she would still not have been prepared to have Lucas in her living room. There was no way to be properly prepared for this. She probably would have spent the whole day wanting to throw up and working herself into a nervous wreck.

  This was ridiculous. If she was going to be moving back home and seeing more of him, she needed to get over herself. She needed to be able to accept that friends might be all they’d ever be to each other. Friends was nothing to sneeze at—metaphorically speaking, because she was literally about to sneeze. Which she did.

  “Bless you,” Lucas said and handed her a fresh tissue, because he was a good person and a good friend. The very best.

  There was no one like Lucas, and Alex was grateful to have him in her life in whatever way she could get him. Friends was nice. Friends would be enough, if that was all she could have.

  She should probably tell him about the move. Now that he was here, there was nothing standing in the way.

  “So listen—” she said at the exact same time as Lucas said, “There’s something—”

  They both stopped and stared at each other and laughed.

  “Sorry,” Alex said. “What were you saying?”

  “You can go first,” Lucas told her.

  “It can wait,” Alex said, chickening out. “What were you about to say?”

  “Right. Okay.” He shifted on the couch, looking suddenly uncomfortable, and Alex started to feel nervous. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Now Alex was very nervous. “I never offered you a drink,” she said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.

  “I don’t want anything,” Lucas said.

  “I think I have a few beers left.” Alex pulled the fridge open and stuck her head inside like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

  “Alex.”

  “You don’t like IPAs, do you? I think I have a stout back here somewhere. That’s nice and Christmassy.”

  Lucas got up and came into the kitchen. “Alexandra.” He gently pulled her away from the fridge and shut the door. “I don’t want a drink.”

  She turned toward the counter, refusing to look at him. “What about coffee?”

  “Listen to me,” Lucas snapped, and Alex stopped what she was doing and listened, because he’d never sounded so desperate before.

  She turned around, and what she saw in his face didn’t reassure her at all.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re not making this easy.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t say it, whatever it is, if it’s bad. You’re sort of freaking me out.”

  “Can you just—can you just be still and listen for a second?”

  Alex swallowed and nodded. “I can do that,” she said, not at all sure that she could.

  Lucas let out a breath, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

  He was scaring her again. Whatever it was must be really, really bad.

  “I think you’re amazing,” Lucas said. “You’re smart and beautiful and sarcastic and honest, and you know me better than anyone else in the world.”

  Alex was touched—genuinely—but she wasn’t sure where he was going with all this. He couldn’t be going where she wanted him to go. That was too much to hope for. He was probably just softening her up before he delivered the bad news.

  “You know what you are to me,” Lucas said, suddenly very quiet and very intense. “You have to.”

  “Um.” Alex’s voice sounded as faint as she felt. Was it too hot in here? It was definitely too hot in here. Maybe she did have a fever. “I—do I? I’m not sure that—maybe you could—maybe you should clarify.”

  “Alex.” Lucas’s tone was disapproving. So was his expression. “You have to know by now. You have to know that you’re—” He stopped abruptly and snapped his mouth shut.

  Alex itched all over, like her skin was covered with ants, but she waited without moving or speaking. She needed to hear how Lucas would end that sentence. She needed him to say it.

  “The love of my life,” Lucas said. “You always have been.”

  Alex stared at him, her heart thumping and the room still too hot, unable to believe the words he’d just said, until the silence stretched out between them for too long.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucas said, his voice croaking. “I thought you knew. I thought it was always obvious.”

  Maybe it was, and Alex had refused to let herself see it. Because seeing it required acknowledging it, and acknowledging it would lead to hoping that something would come of it.

  Only now here Lucas was openly offering it. Just—just like that. Like it was that easy.

  It was breathtaking. Like, literally all the air had been sucked out of Alex’s lungs, which was why she wasn’t saying anything even though she knew she needed to. Lucas needed her to respond before he changed his mind and took it all back.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she asked, because it was the first thing that came to her.

  “Because you were living the life you wanted, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that or guilt you for doing what you’d always wanted to do.”

  “Oh.” Had she though? Had she ever really been happy? It didn’t seem like it now.

