Chapter 2

Meg O'Connell, aka a normally cheerful soul trying hard to not let the sadness take over this holiday season

I'm streamingElf on my laptop with my headphones on in the dark on the couch in the living room, mindlessly crocheting a baby blanket for the Berger quadruplets. I'm also wishing my brother wasn't spending the holidays exploring the Australian Outback and my parents weren't on a six-month retirement cruise around the world, no matter how happy I am for them to have these opportunities.

And now I'm freezing as I sense movement by the kitchen.

Trevor's out of his room.

For the most part, he's been really great. And I see him so little and make such an effort to always clean up after myself outside of my room that I was hoping I wasn't being an inconvenient houseguest.

Especially since he's always been one of my favorites of my brother's friends.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I'm debating if I should pause my movie and say something to him, or sit here in the dark with my face illuminated by my laptop screen.

Dark.

Definitely sit here in the dark.

Be invisible.

Don't think about how many times over the years that he's shown up at random family events, where he would inevitably smile at me and listen after he asks how I'm doing or offer to let me go first in food lines at picnics or pick me for his dodgeball team even if I'm the world's worst player.

Now, I hope he goes into the kitchen and tries a cookie and decides it's the most delicious thing he's had in his entire life, and that it makes his shoulder not hurt and his grumpies go away and then that he sits down next to me, casually loops an arm around my shoulders—his good arm, I mean—and asks if I want to go get a Christmas tree.

Shut up, Meg's brain.

That doesn't work.

Also, Trevor's not going into the kitchen.

He stands there in the arched doorway, the glow of the neighbor's Christmas lights coming in through the window and giving him a green tint, his body turned in my direction.

And then he sighs.

I don't hear it so much as I see the rise and fall of his shoulders and the shift in his strong jaw.

Yes, I'm watching, and yes, it's starting to hurt to keep staring at him with my eyes off to the side like that.

"Sorry I was an ass," he says.

I think.

My headphones cancel out a lot, but I have unfortunately always been tuned in to anything that Trevor Stafford says when he's in my vicinity.

Usually it was no big deal, because I've traveled the States trying to find my dream job while he's been here in Copper Valley, Virginia, or other baseball towns that I've never been to.

But now—now, I think I've found where I fit, and even after I move out, Trevor and I will be living in the same town and I don't know how I'm going to handle that long-term.

I drop the baby blanket, pause the movie, and push my headphones off my ears. "There are extra cookies on the counter, but if you don't want sweets in the house, I can?—"

"They're fine. Thanks."

"The rest of the kitchen?—"

"I don't like Christmas."

"—is clean." I blink as I finish my sentence. "I mean, okay. Not everybody does. You don't have to."

I huddle deeper into the couch.

Probably should be looking for an apartment instead of watching a movie. Or making some new friends outside of work and the Bergers. I'm sure Zeus and Joey would let me crash at their place—oh my holy Santa Claus, I have never seen a house decorated so much, which really shouldn't surprise me after getting to know Zeus—but much as I love them and the babies, I'd constantly feel like I was at work, and living at my job doesn't really jive with my personality.

I'd never stop working, and then I'd get fired for trying to be a parent instead of a nanny, and I really don't want to be fired.

I love this job more than I've loved any job in my life.

Maybe I should ask them if they have friends who know anything about the apartment market right now.

Not that I expect they'd have friends who know anything about the apartment market in my price range. Zeus is a retired professional hockey player and Joey co-owns one of the most successful flight adventure-slash-zero gravity research companies in the world.

"You like the holidays," Trevor says.

He noticed!teenage me squeals in my head.

You literally barfed the whole holiday all over his kitchen, replies the part of me that likes to remind me I'm supposed to be an adult.

"I…might have an unhealthy obsession with twinkly lights and Christmas cookies."

He makes one of those weirdly endearing grunts that work on absolutely no other man in the entire world.

Also? It's not a sound I'd ever heard out of him until I got here a few weeks ago.

Jude says Trevor's taking the end of his career hard.

I never knew Trevor well enough to know if my oh my god, he's hot reaction was warranted every time I saw him—the outside doesn't always match the inside when it comes to hot sportsers, and good manners can fool a person—but he was Jude's best friend, which always earned him a point in the good guy column, and the two of them used to be so happy when they were together.

I can't resist happy.

And I thought I'd bring some happy into Trevor's life with the holidays.

Clearly, I miscalculated.

"I'll stop. It's just one Christmas," I say in response to his grunt, which probably means if I'd known you loved Christmas when I hate it, I wouldn't have offered to let you stay here over the holidays. "I can live for one year without a tree. Or I can just go see the quadruplets. They each have trees. And Zeus has a tree. And he put up three for Joey—don't ask how he themed them—or I can just go hang at any coffee shop in town. They're all decorated. I can get my fix there. And I'll start looking for an apartment, but there aren't exactly a ton of people moving around the holidays, so?—"

"If you want a tree, get a tree."

"It's okay. I don't have any of my decorations, and there's no point in buying new lights all over again when you won't want them?—"

"Zeus will take them when you're done."

My lips twitch.

He's not wrong.

