Chapter 7

Trevor

It's beenthree days since I couldn't deny my attraction to Meg any longer, and these three days have been the best days of my life.

It's almost like it's not even Christmastime.

Or possibly like it's finally the Christmastime I've always wanted.

Instead of feeling like the leftovers, I'm part of the main event. Meg ropes me into helping make more cookies than I've ever seen in my life, and when she confesses that she won't be able to look at a flour bag without puking for at least six months after her annual cookie extravaganza, I laugh so hard at her grimace that I almost pull something in my shoulder.

And then I apologize for laughing at her with my tongue between her thighs.

When she adds a terribly-wrapped present under our terribly-decorated tree with my name on it, I reciprocate with an even worse-wrapped present that doesn't fit under our tree.

Don't tell her, but it's a bent bicycle tire, and it's in honor of a story she told me about an incident with a bike when she was thirteen, and I'm looking forward to watching her laugh until she cries when she opens it.

We go to bed about six times a day.

Sometimes she sleeps after I challenge myself to give her an even better orgasm than the last one.

Most of the time I do.

Getting old sucks, but having Meg help me with my physical therapy and reward me for a job well-done with kisses and blow jobs does not.

I don't know how I never noticed what a refined sense of humor she has.

Or how she can be deadly with her aim when it comes to well-placed and well-deserved zingers.

Turns out we have a lot more in common when it comes to ideology and worldview than I thought.

And my best friend's little sister is pretty fucking brilliant when it comes to making me think about things in a new light when we disagree.

When I told her I didn't know what I wanted to do once I'm healed and officially off the payroll from the Fireballs—I don't want to go into coaching because it's easy, and I want to make sure what I'm doing is actually the right fit for me—she patted my leg, said, "Don't worry, I'll support you on my nanny salary," and we both cracked up.

She knows even relief pitchers get paid enough that I can take a few years off, but I don't think she was talking about financially supporting me.

I think she was talking about helping me find my purpose. Whether it's coaching or something else.

"You got me my dream job," she said another time. About forty minutes ago, in fact. "Why not let me help you find your next dream job?"

And that's how we ended up here, again, on a picnic blanket beneath the tree with a fire roaring in my fireplace, both of us naked, and both of us very, very satisfied now.

"Are you sure?" I ask her as I stroke a hand down her bare hip. "You're sure you don't need another?"

She laughs and kisses me. "I think another would kill me."

"Just to be sure, another chocolate-covered pretzel, or another orgasm?"

"Both."

"Your belly hurts? Does it need kisses?"

Her eyes are dancing with what I've come to think of as her joy face. "This is the you I missed when I first got here," she whispers.

"What me?"

"The happy you. You used to be so happy, but then?—"

I cut her off with a finger pressed to her lips. "And you used to be so sad, and I keep trying to make you sad, but?—"

"Trevor." She shrieks with laughter and rolls on top of me.

I'm cracking up too.

Meg was never sad.

But teasing her about it always gets me more kisses.

And despite the fact that my dick should basically be dead after how much sex we've had the past few days, having her straddle me is making me hard again.

Already.

This.

This is what I want to do with retirement.

Meg.

Every day.

"Just for that, I'm going to make you help me cook fudge," she informs me.

"Not the fudge," I gasp in mock horror.

"While we're drinking hot chocolate. After we make homemade Christmas ornaments."

"No. No more torture."

"And then we're having a snowball fight where you'll knock me down, and I'll pretend I'm hurt, and you'll come running and realize that the way your heart stopped means that you care about me so much that this can't just be a holiday fling."

Okay, that one's not funny.

I grip her by the chin and hold one of her hands right where it was, over my heart. "This is not a holiday fling."

She blinks twice, chasing away the brief shine that, even before she moved in here with me, I could've identified.

She doesn't like to let people see her vulnerable.

And who does?

"I knew that," she says quietly.