  “And because…” Lucas went on. “Because I thought I would get over you, eventually. I kept expecting it to happen. Day after day, week after week, year after year, I waited. But it didn’t. I thought maybe it was be
cause I was lonely and needed to move on, which was why I started dating Kelsey. But I still didn’t get over you. Then I thought I just needed more time, that I just needed to try harder. So I tried harder, and I kept trying, and when that didn’t work I decided I wasn’t committed enough. I needed to commit, like, for real. Which was why I proposed to Kelsey, because I thought it was what I was supposed to do next. And that wasn’t fair to her, because it’s a terrible reason to ask someone to marry you and it didn’t work anyway. Instead of loving you less, I loved you more with each passing day. I love you more today than I did yesterday, and I loved you more yesterday than I did the day before that. I’ve loved you for ten years—more if you count all the years we were friends—and I can’t imagine there will ever be a day when I won’t love you more than anyone else on earth.”

  When he finished this speech, Alex made a helpless little noise, because what could she possibly say after all that? What could she say to something that was so much more than she deserved?

  So instead of speaking she threw herself at him, pulling his head down with both hands as she pressed her lips against his. She felt him startle—and then relax, his mouth softening and parting against hers.

  It had been seven years since their last kiss—seven years to the day, in fact. Alex thought she’d forgotten what it felt like to kiss him, but no. Her body remembered with perfect clarity. Everything clicked into place as though parts of her that had been dormant and shadowed had suddenly been flooded with light.

  Lucas pulled back, breath catching, his mouth wet from kissing her and his eyes dark as they roved over her face. “Please tell me this means—”

  “I love you,” Alex said. “I love you so much.”

  “Oh thank god.” He kissed her again. And again and again, until her knees felt weak and she could barely hold herself upright. But she didn’t need to hold herself up, because he was holding her, and he guided her over to the couch and gently down onto the cushions.

  “I’ll give you my cold,” she realized far too late. They’d already swapped so much spit, he was a goner for sure.

  “I don’t care,” he said, stroking her face. “You’re totally worth getting sick for.”

  “I can’t believe you decided to declare your love for me when I’m all gross and sick.”

  He grinned. “I guess I’ve never been good at timing.”

  She touched the corner of his beautiful, perfect mouth. “Neither of us have.”

  “I think you’re beautiful,” he said. “I don’t care how snotty you are.”

  “This is the best Christmas present ever.” Alex felt like she was floating on air. She hadn’t felt this elated about anything since she was a little kid, waking up on Christmas morning and running to see what was under the tree. She ran her fingers through the beautiful curl at his forelock. “You’re the best present ever.”

  “Good,” Lucas said. “Because I didn’t actually get you anything.”

  “You got me exactly what I needed. You’re always so good to me. I want to be good for you, the way you’re good for me.”

  “You are good for me.”

  She shook her head. “I want to be better. You deserve everything, and I want to give it to you.”

  He smiled. “Fine, you can start by kissing me again.”

  Alex kissed his smile. “I can’t believe this is real.”

  “We’ll figure out a way to make it work this time,” Lucas said, gazing at her seriously. “I’ll tell my dad I can’t work weekends anymore so I can come visit you. It’s really not a bad drive and—”

  “I’m moving back home,” Alex said.

  His head snapped back in surprise, and she saw doubt shadow his features. “You don’t have to do that. We can figure something else out. Maybe in a year or two—”

  “I already gave my notice at work,” she said. “I’m the new events manager at the Sea View. I start January second.”

  “When—when did all this happen?” He sounded a little hurt that she hadn’t told him, and he had every right to be—even if the reason she’d kept it from him wasn’t the reason he was probably thinking.

  “I came down for an interview two weeks ago. They offered me the job on the spot.”

  He frowned. “Does your mom know?”

  “No. I couldn’t trust her not to tell you.” She poked him in the chest. “And I wanted to tell you myself once everything was settled.”

  “But—why? Why would you want to give up everything you have here?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m not giving up all that much. I don’t really love it here. I miss home.” She paused. “I missed you.”

  The corner of his mouth curled in a slow, incredulous smile. “You’re really moving home for good?”

  “I really am.”

  He kissed her, greedy and hard. Like a starving man. Like he wanted to devour her. It was so easy to open her mouth to let him take as much as he wanted. Everything was easy with Lucas.

  He was her anchor. The one thing in her world that always made sense. Her best friend.

  “I want you,” he said in a voice tinged with aching.