My boss has more Christmas spirit in his admittedly large pinky finger than I do in my whole body.

And that's ridiculously impressive considering how much I love the holidays.

"Why don't you like Christmas?" See again, shut up, Meg.

Trevor scratches his chin, then leans in the doorway, tucking his thumbs into his pockets, taking me back to the first time I saw him, which was in baseball pants, and shew. Hot flash. Why are men so attractive when they stand like that?

And why do I keep forgetting that this man is my brother's best friend? While it totally earns Trevor points for having good taste in friends—Jude is pretty awesome—I'm aware of the fact that he sees me as nothing more than an overly jolly pest.

"Never mind," I mutter. I switch my attention back to my computer. "None of my business. Sorry."

"My parents were—are party planners."

I don't immediately see the connection. I also don't know what my face is saying while I try to find the link, but whatever it is, it's apparently amusing. A ghost of a smile crosses his features in the dim light.

It's a trick, I tell myself. Definitely a trick of the light.

"They made sure everyone else's holidays were picture-perfect," he explains with far more patience than he probably feels with me today, but that reminds me of the guy I always thought he was until I moved in here with him. "As soon as I was old enough to help, that's what I did. Every year. Made sure strangers loved their parties, only to have Christmas day roll around and spend it watching my parents nap all day while I played by myself with whatever last-minute gifts they found for Old Saint Nick to bring."

"Oh, Trevor, I'm so sorry."

He shrugs with more movement in his good shoulder than his pitching arm. "It's all commercial bullshit, and I got more than a lot of kids. Doesn't usually annoy me this much. Maybe I'm getting grinchy in my old age."

Or maybe his injury and coming to terms with retirement from baseball is making the holidays worse for him this year. "Lots of people struggle with the holidays."

"You don't."

"Jude says I was born with a candy cane in my mouth."

"He failed to mention that part when he said you were a good roommate."

I grimace despite recognizing that he's trying to make a joke.

And then I start to wonder if my brother knew this would happen, and if he failed to mention to me that he wanted to make sure Trevor wasn't alone this holiday season.

That's totally something Jude would've done.

"Are you seeing your parents this year?" He's from…somewhere in the Midwest? I can't recall off the top of my head.

He shakes his head. "We don't do the holidays."

"Never?"

"Busy time of year for them."

"They still work?"

"They were born with holiday party planner hats on their heads, and they will die with their holiday party planner hats on their heads. They still have a mission in life."

Hello, bitterness.

But at least I kinda get it now. I force myself to sit still and not launch myself at him to hug his pain away. "So what do you do on the big holidays?"

He shrugs again, the neighbor's lights making him look like hunchbacked Grinch Trevor. "Just another day."

I slouch deeper into the couch. "I guess it's that for me too this year."

He sighs.

I sigh.

And then I sit up. "What if we both do something different?"

He doesn't sigh again, but I can see him holding it at the ready. Even his arms are twitching like he wants to scrub his hands over his face and wipe away this whole conversation.

"You hate Christmas. My family's all busy this year, and no amount of trees or cookies or music will make up for missing them. So what if we do our own made-up holiday? Like…Dogmas. Or Game-ukah. Or Prankza."

My computer screen times out and blinks off since I haven't moved the mouse in too long, plunging the whole room into darkness.

I reach into my blanket and flick the switch to light it up, because yes, I have a light-up Christmas blanket.

I know.

I know.

Trevor's cheek twitches. "Did you just say Game-ukah like Hannukah for games?"

"Yes."

He gives in and scrubs a hand over his face.

Called it.

"Or we can pretend it's summer. Camp out in here for a day at the beach while I read romance novels and you watch Baywatch and pretend you're gawking at all the pretty ladies."

He stares at me.

I don't know if that's a stare of this is even worse, or if it's a stare of she wins, send her back to the kitchen to bake more.

"Um, we could have ourselves a grumpy little Christmas? I can pretend to be super grinchy, and we can sing pop songs but all in grunts, like Zeus's brother did at the holiday party they had last weekend, and eat s'mores and pretend it's the middle of summer, and trade birthday presents that are all awful, terrible presents that our aunts and uncles who don't know us at all would've given us?"

"Lot of work when we could ignore it instead."

"What's your favorite thing to do?"

"Play baseball."

I know his biting tone isn't my fault, and even if he's trying to make me feel bad, I refuse to let him. "No, that was your job."

"I like my job."

"You like it more than playing DD? You like it more than gummy bears? You like it more than the perfect cup of coffee and more than a fresh-baked peanut butter blossom and more than watching a rookie take your advice on how to handle the media and more than a big, juicy steak that's cooked to perfection and more than sex?"

When I say sex, his eyes connect with mine like I've finally hit on something, and oh my god, does my vagina notice.

I shiver.

My vagina throbs.

He visibly swallows.

My nipples get tight and a wave of heat washes over my entire chest.

"Get your coat," he finally says gruffly. "You're getting a damn tree."

I don't point out that it's past ten o'clock at night and all the tree farms are closed.

Or that I'm wearing onesie snowman pajamas without a bra.

Instead, I shove my laptop aside and leap to my feet. "If you insist."