"The first time I saw you, I didn't know you were Jude's sister. I was standing next to him in the dugout, and I looked out in the crowd and saw you, and everything stopped. Right up until he punched me in the arm and told me if I was drooling over his sister, he'd kill me."

"Oh my god, Trevor, I was sixteen."

"I was quickly informed, and for the record, you looked way older. But I put you in the off-limits category, and I didn't let you out. Ever. Not when you were nineteen and we were graduating college, not when you were twenty-five and crashed that bachelor party we had for—fuck, I don't even remember who. And not when?—"

Something bangs on my front door, and then it swings open. "Merry Christmas, motherfu—what?"

Meg shrieks and dives off me, leaving my half-hard dick exposed for her brother to see.

Her brother.

Her brother, my best friend, who's supposed to be in Australia, who hasn't answered my text message, which I had started hoping just hadn't gone through.

"What the fuck?" Jude says.

I'm scrambling for the blanket.

Meg's hovering behind the tree. "Oh my god, don't you know you wait for people to answer the door?" she shrieks.

Fuck the blanket for me.

I toss it to her behind the tree, leap to my feet, feel something shift wrong in my shoulder, and cover my junk. "This isn't—" I sputter.

"It's exactly what it looks like, and get out!" she yells.

Jude looks at her.

Then he looks at me.

My heart tries to climb out of my chest.

Fuck.

My friendship with him is one of the longest of my life.

And it's very, very obvious that I've been banging his sister.

His sister, who is the only person in the entire world who could've actually made Christmas not just bearable, but awesome. The only woman in the world that I want here with me, not just today, but tomorrow and the next day and the day after.

His sister, whom I very much want to seriously date.

"I—" I start.

"You serious about her?" he cuts me off.

I hold his gaze while I nod. "Yes."

He studies me right back.

And then the bastard grins like this is the best news of his life. "Awesome. You two wanna throw on some clothes and go ice skating? Australia was way too hot for Christmas. I need snow. Meg, betcha fifty bucks my fudge recipe's finally better than yours. If you're not ready in ten, you're paying for dinner too."

He turns around, walks out the door, and shuts it quietly.

Meg peers at me from between the branches of the tree.

I stare back at her.

"I knew he'd do that," she whispers.

I blink.

She chokes on a laugh.

And then a tear slips down her cheek.

And then she chortles again.

"Are you—are you okay?" I ask.

"I thought he'd approve, but I—are you okay?"

I stare at her a beat too long before I nod.

"And you still—even if he approves—you still want me?"

That one takes a minute to sink in.

And when it hits, it hits hard. "You've dated douchebags who only wanted to date you to piss off your brother?"

She pinches her lips together, then slowly nods.

"I can be an asshole, but I am not that kind of asshole."

"Promise?" she whispers. "Because I really, really, really like it here. And not just because it's Christmas and we have an awful, wonderful tree and the best worst holiday music. I like you. A lot. And I want to stay as long as you'll let me."

I shove the tree out of the way, toppling it sideways onto the couch, because it's the fastest way to reach her. "I want you to stay forever."

She drops her head to my chest and wraps her arms around my waist. "For real?"

"We're both a little lost." I kiss her hair, wish I had the strength right now to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, but settle for squeezing her tighter instead. "And there's no one else I'd rather find myself again with than you."

She laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. "This is like a dream come true."

"It is a dream come true."

The last thing I've ever believed in is Christmas miracles.

But I have my very own right here in my arms, and I'm never letting her go.

Jude bangs on the door. "Not kidding. I'm going ice skating without you if you don't get your asses in gear, and I'm only buying funnel cake for people who are with me."

Meg sucks in an outraged breath.

And I start laughing.

Of course she loves funnel cake.

Of courseshe does.

That's so Meg.

And I love it.

"Alternatively, I could buy you your very own funnel cake maker for Christmas," I murmur to her.

"How about we do both?" she replies.

God, this woman.

She's brighter than all the holiday lights in the world put together.

And I can't wait to spend the rest of my days deserving her.