  “You have me,” Alex promised him. “From now on. Forever.”

  “Prove it,” Lucas said.

  So she did.

  Best. Christmas. Ever.

  Ten

  Lucas

  December 25, 2019

  “I can’t believe you just abandoned me in my time of need,” Alex shouted from the kitchen.

  “Yup,” Lucas called back distractedly as he opened the bedroom closet and reached into the pocket of his oldest and ugliest coat. He felt a small moment of panic—What if Alex had found the ring? What if he’d misremembered where he hid it? What if someone had broken into the apartment and stolen it without leaving a trace?—before his fingers closed around the small, square box he’d hidden there.

  “I could lose a finger, you know,” Alex shouted, still safely in the kitchen where she couldn’t see what he was up to.

  She’d insisted on making a pie to take to her parents’ house later for Christmas dinner, despite her mother’s assurances that it wasn’t necessary. Alex was determined to defy her mother’s long-standing cooking ban and prove herself kitchen-worthy, and she’d chosen an apple pie to demonstrate her usefulness.

  Lucas knew better than to get in the middle of Alex and her mother and the weird power games they played, so he hadn’t felt guilty about leaving her to make the pie herself.

  “This would go a lot faster with two people,” Alex whined loudly from the kitchen. “I’ll bet Ellen Page would help me slice apples if she was my girlfriend. I’m just saying!”

  “You’re probably right,” Lucas replied. “She seems like she’d be a great girlfriend.”

  He flipped open the ring box and gazed at the simple diamond set in a thin white-gold band. God, he hoped Alex liked it. He’d tried to pick something to her taste, which tended toward the classic and understated. He didn’t think she’d want anything too flashy or too big, but she deserved something nice. Something that was as special as she was.

  He’d picked up the ring two weeks ago and had been holding on to it, waiting for today to finally ask her to marry him. Lucas had wanted to ask her months ago—he’d been ready since they moved in together last February. But he’d thought that might be rushing things a bit.

  To be honest, he still wasn’t one hundred percent sure she was going to say yes. As he gazed down at the engagement ring in his hand, he felt the clouds of doubt gathering again.

  Sure, he and Alex talked about spending the rest of their lives together like it was a given, and already planned their finances and their future as a unit. But marriage… Lucas wasn’t sure Alex was entirely sold on the idea.

  Part of it had to do with her job. She wasn’t too keen on weddings, after organizing so many of them. It was like seeing how the sausage was made, Lucas supposed. Whenever the subject of weddings came up, Alex usually made some sort of derisive comme
nt. But also, he suspected her parents’ marriage might have soured her on the institution.

  Alex often expressed bewilderment over the Bonners’ seemingly loveless domestic arrangement. She’d never quite forgiven her father, even after her mother had. Once or twice, Alex had seemed to express a rather negative view of marriage in general. When Lucas had pressed her on it, she’d shrugged it off, saying she was “sure it was fine for some people,” which he hadn’t found especially reassuring.

  Alex might very well say no when Lucas popped the question. So that was scary.

  But he had the ring now. He’d made up his mind. This was what he wanted, and he had reason to hope it was what she wanted too. They were happy. Madly in love. Deeply committed to their life together. Marriage was the next logical step.

  And today was their anniversary. What better day than today? Christmas Day. Their day.

  “I finished one apple!” Alex declared triumphantly. “Only eleven more to go!”

  “Awesome!” Lucas shouted back. “I knew you could do it!”

  “I could do it faster with another pair of hands!”

  Lucas snapped the ring box shut. Here goes nothing, he thought and walked out of the bedroom.

  Alex stood at the counter with her back to him, slicing apples with a long chef’s knife.

  Lucas got down on one knee. “Alex,” he said quietly.

  “I think I’m getting pretty good at this,” she said without looking at him. “If you want to help, you can start peeling the next one.”

  “Alexandra.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and gasped, spinning around and backing up against the counter. “Oh my god! What are you doing?”

  “Surprise,” Lucas said and opened the ring box.

  “Oh my god!” Alex said again. All the color had drained out of her face, and Lucas wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

  “Maybe you should put down the knife,” he suggested gently.

  Alex stared at the chef’s knife in her hand as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Right. Good idea.” She set the knife on the counter, then turned back to face him.